Intro

Have you ever found yourself in a sticky situation where you’re determined to improve your foreign language skills and plan to set aside some time every day to study, but end up being a victim of procrastination? Or maybe you’ve grabbed hold of textbooks to prepare for a professional qualification exam but never really got around to opening them? Or perhaps you’ve tried to shed some pounds by working out for a week, but give up too soon because you don’t see any visible results?

These situations can be summed up by one sentence: you think about it, but you can’t do it. This could be deemed as one of the most frustrating “common human nature” traits we encounter. Don’t fret! Numerous books have discussed this issue, but the book we’re introducing today serves as a ticket to our coping strategies for these difficulties.

Unleash your potential with the groundbreaking book “Get It Done – Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation” by Ayelet Fishbach, a renowned professor at the prestigious University of Chicago and an expert in motivational psychology. Dive into the fascinating world of the “Science of Motivation,” which has developed rapidly in recent decades, and discover how to help yourself and others “think and do more” than ever before.

Unlike many success-oriented books that merely scratch the surface of motivation, “Get It Done” presents a wealth of groundbreaking insights backed by extensive experimental data and the latest research results in the field of motivational science. You’ll explore the three types of obstacles that often prevent people from achieving their goals, and learn the proven strategies to overcome them.

Whether you’re struggling with procrastination, lack of motivation or simply feeling overwhelmed, “Get It Done” provides practical advice and actionable steps to help you unlock your full potential and achieve your dreams. Don’t wait any longer – get your hands on “Get It Done – Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation” today and start your journey towards success!

The title of this book is “Get It Done – Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation“, written by Ayelet Fishbach, a professor at the University of Chicago and an expert in motivational psychology. “Science of Motivation” refers to the knowledge field that specializes in the study of how human motivation is generated and implemented, which has developed rapidly in recent decades. To put it simply, it mainly studies how to help people “think and do more.” Unlike many success-oriented books on the market that discuss this topic, the conclusions and suggestions presented in this book are derived from a large amount of experimental data and gather many of the latest research results in the field of motivational science.

The book reminds us that many times, the reason why people “think but cannot do” is that they face three types of obstacles in pursuing their goals:

1. First, the goal is not set reasonably. You should know that many times our wishes fail not because of our own abilities or others’ obstruction, but because the goals themselves are problematic. For example, the goal of “I want to become healthier” is too vague and difficult to implement. Another example is “I want to run every day,” which sounds like a chore and can reduce your enthusiasm for action. Therefore, the author emphasizes that setting appropriate goals is the first step in realizing ideals. We will discuss what constitutes an “appropriate” goal later.
2. Second, there is a lack of persistence in action. Many people have experienced the feeling that they have set a new goal for themselves at the beginning of the year or on their birthday, even with a clear plan, but gradually give up for various reasons and end up not achieving it. This indicates that the most difficult part of achieving a goal is not setting the goal and plan, but how to persevere and avoid giving up halfway through the task. This is the second problem that the author wants to solve.
3. Thirdly, conflicts between goals exist. It is important to understand that in reality, we cannot solely focus on one task and disregard other work responsibilities and personal obligations. Often, a person may struggle to accomplish a goal not because they lack effort or appreciation, but because there are competing goals that hinder their ability to concentrate and make progress. Therefore, it is crucial to find a balance and prioritize goals, while also considering other important objectives.

So, how can we overcome these obstacles? This is the main focus of our discussion. In the following sections, we will explore how to set appropriate goals, maintain resilience in the face of obstacles, and manage conflicts between goals. We hope that the content covered today will assist you in achieving your goals and turning “thinking about it” into “doing it.”

Appropriate goal

First, set an appropriate goal for your ideal.

So, what is an “appropriate” goal?

First of all, it cannot be too vague. This is easy to understand. Goals like “I want to be healthy and happy” or “I want to succeed” are too vague.

What does not being vague mean? For example, let’s set “changing jobs” as a goal. This goal is not vague, but in the author’s view, it is not an appropriate goal because it does not meet another requirement, which is to inspire our fighting spirit. “Changing jobs” sounds more like a task, a chore, which can easily reduce our enthusiasm for action subconsciously. From the perspective of inspiring enthusiasm, “exploring new career opportunities” is closer to an appropriate goal than “changing jobs.”

However, please note that we are still only getting closer. We are not finished yet. “Exploring new career opportunities” also has a problem. It is not quantified enough. For example, how many new career opportunities should I explore and connect with every day in my free time to achieve this goal?

We need to quantify goals because many times, a goal that can inspire action is desirable, but it cannot directly guide our actions. It cannot connect ideals with actions. This can easily reduce our motivation for action. For instance, if you simply tell yourself that you want to explore new career opportunities every day and improve your physical fitness every day, you may end up just browsing job websites symbolically every day and taking a few steps. But if you demand yourself to “explore new career opportunities every day and submit at least three resumes,” or “improve physical fitness every day and run at least three kilometers,” then such goals can balance “looking up at the stars” and “solid work.”

It is very easy to quantify goals. Usually, there are two ways: one is to set “how many,” which is a quantity goal; the other is to set “how fast,” which is a speed goal. For example, if you require yourself to walk 10,000 steps every day, this is a quantity goal; if your boss requires you to complete the company’s budget report within a week, this is a speed goal. Many studies have shown that compared with abstract goals, these quantified goals are more effective and can better promote people to achieve their goals.

For instance, a marathon runner’s main goal is to finish the race as quickly as possible, but they often set a specific time goal, such as finishing the race in under four hours. Data analysis of 10 million marathon runners revealed that more people finished the race just under the set time than those who finished just over it. This means that more people will complete the race within 3 hours and 59 minutes instead of 4 hours and 1 minute. In other words, as the athlete approaches the finish line, the thought of having a great opportunity to complete the goal within the set time will motivate them to exert more effort in the last few minutes and cross the finish line within the set time. This is the purpose of digital goals.

Another example is Dan Ariely, a professor at Duke University. In college, teachers usually set deadlines for students to complete their papers, while Ariely allows his students to submit their papers freely. They can submit the paper at any time, as long as they complete three papers during the semester. Consequently, some students set deadlines for themselves, while others do not. This gives teachers an opportunity to observe and compare the two groups of students. The results indicated that students who set deadlines for themselves were more proactive in completing tasks as each deadline approached, while those who did not set deadlines for themselves tended to procrastinate until the last minute and were more likely to fail to complete their tasks.

From these examples, we can see that once a goal is quantified, we will give it more attention and strive to achieve these exact numbers. It will pull us towards the goal, making it easier to monitor progress. It will remind you when to speed up or slow down and make adjustments at any time. For example, if your goal is to maintain good sleep, it’s better to set a specific target of sleeping for 8 hours each night, and even better to set a rule of going to bed before 11 pm every night. The more specific the goal, the easier it is to supervise and execute. In this sense, quantifying the goal is the core part of setting goals.

To sum up, the author believes that setting appropriate goals is the first step towards achieving the ideal. Appropriate goals should meet three requirements:

1. They should not be too vague,
2. They should be able to motivate your actions and not make you feel like it’s a chore.
3. They should be quantifiable and executable. Such goals will motivate you to stay energized on the path to achieving them, while making efforts and adjustments according to the progress of the task.

Okay, with a proper goal in mind, the next important consideration is how to maintain the motivation to achieve it. When it comes to this point, many people may think about establishing good habits, setting up rewards and punishments, and so on. However, in this book, the author emphasizes first and foremost monitoring progress, which means motivating oneself to persist by paying attention to the progress of the task.

Persistence

Regarding this point, the author has a story to share. When the author was young, as an Israeli citizen, she served two years of mandatory military service in the army. As a female, her administrative work was extremely boring, with nothing to do most of the time but send and receive files, and had to sit at her post. Helplessly, she had to use vacations as her goal to keep working and view work as an interval between vacations, with each six-month period as a cycle. She used the countdown to the vacation as a way to get through those dull years.

Through this story, the author proposes that monitoring task progress is very important for maintaining motivation. Just like how she looked forward to one vacation after another while serving in the military, counting down to each vacation every day to gain motivation, when we feel progress is being made toward achieving our goal, we will have the motivation to persist. This is also why it was mentioned earlier to set a numeric indicator for one’s goal, making it easier to track progress.

In addition, the author explains that how you record progress – either by recording the amount completed or the amount remaining – can impact your motivation to accomplish a goal. For example, if you have read one-quarter of a book, whether you see it as 25% completed or 75% remaining can affect how motivated you are to continue reading.

It’s worth noting that people tend to be more motivated at the beginning and end of a task. At the beginning, there are clear benefits to starting, and at the end, there’s the prospect of success. However, in the middle, enthusiasm and efficiency often decrease because both completed and remaining tasks seem weak, which can lead to a decrease in morale and motivation.

To address this issue, the author introduces a method called the “small area principle.” In the initial stage of pursuing a goal, such as when progress is around 25%, we should pause and reflect on the completed tasks because it is a small area, while the remaining part is large. After passing the midpoint, we should focus on how much is left to complete because the completed part becomes a large area, and the remaining part is a small area. This way, our actions will have a greater impact. For example, if you want to finish reading seven Harry Potter books and you’ve completed two, you can pause and congratulate yourself, saying “Well done, I’ve already finished two, let’s continue reading two more.” When you finish the fourth book, you can focus on the small remaining part and say to yourself, “Only three books left, I can definitely finish them.” This will help maintain your motivation to read.

So, does the “small area principle” work in practice? Let’s take a look at an experiment the author participated in designing: a Korean sushi restaurant in New York once launched a “buy ten get one free” promotion. The discount cards were divided into two types: one accumulates consumption from 0 to 10 times, the other counts down from 10 to 0 times. Whoever completes 10 times of consumption will get a free lunch. Which discount card is more effective? The result depends on the progress of customers receiving the free lunch. For example, some customers may come to eat several times quickly after receiving the card, exceeding 5 times. If the design of the discount card can guide their visual attention to the remaining number of times, they will return to consume more quickly. On the other hand, some customers may not come often after receiving the discount card. They only visited three times in two months. If the design of the card can guide their visual attention to the few times they have visited, they will return to consume more quickly. In summary, in the beginning stage of pursuing goals, we should guide customers to pay attention to the few times they have already eaten; while in the ending stage, we should guide customers to pay attention to the few times they haven’t consumed yet, which can increase customer retention rate. This also shows that the “small area principle” is effective. For other tasks, if we want to motivate ourselves better, we can also use this principle – before reaching the midpoint of the task, we should review the progress we have made, and after passing the midpoint, we should look forward more.

Of course, monitoring task progress alone is not enough for achieving goals. In order to keep moving forward, we also need to obtain feedback from successful and failed actions. I believe everyone has experienced this: when advancing a task, positive feedback will be very encouraging, and what we need to do next is to repeat the successful methods. But if we encounter setbacks, it will reduce our enthusiasm for doing this thing, not only because our emotions are affected, but more importantly, we know that the current approach has errors and we don’t know what to do next.

So, how can we maintain motivation to pursue goals after encountering setbacks? The author mentioned several points in the book, such as maintaining psychological distance, distancing ourselves from our situation and objectively and calmly viewing failures as if they happened to strangers; or regarding our failures as experience, providing advice to those who have similar difficulties, thereby increasing our confidence in doing things, and so on. The most important point among them is to maintain a growth mindset that emphasizes learning.

The so-called growth mindset is a concept proposed by psychologist Carol Dweck. In her view, people have two different understandings of their own intelligence. Some people believe that intelligence can be developed through learning, which is the “growth mindset”; while others believe that intelligence is static and cannot be changed, which is the “fixed mindset”. Different understandings will affect people’s attitudes towards negative feedback.

People with a growth mindset believe that the brain is not fixed, it will continue to learn and develop when facing challenges; what is important is not to complete everything correctly, but to gain growth through learning; whether success or failure, as long as progress is made, it is worthwhile. For example, someone failed the a exam, but increased their knowledge during the preparation process; someone was eliminated from the internship training camp, but at least saw the gap between themselves and others; someone failed to change jobs, but gained experience in interviewing and job seeking, and so on. By viewing our goals with this mindset, we can reduce the negative impact of failure and turn it into a stepping stone for progress.

When it comes to developing and implementing a growth mindset, the book “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” provides a detailed introduction.

It should be noted that our investment in and accumulation of professional knowledge about something can also reduce the impact of negative feedback. For example, a sales expert who has been in the industry for decades ranked last in a quarterly assessment wouldn’t feel discouraged. This is because he has confidence in the professional advantages he has accumulated over the years and believes that this is just a temporary fluctuation. This setback will not only not defeat him but also inspire his fighting spirit, making him more motivated to return to the top. On the contrary, if it is a newcomer who just entered the industry and ranked last on the sales leaderboard, he will doubt his abilities or talents and consider whether he is suitable for this industry. From this perspective, professional advantages accumulated through long-term investment are the most powerful barrier against failure.

In summary, setting a goal that is suitable for oneself and has strong driving force is the first step in achieving one’s ideal. The second step is to self-motivate by monitoring the progress of the task, maintaining a growth mindset, and firmly moving forward on the path of pursuing the goal.

Conflicts between goals

The third important issue is how to deal with conflicts between goals. So far, the principles and methods we have mentioned seem to assume that a person only has one goal, and all actions revolve around one goal, but this is not very realistic.

In reality, everyone will have many goals, and some goals may conflict. For example, we pursue both wealth and health, but working overtime conflicts with physical and mental pleasure. For another example, we pursue both social achievements and family happiness, but they are sometimes in conflict. This requires us to balance and choose among many goals, and strive to achieve more and bigger goals.

Regarding this, the first principle emphasized in the book is finding the intersection of goals. For example, if a person wants to pursue wealth, good health, and good family relationships, the best choice for taking action is where these goals intersect. For instance, cooking at home is both cost-effective and healthy while also improving family relationships, while cycling to work not only exercises the body, but also saves transportation costs and supports the environment, and so on. Actions with multiple benefits like these are our preferred way of maximizing our goals.

However, in reality, there are not always so many actions with multiple benefits; there are more situations where we are caught between a rock and a hard place. For example, being an honest person is a goal pursued by most people, but sometimes honesty may affect interpersonal relationships. For example, if your boss messes up a company project or if your friend is gaining weight, if you speak your mind, it may prove that you are very honest, but it may also damage your chances of promotion or harm your relationship with your friend – this is conflict between goals.

For conflicting goals, there are two solutions. One is compromise, which means balancing multiple goals, partially satisfying all goals, but not fully achieving any goal. The second is priority, which means focusing on a particular goal, sacrificing other goals to achieve this goal. For example, some people change their eating habits to two meals a day in order to lose weight – this is a compromise. Others quit smoking for the sake of their health – this is prioritizing the goal of health.

So, when should we consider a priority strategy and when should we use a compromise strategy? Unfortunately, there are no silver bullets to this question, but the author mentions several factors in the book that can serve as references for our decision-making.

1. The first factor is whether you want to demonstrate your identity and characteristics to the outside world. If so, you should adopt a prioritization strategy rather than a compromise strategy, because compromise sends conflicting and ambiguous signals. For example, if you are an environmentalist and want others to know this, you should buy electric cars as much as possible and pay attention to turning off lights and so on in daily life.
2. The second factor is whether the target value you pursue is relative or absolute. For example, cooking for yourself is usually more nutritious and healthy, but not cooking can also solve the problem of eating. Cooking is not a necessary option, so people will arrange other entertainment activities in their spare time, which is a compromise and balance. On the contrary, some goals are absolute in value, such as passing the lawyer qualification certificate, which can only be rewarded after the goal is achieved. Giving up halfway is not much different from not doing it at all. Such goals should adopt a prioritization strategy and put other things aside to complete them first.
3. Another interesting point is that the order of pursuing goals can also be used as a basis for decision-making. There is a joke that priests do not allow smoking during prayer, but you can pray while smoking. That is to say, we can compromise when shifting from secondary goals to important goals, but we should not compromise when shifting from important goals to secondary goals. Adding fruit to ice cream is considered wise, as it balances health and taste in a dessert. However, adding ice cream to fruit is seen as indulging oneself.

In addition to the above considerations for compromising or prioritizing different goals, the most important thing is to eliminate the interference of other goals on the priority goal. For example, we all know that a person should get up on time every day, do morning exercises, eat breakfast, go to work, and complete work tasks on time, which are priority goals. However, in reality, many people prefer to brush their phones, sleep in, overeat, and constantly delay work tasks, which often affect their health and career development. This is the interference of trivial goals on the priority goal.

The author attributes the exclusion of interference from other targets on the priority target to the process of improving self-control and resisting instinctual temptation. This process is divided into two steps: the first is to identify the temptation, and the second is to resist it. Identifying temptation is simple, when you realize that you haven’t done what you should have done or are doing what you shouldn’t, that’s when you’ve identified temptation, such as scrolling on your phone, sleeping in, overeating, procrastination, and so on.

So how do we resist these temptations? The book focuses on a strategy called “pre-commitment,” which is to eliminate the conditions for temptation before it arises. For example, to prevent yourself from waking up to scroll on your phone, you can put your phone far away from your bedroom; to avoid being distracted by relationship problems, you can publicly announce your engagement; to end a romantic relationship, you can delete your ex’s contact information, and so on. For example, we can deposit money into a retirement savings account so that we don’t spend it impulsively; we can promise to complete a task earlier than the deadline in our work, encouraging ourselves to complete it sooner. In short, through the strategy of “pre-commitment,” we can make it difficult for ourselves to do what we shouldn’t do and difficult to avoid what we should do, thereby increasing our chances of achieving our goals.

Of course, from another perspective, resisting temptation can also be seen as a process of breaking bad habits and establishing good habits.

Summary

As we near the conclusion of our interpretation of this book, let’s take a moment to review what we’ve covered.

• In Part One, we discussed the significance of setting goals and the principles and methods for establishing appropriate goals. To be appropriate, goals must meet three criteria: they cannot be too vague, they must be able to motivate your actions, and they must be measurable and executable. Setting such goals will inspire you and keep you motivated throughout the process of achieving them, while also allowing for effort and adjustments as needed.
• In Part Two, we talked about how to maintain strong motivation while working towards your goals. On one hand, you need to monitor progress and use the “small area principle” to gain more motivation by looking back in the first half of the task and forward in the second half. On the other hand, responding to positive and negative results, especially failure, with a growth mindset that emphasizes learning and turns failure into a stepping stone towards success is crucial.
• In Part Three, we explored more practical issues such as balancing and prioritizing multiple goals. First, you should try to find the intersection of your goals and use fewer actions to achieve more goals, achieving multiple benefits at once. Second, you can use trade-offs or prioritization to resolve conflicts between goals and tackle difficult problems. Finally, through the strategy of “pre-commitment,” you can counteract bad habits in life, eliminate distractions from trivial goals, and achieve your core goals.

Furthermore, in the original book, the author also discussed how to use the help of society and others to achieve goals. However, in my opinion, the focus of this part is not on personal growth and development but on dealing with interpersonal relationships and teamwork. Therefore, today’s interpretation did not cover this part. If you’re interested, feel free to learn more.

Lastly, I would like to summarize today’s interpretation with a quote from the book. The author said that she wrote this book to use the important points of motivational science to guide and control our desires, rather than being driven by desires, in order to achieve our goals in a more rational way. This should be the highest law from thinking to doing.