Studies Show Self-Compassion is the Motivator You’re Missing

“There are a whole lot of ways to be perfect, and not one of them is attained through punishment.” —science fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin

Pushing ourselves and holding ourselves accountable are how we achieve success. Unfortunately, many of us mistake harsh self-criticism and self-castigation for “pushing ourselves.” And that has the opposite of the desired effect.

You’re never going to become successful or happy if you constantly put yourself down. Showering ourselves in negative self-talk doesn’t push us to success; it drowns us in our failures.

How we speak to ourselves is vitally important, especially in the face of perceived failure.

Rather than telling ourselves we failed because we’re deficient, we should offer self-compassion by speaking to ourselves with kindness when we experience setbacks.

Why? Self-compassion makes people more resilient to letdowns by breaking the vicious cycle of stress that often accompanies failure.

Research shows that positive self-talk improves athletes’ performance, for example. Athletes who were trained in positive self-talk experienced less anxiety and higher confidence and performance in one study.

Several studies have found that people who are more self-compassionate experience a greater sense of well-being. A 2015 review of 79 studies looking at the responses of over 16,000 volunteers found that people who have a positive, caring attitude toward themself “in the face of failures and individual shortcomings” tend to be happier–a testament to the power of introspection.

Another study found that people’s tendency to self-blame, along with how much they ruminate on a problem, led to the most common factors associated with depression and anxiety. An individual’s level of self-compassion had a greater effect on whether they would develop anxiety and depression than all the usual things that tend to screw up people’s lives, like traumatic life events, a family history of mental illness, low social status, or a lack of social support.

The good news is that we can change the way we talk to ourselves by harnessing the power of self-compassion.

We’ll never stop failing or messing up. The important thing is to take responsibility for our actions without heaping on the toxic guilt that makes us feel worse—which only distracts us from pursuing what we want.

An individual’s level of self-compassion had a greater effect on whether they would develop anxiety and depression than all the usual things that tend to screw up people’s lives. Click To Tweet

How to Talk Nice to Yourself

If you find yourself listening to the little voice in your head that sometimes bullies you around, it’s important to know how to respond. Don’t accept what the voice says or argue with it; instead, remind yourself that obstacles are a part of the growth process. We don’t get better without practice.

Here’s how to be a little gentler with yourself.

Talk to yourself as a friend would

When we make a mistake, small or large, so many of us are quick to snap at ourselves with “I can’t believe I did that,” “I’m so stupid,” or “You idiot!”

But if a friend were to make the same mistake, our reaction likely would be, “It was just a mistake! We all make them.”

The same goes when we experience imposter syndrome or feel inadequate in our professional lives. We are quick to belittle ourselves, but friends remind us of everything we’ve accomplished and tell us how smart and capable we are.

Next time you go to chide yourself, stop. Take a breath and think of what a friend would say to you at that moment.

Arm yourself with positive self-talk

Sometimes it’s challenging to shut up your inner critic. It always seems to whisper at your most vulnerable moments.

That’s when having positive phrases ready to go to ward off negative thoughts is helpful.

Athletes call this cognitive technique “self-talk,” and they rely heavily on it to improve their mindset and performance.

Specifically, self-talk is “statements, phrases, or cue words that are addressed to the self which might be said automatically or strategically, either out loud or silently, phrased positively or negatively, [and] having an instructional or motivational purpose…” An example is “I can do it!” (Here’s an Instagram video of an athlete practicing positive self-talk.)

The average person can use this method too.

Like most authors, I often encounter a range of internal triggers, or negative feelings, during the writing process. Sitting down to write is hard work, and it pushes the buttons of our insecurities. Whenever I feel doubt, pity, stress, anxiety, or uncertainty, I repeat to myself, “This is what it feels like to get better.” That saying shifts my perspective, making me see my struggle as an inherent part of a growth process rather than a flaw in my character. A similar phrase to repeat is “You are on your way.”

It’s normal to feel discomfort when we challenge ourselves or try something new. But we can’t let ourselves become a victim to our inner critic to the point that it distracts us from what we want to achieve.

Repeat self-affirmations

Science shows that self-affirmations have the power to alter our behavior and mindset, making them a powerful tool in combating negative self-talk.

Repeating self-affirmations helps us to focus on our core values. It centers us and gives us perspective on what matters to us—which we can use to master that derisive voice in our heads.

If you start falling into the trap of comparing yourself to that one person on Instagram who always seems to be winning at life, for example, try this self-affirmation: “I am at peace with my life as it is right now.” Give it an extra punch by saying it in front of the mirror while looking into your eyes.

Here are 32 science-backed affirmations for you to use to quiet your inner critic.

Practice unconditional positive regard

Unconditional positive regard means offering empathy, support, and acceptance to people even if they have done something wrong. Having this same regard for yourself alleviates the negative feelings that your inner critic feeds on.

Let’s say you made a mistake: You were distracted and completely missed a virtual meeting you had scheduled with a client. You just received an email from the client asking what happened.

It would be easy to think, “What is wrong with me? That was so unprofessional and embarrassing,” and then dwell on your mistake for the rest of the day.

But, extending yourself unconditional positive regard, you might instead think, “I feel terrible. I have too much on my plate today, and I just forgot. I’m only human.” This response will likely calm you down, whereas the former would make you feel frenzied. Feeling calm is a much better emotional state to be in when you reply to your client to apologize and reschedule.

Humanistic psychologists like Carl Rogers say that unconditional positive regard helps us explore our behaviors with compassion and acceptance. That, in turn, gives us confidence and increases our intrinsic motivation.

Remember, the way we speak to ourselves shapes our reality. Don’t let your inner critic deteriorate your reality. Instead, choose self-compassion; choose resilience.

How to Banish Virtual Meeting Boredom

Can virtual meetings be as effective as in-person ones?

It’s one thing to eliminate distractions in meetings. It’s another to do the same in virtual meetings.

Now that virtual teams are becoming a norm, many coworkers have never met each other in person. Yet, they’re expected to work every day toward a shared goal. Rapport and trust become even more crucial in virtual workplaces but also may be trickier to establish.

I’ve written extensively on how teams can have more effective meetings. For virtual teams, many of the overarching practices are the same. But there are a few extra steps virtual teams can take to have distraction-free meetings.

Schedule Fewer Meetings

Before you try any other methods for distraction-free meetings, start here: Be conservative about scheduling meetings.

In a Zoom survey, 71 percent of professionals said the information shared on some video calls could have been disseminated in chat or email.

It’s no secret that cutting superfluous meetings is key to reducing distraction and promoting a healthy, functional workplace. For virtual workplaces, that’s more true.

Scheduling only important meetings is critical to strong communication between virtual teams without burnout, for example.

Research shows that compared to audio-only meetings, videoconferencing leads to “richer interactions.”

Yet other studies show that spending hours or all day in videoconferences leads to fatigue. There are four reasons for that:

We maintain close eye contact; conveying gestures and nonverbal cues takes more work than it does in person
Our movement is limited since we have to sit before a computer
Seeing ourselves on the screen invites self-criticism
The cognitive load is much higher in video chats

All of these tax our attention.

To hack back unnecessary meetings:

Understand that the sole purpose of a meeting is to gain consensus on a specific issue. Cut any “meetings” that are actually social engagements, event updates, or brainstorming sessions. Your virtual team may hold social engagements online, but don’t falsely advertise them as meetings.
Remember that face-to-face virtual meetings, or synchronous communication, should be rare. First, try using asynchronous communication, such as email or a group messaging app, to solve problems or find information. There’s a reason why “This meeting could have been an email” is a meme.
The person who calls a meeting should create a meeting agenda and write a briefing document that attempts to solve the problem at hand. Only people who need the meeting will jump through hoops to schedule it, and a briefing document will help participants make a decision faster.

Bonus: Practicing conservative scheduling will boost employees’ trust that their leadership and coworkers value their time and make an effort to respect it.

It's no secret that cutting superfluous meetings is key to reducing distraction and promoting a healthy, functional workplace. For virtual workplaces, that’s more true. Click To Tweet

Once your organization is left with only virtual meetings that matter, there are a few techniques meeting hosts and participants can use to eliminate distraction.

The Meeting Host Should…

Move things along

Often, people zone out during meetings because they’re taking too long. By sending the briefing document described above, everyone can get up to speed before the meeting. There’s no need to present mind-numbing slides or a lecture when everyone already knows what decisions need to be made.

At Amazon, meetings start with time set aside for reading the briefing document; then the rest of the meeting is spent deciding on the course of action based on the briefing document’s recommendation. Everyone chimes in to build a shared commitment around the next steps the team will take.

As the meeting organizer, move to consensus and commitment quickly.

Ask for face time

Virtual teams can’t be in the same room, but they can be face-to-face. If your organization has a phone-call culture, advocate for a switch to video calls—with the video on.

Yes, studies show that too many virtual meetings with video can lead to fatigue and, thus, low productivity. But if you schedule only important meetings, this shouldn’t become an issue. Video calls in small doses increase engagement. In the Zoom survey, 67 percent of professionals said having video on allows them to “create deeper, more trusting connections with colleagues”; 75 percent reported feeling more connected when their camera is on, and the same percentage said video improves the quality of the discussion.

If your office has a hybrid environment, with some employees working from home and some in the office, ask everyone to tune in on their device. This allows everyone to see each other’s full face; if in-office people share a single screen, they look like ants at the end of the table.

Establish team norms

Have you ever asked, “Does anyone have any questions?” on a video call and heard crickets? It may just be that participants didn’t know whether they should come off mute and speak, type their questions in the chat or in the Q&A box, or raise their hands.

Establish standard practices for how people can participate. Repeat them at the beginning of each meeting: “If anyone has a question or wants to jump in, please use the Raise Hand button.”

Pause for 10 seconds after asking something

If you pose a question to participants but, out of discomfort from sitting in silence, move on too quickly, the meeting will seem like a monologue. When the same person drones on, people will turn to their email, internet tabs, or otherwise multitask during your meeting. A mix of voices keeps a video call engaging—so pause to encourage people to speak.

Engage the team

Inspire interactivity by using the Socratic method and asking the team questions. Take a cue from reporters and expert interviewers: Ask one simple question at a time. Avoid double-barreled questions like “What are your thoughts on option A versus B? And can we launch this seamlessly?” People will lose their train of thought.

Set expectations for attention

Encourage people to be fully present by giving them the autonomy to decide if they should be there. Open the meeting by telling participants that they are free to hop off the call if they’re not needed to make the decision at hand.

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All Meeting Participants Should…

Turn your video on

Having the camera on doesn’t just increase connection among team members; it holds participants accountable for listening and contributing.

Hide your video feed

Rather than fight the urge to gaze at yourself in the video chat, which leads to fatigue, hide your feed from your view. Most video conference software allows this. In Zoom, hover over your video, click the ellipses button, and choose Hide Self View. In Microsoft Teams, go to your video menu, click on the ellipsis, and select Hide for Me.

Put your phone on Do Not Disturb

Or turn it off or put it on Silent, and flip it face down on your desk or place it in another room.

Set your status to Away on group chat

Block notifications by setting your status to Away or “In a Meeting.”

Close your internet tabs

It’s too tempting to click to a tab to answer an email or read an article. Before you know it, a few minutes have passed, and you didn’t register anything the meeting host said. If you don’t want to close all tabs, create a new window for the video call and minimize your web browser with the open tabs.

Unplug your monitor

This way, you only have one screen to distract you, not two (or three).

Take notes by hand

This tip may raise eyebrows—so analog!—but if you need to take notes during the meeting, jot them down by hand rather than type them.

One study (among many) found that handwriting with pen and paper leads to higher brain activity and stronger memory recall. The same study also said that participants who used pen and paper completed a note-taking task 25 percent faster than those who used digital tablets or smartphones.

Plus, handwriting notes keep your hands off the keyboard, so you’re less inclined to multitask during the meeting.

Talking to your team through a screen doesn’t have to feel like talking to a brick wall. With the right practices, distraction-free virtual meetings are possible.

Limiting Beliefs: Ditch the 4 Dream Killers Holding You Back

How to help, not hinder, yourself in achieving your goals

You’re probably not going to fulfill all your goals this year. And if you don’t, it likely won’t be because you’re incapable; it will be because you got in your own way.

A slew of limiting beliefs will distract you from your goals and New Year’s resolutions. Below are four ways you’re likely to shoot yourself in the foot with self-limiting beliefs, plus how to get rid of them.

1. Ego Depletion

After a long day at work, do you tell yourself that you feel exhausted and can’t possibly go to the gym or social event like you planned?

Then you’re subscribing to a limiting belief with little scientific basis.

You’re not alone in that. It wasn’t long ago that I routinely lounged on the couch eating ice cream and watching Netflix for hours after work because I was “spent.”

One of the most pervasive bits of folk psychology is the belief that self-control is limited—that we only have so much willpower available to us and are liable to run out if we overexert ourselves.

Psychologists have a name for this myth: ego depletion, the idea that we have a limited amount of willpower each day.

Research shows that willpower is not a depletable resource. Perpetuating the idea of ego depletion does you actual harm.

In one study, Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck concluded that signs of ego depletion were observed only in participants who believed willpower was a limited resource.

Suppose ego depletion is caused by self-defeating thought and not by biological limitations. In that case, the idea makes it less likely to accomplish our goals by providing a rationale to quit when we could persist.

Michael Inzlicht, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and the principal investigator at the Toronto Laboratory for Social Neuroscience, offers a healthier view of willpower: It’s not a finite resource but instead acts like an emotion, ebbing and flowing in response to what’s happening to us and how we feel.

That view helps us see a lack of motivation as a temporary reaction to a difficult task rather than as a total depletion of our daily dose of willpower.

You’re probably not going to fulfill all your goals this year. And if you don’t, it likely won’t be because you’re incapable; it will be because you got in your own way. Click To Tweet

2. Imposter Syndrome

Imposter syndrome is not a syndrome. Originally called the “imposter phenomenon,” it’s simply a cognitive bias—a “systematic error in the way individuals reason about the world due to subjective perception of reality,” according to Britannica. So when you tell yourself you’re not good enough for or at something, you likely have no real reason to believe that.

Imposter syndrome doesn’t go away. Paradoxically, the more “successful” you become, the more you feel like an imposter.

The key to beating imposter syndrome is understanding that it’s a cognitive bias and short circuiting it:

Compare your life now to last year or five years ago. Note your achievements and how you’ve grown as a person.
Celebrate your successes.
Share failures with your closest friends and listen to them open up about their struggles.

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3. Your Inner Critic

Raise your hand if you’ve ever called yourself “an idiot” or “stupid.”

We all have an inner critic that disparages our abilities, worth, and choices. This internal dialogue, known as negative self-talk, chips away at our self-esteem and confidence, dampens our motivation, fuels anxiety, and reduces productivity.

To silence this inner critic and cultivate a more positive internal dialogue, try talking to yourself as you would to a friend. You may also repeat self-affirmations, which boost self-esteem and reshape your mindset. Pick one of these 32 science-backed morning affirmations.

4. Distraction

Day to day, distraction is the biggest obstacle to achieving your goals. And identifying distraction is trickier than it seems.

Distraction is anything that pulls you away from what you want to do.

Cleaning or doing the laundry might seem productive, but they’re distractions if you’re doing those tasks instead of reviewing your finances as you said you would. Scrolling on social media is not a distraction in and of itself unless you do it when you say you’d enjoy dinner with family.

Often, people think they are helpless against distraction, a belief perpetuated by the media’s claim that we are powerless against the “addictive” nature of social media. But we’re not powerless. Thinking you are, much like believing in ego depletion, is a self-limiting belief that will make it true.

That’s why I say the most valuable skill of the future is becoming Indistractable. In my book, I elaborate on the four-step model I developed to become Indistractable, but here’s an overview:

1. Master internal triggers

Distraction is an unhealthy escape from negative feelings or internal triggers. If we’re doing something that bores us or makes us feel incompetent, we seek relief with distractions. Identifying, exploring, and managing internal triggers will make you less likely to run toward distraction to escape discomfort.

2. Make time for traction

Schedule time for traction, or the actions that help you meet your goals and values, in a timeboxed calendar. By knowing what you want to do at any given moment, you can recognize and fight distractions.

3. Hack back external triggers

External triggers are anything in our physical environment that pulls our attention. They can be interruptions from family or coworkers, but most often, they are notifications from the digital realm: email, group chat, your phone, online feeds, and more. Limiting external triggers turns off their influence.

4. Prevent distraction with pacts

By making pacts, or precommitments, we reinforce our defenses against distraction.

Next time your dreams seem unachievable, ask yourself whether you’re getting in your own way and take steps to overcome those limiting beliefs holding you back.

Sales Psychology: Why You Make Terrible Buying Choices

Did the load of gift returns you made in January make you realize that you need to be a smarter shopper?

In the United States alone, people were expected to spend $966.6 billion in November and December 2023—3 to 4 percent more than the same period the previous year, which is in line with the annual average increase of 3.6 percent from 2010 to 2019, according to the National Retail Federation.

Yet 14.5 percent of total sales were returned in 2023; 17.6 percent of online sales were returned.

During the holidays, we’re bombarded with ads and sales pitches that use sales psychology tactics to grab our attention. These messages make it tough for us to make smart shopping choices.

So we spend too much money on presents, gift family members something they didn’t love just because we had to get them something, or buy items we hope will improve our lives that end up unused in a closet.

How can we become more discerning buyers in a world that encourages us to spend?

We have to stop falling for subtle sales psychology tactics.

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Why We’re Susceptible to Sales Psychology

When I was seeking a solution to my distraction, learning more about human psychology was comforting. It was a relief to understand that the negative thoughts and feelings distracting me were not particular to me but standard human operation.

By embracing our psychology, we stand a chance of avoiding the pitfalls of our psyches. We can escape the influence of companies who use our psychology to get our money.

The psychological traits that companies take advantage of to sell to you are numerous. Here are some of the most common and convincing ones.

Perpetual Dissatisfaction

Humans are hardwired for dissatisfaction. We may become satisfied for a while, but it isn’t long before we seek something new. Shopping—particularly online shopping—scratches that itch.

Four psychological factors make satisfaction temporary:

Hedonic adaptation is the tendency to quickly return to a baseline level of satisfaction, no matter what happens to us in life.
Boredom causes us to seek an escape from our daily drudgery.
Negativity bias is “a phenomenon in which negative events are more salient and demand attention more powerfully than neutral or positive events.”
Rumination is our tendency to keep thinking about bad experiences.

Boredom, negativity bias, and rumination spur negative feelings or internal triggers that cause us to seek escape in distraction. Retail stores and websites are only too happy to be a refuge.

By embracing our psychology, we stand a chance of avoiding the pitfalls of our psyches. We can escape the influence of companies who use our psychology to get our money. Click To Tweet

Emotions in Decision-Making

Studies show that emotions play a pivotal role in decision-making, sometimes overpowering rational analysis.

Marketers target our emotions because they know that emotions push us to act. Our feelings about our self-worth and body image make us inclined to purchase fashion and beauty products. Our desire to be more productive motivates us to buy technology that claims to get us there.

Unchecked emotions are correlated to impulse buying. “Impulse purchases occur when there is a sudden and strong emotional desire, which arises from a reactive behavior that is characterized by low cognitive control,” according to one study.

Understanding your feelings helps you gain higher control of them and make sure they don’t spur impulse purchases. As the researchers of a study found after asking stock investors to rate their feelings while making investments, “Individuals who were better able to identify and distinguish among their current feelings achieved higher decision-making performance via their enhanced ability to control the possible biases induced by those feelings.”

Heuristics

Heuristics are the mental shortcuts we take to make quick decisions. Most people remain unaware of how heuristics help us make split-second decisions multiple times daily—but companies that sell to them are well aware.

Psychologists believe there are hundreds of cognitive biases that influence our behaviors. Below are four common ones that sellers leverage.

The Scarcity Heuristic

Scarcity affects our perception of value. When websites add a banner over a product that says “Selling fast!” or “Almost gone!” it makes buyers think the product must be popular. We buy because we don’t want to miss out.

But genuine scarcity is infrequent. When I searched for a book I wanted on Amazon, the site told me there were only three copies left. Searches for other items over the years have had similar warning messages of low stock. Is the world’s largest online retailer almost sold out of nearly everything I want to buy? Or is it using the scarcity tactic to influence my buying behavior? I’ll give you one guess.

You can recognize artificial scarcity by paying attention to the item you want to buy and noticing sales trends around it. A product that’s regularly restocked is not scarce.

The Framing Heuristic

Context shapes the perceived value of a product or service. The mind takes shortcuts informed by our surroundings to make quick and sometimes erroneous judgments.

One study found that participants got more enjoyment from wine they were told was expensive than they did from wine they thought was cheaper—even though the wine was the same.

To beat the framing heuristic, tune into the quality rather than the price of something. For example, the clothing industry notoriously uses synthetic materials that deteriorate faster than natural fibers. That sweater may cost $250, but if it’s made of acrylic and polyester instead of wool or cashmere, is it really worth the price tag?

The Anchoring Heuristic

One aspect of a product is given undue importance over other features. People often anchor to one piece of information when making a decision.

Rarely can you walk into a clothing store or visit a website without seeing signs for “30% off,” “Buy one, get one free,” or other deals. We’re immediately drawn to the deal, but the math may show it’s not worth it. I remember grocery shopping once and seeing Barilla pasta on sale: 10 for $10. Delighted, I started to stack packages in my cart when I realized another brand of pasta was only $.88 a pack.

The Endowed Progress Heuristic

Most retailers have memberships that ask buyers to create an account in order to earn rewards. With each purchase, customers get closer to a free product or service, which motivates them to spend more or return to that brand.

How to Be a Smart Buyer

You’ve already taken the first step to becoming a smarter buyer by understanding how your own psychology works and how companies use it to get you to buy. Still, there are more ways to buy smarter.

Unsubscribe

Internal triggers drive us to distraction, but when it comes to shopping, there is no end to external triggers sent to us from sellers.

An external trigger is a cue in your environment that provides information for what to do next. Buttons in emails, social media posts, or even texts telling you to “click here” or “buy now” are external triggers.

When you open your inbox and see emails touting great deals, you’re likely to click. The best thing you can do is unsubscribe. Most brands have sales around holidays or post them on their website anyway. You don’t need them in your inbox.

And while you can’t block all ads on Instagram within the app, you can “hide” each ad as it comes up.

Set boundaries and shopping rules

Emotions tend to overrule rational analysis in decision-making, so you need a way to reintroduce rational analysis. By precommitting to a rubric before you buy anything, you’re less likely to be swayed by impulse buying.

Below are a few statements for your shopping rubric. If your answer to any of them is no, it may not be a smart buy.

This item is on a list of things I/the gift receiver need(s) or want(s).
I’ve researched this item and compared prices and reviews across competing products.
This item is high-quality and durable.
I/or the gift receiver have/has space in my/their home for this item.
This item helps me/the gift receiver meet goals and values.
This item is within my budget.

Surf the urge in the face of tempting offers

Step back before you make a purchase. Some people implement a 24-hour rule before they buy, which allows them to escape the feeling of urgency and clearly consider whether they need or want the item.

This is similar to an effective mindset technique called surfing the urge, which asks people to ride out a craving until it subsides.

By understanding our psychology and using techniques to block the effect of psychological sales tactics, we can become less susceptible to the distraction of buying.

Listening to Fitness Gurus is Making You Fat

Use these 4 Science-Backed Tips for all the Gym Motivation You Need

You could feel the excitement buzzing through the WhatsApp channel. An A-list fitness guru reportedly spending millions of dollars yearly to reverse aging was in town to hold an in-person workout.

Without hesitating, I signed up. I was interested in seeing Mr. Guru in action and eager to be inspired by his approach.

The truth is, I was bothered by the few pounds I had put on over the holidays after relaxing at home with family and indulging in the classic rich foods of the season. It was time to get back to a healthy routine. But as someone who has always struggled with going to the gym consistently, I needed a kick in the butt.

I arrived at the beach with about 40 other people, ready for the calisthenics workout. Mr. Guru started with a pep talk about how we can reverse aging, given we take the proper steps—presumably, his steps. We clapped and began the workout. Well, some of us did.

Surprisingly, after a brief warm-up jog, most people just stood around. Mr. Guru didn’t join the workout either. Instead, he spent the entire session preaching to his fans.

As I huffed and puffed, I began to feel resentful. That resentment grew when, at the café where attendees went to chat after the workout, Mr. Guru served his new powdered superfood concoction—soon available for sale—mixed in olive oil, also available for purchase on his site.

Later, I realized I wasn’t angry with Mr. Guru, who was doing his best to help people get fit while running a business, or his followers, who sought health motivation and information from an expert. I was angry because the event exemplified a sad fact: Listening to fitness gurus is often a distraction.

When Fitness Gurus Distract You From Wellness

We spend precious time scouring social media for that solution that makes exercise and healthy eating easy. (It’s why books and content on habits have exploded in popularity—people think habits will magically make something hard effortless.)

We listen to fitness influencers who tell us about the benefits of their supplement packages and the productive pain of cold plunges and extol their incredibly hard-to-follow diets. Conveniently, they don’t tell us that the most important things to do are the things we don’t want to hear.

Let’s be honest: Don’t we already know how to live healthily?

I’ll quote health guru Michael Pollan, who dared to say it so simply you could put it on a bumper sticker: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

By “food,” he means whole foods. The other cornerstone health rules are similarly blunt: Don’t smoke. Drink very little, if at all. Exercise moderately but frequently.

Most of us know those basics already. Until we implement them, we’re just wasting time and money doing anything else.

The problem with listening to fitness gurus is that their business model depends on harvesting your attention. They need to pump out a constant stream of surprising insights to do that. Telling you the simple truth is, frankly, boring.

You might wonder: Isn’t it important to tune in to fitness gurus sharing the latest health findings?

No, and here’s why.

Their recommendations usually rest on the evidence from very few, if any, quality studies. Let’s not get into how poorly executed most of these studies are—tiny sample sizes and studies that don’t replicate are rife. Unfortunately, even when there is evidence in a study, the real-world implications are often minuscule.

Fitness gurus never explain the difference between whether something has an “effect” and its “effect size,” which measures the significance of the effect. Let me explain.

Mr. Guru and many others tout olive oil as a classic health elixir, but its benefits are small, if practically nonexistent. One of the most exhaustive studies on olive oil and longevity, a 2018 meta-analysis, found that consuming more olive oil had an effect size of just 0.14.

An effect size of 0 means a 50/50 chance that a person who ate more olive oil was better off than someone who didn’t (the control group). So 0.14 is only a smidge better than a coin toss, and given the costs and calories, consuming more olive oil is likely not worth it.

Of course, gurus will tell you there’s something extra special about their particular olive oil concoction, but without quality studies, you’ll have to take their word for it.

Compare olive oil research to studies on VO2 max (a measure of cardiorespiratory fitness) and longevity. Generally, the more someone exercises, the higher their VO2 max. Studies looking at all-cause mortality find that higher physical activity has an effect size in the 0.4 range. Going for a jog or doing calisthenics is free, and the effects are substantial.

Responsible influencers should repeat and exemplify what matters most. Savvy consumers should demand to know whether the juice is worth the squeeze. (Speaking of juicing, that’s also not worth it. The effect size is in the 0.1 range, according to studies.)

Many people don’t want to exercise. I don’t want to exercise either. It hurts, and I’d much rather be doing something else—which is why it wasn’t hard to convince myself that listening to a fitness guru was sort of doing something to improve my health. It was certainly easier than exercising.

Listening to fitness gurus gives us that sweet psychological relief without the hard work. No matter how you look at it, looking for magic solutions yields zero effect size and zero results.

But that’s not to say there are no hacks to (re)starting a fitness routine.

The 4 Ways I Motivate Myself to Exercise

Here are the four science-backed, tried-and-true techniques I rely on when I need to motivate myself to exercise.

1. Consistency Over Intensity

The best thing you can do when building a workout routine is to focus on doing it when you say you will.

I don’t care how light your workout is—as long as you do it when you plan to. Consistency over intensity!

Timebox your workouts in a weekly calendar (try my free schedule maker) and stick to it, no matter what.

Using a timeboxed calendar helps you get realistic about how long exercising takes so you can fit it into your schedule.

2. Start with an MEA

Don’t worry about jumping back into intensive workouts. The obstacle to doing them is too high.

So make it simple with a minimum enjoyable action—a behavior that’s laughably easy and just a little enjoyable. Doing one push-up a day might be your exercise MEA. Maybe your MEA is a walk around the block.

Once you choose an MEA, track it. Use a spreadsheet like this habit tracker, or an app like Day One. Over time, tracking acts as positive reinforcement, motivating your brain to continue the behavior.

I bet that once you have a routine and feel fitter, you’ll start to branch out to other exercises over time.

Of course, inevitably, some days you won’t do your MEA. Don’t worry about it! If you skip your MEA for a few days, get back on track the next time you see it in your timeboxed calendar.

3. Find Motivation Through Temptation Bundling

While people aren’t great at doing two complex tasks at once, we can simultaneously do two things using different attention channels. I call it “multichannel multitasking.” We can listen to an audiobook while driving or cleaning. We can take a phone call while walking.

One form of multichannel multitasking is effective in helping people get fit: temptation bundling, which involves using the rewards from one behavior to incentivize another.

In a study coining the term, Katherine Milkman of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School found that “participants who had access to [super-popular] audiobooks only at the gym made 51 percent more gym visits than those in the control group.”

My version of this technique is to listen to the articles I save to Pocket. Every time I go to the gym or take a long walk, I listen to articles read through the app’s text-to-speech capabilities.

4. Make a Pact

In 2016, I wrote a viral blog post about the one technique I used to get myself to the gym regularly: burning a $100 bill if I didn’t go.

The technique functioned as a price pact, a type of precommitment that is incredibly effective in getting people to follow through. A precommitment removes a future choice as a way to overcome impulsivity.

This time, I’ve reinforced a price pact by involving a friend. We bet $1,000 we’d be back to our pre-holiday weight by losing one pound a week. If we both lose, we both win. Since we already know what to do, we’ll meet our goal without paying anyone a dime.

Because there’s no way I’ll let myself lose the bet, I got back to using the techniques above to get back on track by working out and eating right. I’ve already lost two and a half pounds and feel great. No gurus needed.

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The Magic of Now, Not How

Nir’s Note: Noah Kagan is the Chief Sumo at AppSumo and runs a YouTube Channel with over 1 million subscribers. His new book, Million Dollar Weekend, is out now.

Airbnb began as a weekend project when the founders sent an email offering their living-room air mattress to hotelless attendees of a major design conference. Facebook started when Mark Zuckerberg built a clone of ConnectU over the weekend and told everyone in his dorm about it. Even Microsoft began with Bill Gates making software quickly for a company in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Most of us think we are never ready for what we want: being in a relationship, living in another country, or starting a business. But the best way to make it happen is to start immediately.

And the most straightforward, powerful, life-changing motto that will help you take action today is:

The beauty of “Now, not how” is it does not discriminate. It applies to you regardless of your intelligence, education, wealth, or whatever disadvantages may hold you back. The motto will help you overcome any self-limiting beliefs that you harbor. Confidence and results will come, but to get to where you want to go, you must start where you are today.

“Now, not how” led me to create AppSumo.com, an $80 million-a-year business I started in 48 hours.

I first learned to take action now, instead of worrying about how, when I was 21.

As a college student at UC Berkeley, I noticed first-year students wanted internships, and local businesses struggled to market to college students. I created a consulting company to bridge the gap.

We grew to a small army of 20 people. Then, one day, my intern Kenny suggested we launch a student discount card.

My first thought was, “Really?”

Business-minded college kids often try—and fail—at discount cards.

Conventional wisdom said don’t bother trying. But growing up with my salesman dad taught me to test ideas myself.

It wouldn’t take more than an hour to see whether local businesses would be interested. To Kenny, I said, “Come on, let’s go to town and ask a few shopkeepers if they’d be willing to offer discounts.”

Kenny paused. “You mean, like, right now?”

I could see him start to sweat; his instinct was to race to the library, research market trends, and do customer analysis.

“Yes, now!” I responded.

We went business to business with a quick pitch: “This is going to get your name in front of hundreds, if not thousands, of students.”

Turns out, local businesses are always happy to get more customers. We had about 20 companies signed up pretty soon—enough, we hoped, to entice students to pay $10 for the cards.

It was a hit.

We expanded to multiple campuses and generated $50,000 within a year. Not bad for some college kids, right?

That experience made me realize the power of taking action right away. Over the next 20 years, I would become an expert at starting—which has led me to have a YouTube business with 1 million subscribers, launch seven businesses that have generated over $1 million each, and found AppSumo.

Noah Kagan Youtube Channel

Starting immediately allows you to find out instantly if your idea will work. Wasting time wondering if something will work is one of the pitfalls holding people back from success in business and every aspect of life.

Think of yourself as a scientist and everything you do as an experiment. Most experiments fail. But every experiment has the chance of potentially unforeseen discoveries.

You never know what works until you try, and you’ll never try if you’re afraid to start.

That fear will never go away, no matter what you achieve. Even with two decades of experience, I still feel starting is scary, and rejection still sucks.

Fear is why when most people decide to start a business, for example, they fall victim to the distraction of overthinking: Their first instinct is to learn more—read a book, take a course, seek advice—and then take action.

That has to be much safer and makes you less likely to fail, right? Wrong.

Overthinking is far less effective. Super-successful people do the opposite: They take action first, get honest feedback, and learn from it, which is a million times more valuable—and quicker!—than any book, course, or advice.

Most people: Overthink first, act later

Person at cluttered desk with complicated flowchart, overwhelmed by starting a project

Every successful entrepreneur: Act first, figure it out later

In business and life, you usually need only one hit to succeed. Basketball players must make 40 to 50 percent of their shots from the three-point line to be world-class. But not you. If you shoot and keep shooting, even at a 1% percent hit rate, after 100 times, you will get the desired result.

Of course, many people don’t recognize starting as their primary obstacle. When people talk to me about what gets in the way of their dreams of running a business—the job they hate, the lack of time—the real problem is always the same: They haven’t started.

When I want to achieve something, and there’s a version I can do in minutes, I do it.

Here’s an example.

An ad agency was pitching our AppSumo team on a new Facebook advertising campaign. It ended the meeting with the dreaded promise of an email recap of everything we’d have to do to get started (create passwords, add the agency to our Facebook account, line up new content, and so on). “No, no, let’s do all of that now,” I said, which took five minutes and saved 24 hours of waiting.

Your inner negotiator may say, “That sounds great, but my idea needs more time.”

Stop!

No more negotiating with yourself. You’re just a doer. And every time you take action, you teach yourself that you’re a relentless experimenter.

Let’s say you get excited to build an e-commerce site for the organic, gluten-free dog treats your friends have been raving about.

Most people would:

Buy a Shopify service
Get a domain
Watch three videos from e-commerce “gurus” on YouTube
Grab a book and take a course to be more prepared

But these are just distractions that trick you into thinking you’re taking real action.

Real action helps you solve your problem: finding out if people want your idea. In this case, it’s figuring out if potential customers want dog treats.

The new you embracing the now, would:

Contact a dog-owning friend right now to get feedback on the treats—and a potential order.

You didn’t worry about the how. You took advantage of the now and found out you may have a real business on your hands.

You can even apply “Now, not how,” to everyday tasks: Socks on the ground? Pick them up right now. Dishes piling up in the sink? Pack them into the dishwasher, or get that sponge ready now.

Practicing the motto on low-level tasks will empower you to keep going and not worry about the “how” as much, especially when it comes to your bigger goals.

Using “Now, not how” has changed my life. It can change yours too.

Next time you start spiraling, wondering how you will tackle that next big challenge, think about the next action (any action) you can take right now—the “how” will follow.

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The App that Transforms Drinking Habits: a Case Study

As a child of two parents who both struggled with alcoholism, Nick Allen had a choice to make when it came to his own drinking. He could follow the same destructive path his parents took, or he could swear off drinking altogether.

But for Allen, and millions of others like him, all or nothing wasn’t much of a choice. Instead, Allen found a third way and co-founded a multimillion-dollar company in the process: Sunnyside.

Allen told me in an interview, “Over the past two decades … I’ve learned that if I’m not being conscious and intentional about the role alcohol plays in my health, it can quickly become out of balance with my health and life goals. That said, complete sobriety has never felt like the right fit for me.”

Moderation instead of total abstinence best suited Allen’s lifestyle. Yet as he searched for an app that would help him drink mindfully, all he found were apps that pushed sobriety.

So he built an app of his own: the Sunnyside app.

The Sunnyside app unpacks ingrained drinking habits and replaces them with healthier ones that last, empowering people to find a balance with their alcohol consumption.

It’s a terrific example of how technology can change habits for good, and I was delighted to learn Allen and his team used both my books, Hooked and Indistractable, to design their app. I was so impressed with the company, I became an investor.

Sunnyside changes drinking habits by asking members to implement these routines:

Weekly precommitments
Timeboxing
Progress tracking
Mastering internal triggers

Today, Sunnyside has tens of thousands of members, including nearly 5,000 who have been using the app for more than two years and still use it today.

Sunnyside app screenshot: recommended plan

Staying Indistractable with Sunnyside

Sunnyside uses the Indistractable methods of timeboxing and precommitment to help members create an accountability roadmap.

It also emphasizes the Indistractable technique of exploring internal triggers, or negative emotions, with curiosity rather than contempt: When a member has more drinks than intended, for example, Sunnyside doesn’t react punitively; it reacts positively, offering encouragement and support.

“Sunnyside acts as a third-party system of accountability to help you stay in line with the intentions you set for yourself,” Allen said.

Weekly Timeboxing and Reflection

Timeboxing is a powerful time management technique that helps people make time for their values and do what they said they would, when they said they would.

Indistractable recommends reflecting on and refining a timeboxed calendar at the beginning of every week: When did I do what I said I would, and when did I get distracted? Are there changes I can make to my calendar that will give me the time I need to better live out my values?

Every Sunday, Sunnyside uses those techniques to prompt members to create a drinking plan for the week ahead. The app suggests personalized targets for total drinks and dry days based on members’ progress and drinking goals.

By consolidating decision-making into a single point in time, when members’ commitment is high, Sunnyside helps members set their own boundaries. Members reflect on the moments that might trigger them to drink. If they didn’t adhere to their drinking plan the week before, they’re asked to reflect on why, and what might help them avoid slipping in the future.

They then create an implementation intention for the week, allocating a drink target to each day and/or choosing dry days.

Precommitments

A precommitment involves removing a future choice, as a way to overcome impulsivity. It’s key to becoming Indistractable.

By creating a drinking plan, Sunnyside members make a promise to themselves for the week ahead.

Sunnyside holds members accountable to their drinking plan by sending them SMS reminders of their intentions and asking members to track their drinks.

Exploring Internal Triggers with Curiosity

There are four steps to becoming Indistractable, and the first is to master internal triggers. That partly means exploring your emotions without self-criticism. Shaming yourself for feeling a certain way or for not accomplishing a goal will only make you feel worse. Ironically, that may drive you to further seek distraction—potentially by drinking more.

Sunnyside practices nonjudgmental reflection when members “fall off the wagon.”

“On off-track days, the app sends you a text message that basically says, ‘Hey, you did your best. Let’s try again today. Here’s your target,’” said Allen.

Sunnyside’s support doesn’t incentivize members to stop tracking their drinks, in contrast to other apps that penalize users by making them restart the process if they have a drink over the limit.

As a result, 85 percent of Sunnyside members track their drinks at least five days a week. “What we see with the constructive, positive language of Sunnyside is that our members are extremely, deeply engaged,” Allen said.

infographic of Nir Eyal’s Indistractable Model, used in Sunnyside app

The Indistractable Model

The Sunnyside Hooked Model

The Hooked Model is a design pattern to connect a user’s problem to a habit-forming product. It has four phases: a trigger to prompt using the product, an action that’s the simplest behavior done in anticipation of a reward, a variable reward that satisfies the user’s need, and an investment that, ultimately, makes the product more valuable over time. As users go through these phases, they build new habits.

Here’s how Sunnyside applies the Hooked Model to engage users.

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Trigger

Sunnyside uses text messages as an external trigger that nudges members at the right time to stave off bad routines.

“We send tailored, adaptive text messages that create new external triggers around the time when internal triggers tend to take over and push folks toward mindless drinking,” explained Allen.

By intercepting members’ internal triggers that might drive them to drink, such as anxiety, Sunnyside disrupts that behavior and suggests healthier replacement behaviors.

Action

Members log each drink in the Sunnyside app as soon as they finish it. Active tracking creates conscious interference between one drink and the next. It gives members a moment to stop, reflect, and decide whether to have another.

Investment

As members log their drinks or dry days, they invest time in Sunnyside and build up their personal data, improving the app’s insights. The dashboard helps members visualize their progress by showing how many drinks they avoided, how many calories they cut, and how much money they saved.

“We have this tight loop around logging consumption,” Allen explained. “It drives a deeper, more personalized experience of the product over time. By engaging users to go through the Hooked loop again and again, Sunnyside helps them hack back at those automated drinking routines.”

infographic of Nir Eyal’s Hooked Model with trigger, action, reward and investment

The Hooked Model Consists of 4 Stages

Results

Sunnyside works with an independent team of researchers from Brown and Hofstra universities to understand and validate the efficacy of its program.

In their first 30 days, Sunnyside members on average reduce their number of drinks by 29 percent, avoid 1,500 calories, and save more than $50. In the first 12 weeks of the program, members see a 32 percent reduction in weekly total alcohol consumption.

The app produces fast results. But even more impressive is this: Members use Sunnyside to maintain those gains for years, sustaining that average 32 percent reduction and in many cases reducing their alcohol consumption further from there. Sunnyside doesn’t promote drinking in moderation as a fad. The app is designed to help users keep long-lasting, healthy drinking habits.

As Allen said, “Sunnyside shifts the frame of alcohol-use treatment from one that’s reactive and somber toward one that’s proactive and positive and about making an investment in your wellness for the long term.”

Impressed by what Sunnyside has achieved using Hooked? You too can use the Hooked Model to help people build healthy habits through your app. Learn how by signing up for my online course, “How to Build Habit-Forming Products.”

3 Steps to Master Your Emotions and Be Your Best Self

Your emotions are the core of everything. Mastering them allows you to be your best self.

You won’t evolve if you ignore your emotions. I discovered the power of managing emotions when I set out to find a cure for my chronic distraction. I was struggling to the point that it was affecting my relationship with my daughter: whenever we spent quality time together, I found myself fiddling with my phone, my mind elsewhere.

Through years of research—which turned into my book Indistractable—I learned how to master my emotions as a first step to fighting distraction. But that new skill brought even more benefits I didn’t anticipate.

I gained control of my attention, learned about myself and the pattern of my emotional reactions to certain tasks, events, or stimuli, and used that information to better myself, my work, and my relationships.

Emotions are the best clues we have to understanding our values and thus ourselves. Research shows that by discerning our emotions and managing them, especially the negative ones, we can improve our psychological health, achieve career success, communicate clearly, and have stronger relationships.

Let me show you how to use Indistractable methods to track and hack your emotions and lead a happy, successful life.

Cut to the Core

Emotions are at the core of our reactions, influencing our actions in every situation.

For example, when we’re doing something that causes us to experience negative thoughts and feelings, we’re triggered to seek relief in distraction. To combat distraction, we have to face those internal triggers.

When I learned that emotions triggered distraction, I set out to build a framework that would help people navigate emotions to get back on track.

I developed a four-step method for mastering internal triggers, informed by techniques that Dr. Jonathan Bricker of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center uses to help patients stop smoking.

The first three steps can help you master your emotions in any situation. I also recommend using them to check in with your emotions twice daily in order to detect patterns.

Step 1. Look for the emotion preceding distraction (or any situation).

When you find yourself distracted or having a strong reaction, become aware of the internal trigger that is prompting it. Try to identify exactly what you’re feeling.

You might find that naming what you’re feeling is challenging. That’s normal when you first begin to look inward. One of the points of this exercise is to help you better pinpoint what you’re feeling. It will help you understand yourself and better communicate your emotions to others.

Figuring out your emotions is no easy task, partly because there are so many of them—34,000, in fact, within 27 categories. And because humans are complicated, we can have more than one feeling at once.

A great tool for identifying emotions is the emotion wheel. It names and color-codes common emotions and shows the relationship between each: for example, by placing opposite emotions directly across from one another:

Conical cutout of a wheel of emotions developed by Robert Plutchik

Robert Plutchik’s Emotions Wheel

Step 2. Write down the internal trigger.

Write down the feeling, along with the time of day and what you were doing when you felt that internal trigger.

Keeping a log will help you link situations and resulting behaviors with their internal triggers. The better you get at noticing the thoughts and feelings that precede certain behaviors, the better you will become at managing them over time.

I created a distraction tracker for logging distraction and its three possible causes—internal triggers, external triggers, and planning problems—but you can also use it as a general-purpose emotions tracker.

Distraction tracker – click on it to get template

Step 3. Explore the negative sensation with curiosity instead of contempt.

Shame has no place here! Hating on yourself for feeling or reacting a certain way acts as a roadblock to mastering emotions. Instead, get curious about the sensations you’re feeling.

Do you get butterflies in your stomach? A tightening in your chest? Are you hungry? Is your body temperature rising?

Here are a few techniques for navigating your emotions.

“Leaves on a stream”

To help you sit with an emotion before reacting on impulse, Dr. Bricker recommends the “leaves on a stream” method: “Imagine you’re seated beside a gently flowing stream. Then imagine there are leaves floating down that stream. Place each thought in your mind on a leaf. It could be a memory, a word, a worry, an image. And let each of those leaves float down that stream, swirling away, as you sit and watch.”

Green and brown leaves floating down a gentle stream, a technique to master your emotions and be your best self

Leaves on a stream method

Surf the urge

When an urge takes hold, noticing the sensations and riding them like a wave—neither pushing them away nor acting on them—helps us cope until the feelings subside.

As Oliver Burkeman wrote in the Guardian, “It’s a curious truth that when you gently pay attention to negative emotions, they tend to dissipate—but positive ones expand.”

Recategorize how you feel, aka adjust your mindset

When you feel nervous because you have a major presentation coming up, try to reconstruct that feeling as anticipation or determination. Research shows reframing your negative emotion as a positive one with similar physical symptoms can reduce the body’s stress response and help people perform better. For example, your pounding heart might result from anxiousness… but it could also mean excitement.

Talk it through with a friend

Build emotional resilience by exploring your emotions with a friend or a compassionate person. One study shows that an outside perspective can help you reframe your emotions more positively than you could on your own.

Say nice things to yourself

When used correctly, self-affirmations can help you break free from negative thought patterns and instill healthier habits. Here are 32 science-backed affirmations to be your best self.

Hating on yourself for feeling or reacting a certain way acts as a roadblock to mastering emotions. Instead, get curious about the sensations you’re feeling. Click To Tweet

Start Mastering Your Emotions Now

Use my distraction tracker to record your emotions twice daily and whenever you feel distraction or another strong reaction. Don’t skip taking the time to manage those emotions using Indistractable methods!

Over time, you’ll see trends emerge for which emotions arise during which events—and you’ll become more practiced in making sure those emotions don’t elicit a response that interferes with your ideal self.

The Ultimate Guide to Unstoppable Motivation

Nir’s Note: Ali Abdaal is a medical doctor turned entrepreneur, and the world’s most-followed productivity expert, with an audience of over 6 million across social media. His new book, Feel-Good Productivity, explores science-backed strategies that help you do more of what matters to you, in a way that’s enjoyable, meaningful, and sustainable.

The Pacific Crest Trail is not for the faint of heart. Spanning 2,650 miles of mountainous terrain in the western United States, it encompasses the entire longitude of America, from the deserts at the Mexican border to the mountains of north Washington. It’s renowned as one of the most arduous—and sometimes dangerous—hiking trails in America.

Every summer, thousands of intrepid walkers set off on the trail, knowing they won’t arrive at the Canadian border until five months later. For most people, this sounds like a hellish feat of endurance. For University of Missouri professor Kennon Sheldon, it sounded like a perfect opportunity for a psychological experiment.

Sheldon is a titanic figure in a recent wave of research into human motivation. At the turn of the millennium, many people thought that the great questions about motivation had been resolved. Since the 1970s, scientists have been aware of the two types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is when you’re doing something because it feels inherently enjoyable. Extrinsic motivation is when you’re doing something because of an external reward—like making money or winning a prize. In the years since these two forms of motivation were theorized, countless studies have shown that when we’re intrinsically motivated to do something, we’re more effective and energized by doing it; and that extrinsic rewards can, in the long run, make us less motivated to do something for its own sake. Intrinsic motivation = good, extrinsic = bad. And that was that.

Except Sheldon had a hunch that things might be a bit more complicated. Starting in the 1990s, he wondered whether we were missing something crucial about the science of motivation. Yes, on the face of it, the evidence seemed clear that extrinsic motivation was ‘worse’ than intrinsic motivation. At the same time, though, our lives are filled with instances in which we clearly are motivated by extrinsic rewards—and motivated well.

Imagine a student (let’s call her Katniss) studying for exams. Katniss doesn’t enjoy the studying process itself, so her motivation to study isn’t intrinsic. For now, she’s motivated by something other than the pure joy of studying and learning.

How might Katniss be motivating herself to study? Here are some options:

Option A: I’m studying because my parents are forcing me to. I hate this subject, but if I don’t pass, I’ll be grounded for a month. I need to study to avoid this terrible punishment.
Option B: I’m studying out of a sense of guilt. I hate this subject, but I know that my parents have worked hard to send me to this school, and I know I should value the opportunity to do well to get into a good college. I feel anxious and guilty when I’m not studying, so I’m putting in a few hours of work each night for this exam.
Option C: I’m studying because I genuinely care about doing well in school. Yes, I hate this subject, but I have to pass this exam to qualify for the classes I actually want to take next year. And I’m trying to do well in those because I really want to go to college, broaden my horizons, and maybe even apply to medical school someday. My parents aren’t forcing me to do any of this. Yes, they’ll be disappointed if I fail, but I’m not studying for them. I’m studying for me.

All three of these options would fall under the category of “extrinsic motivation”: in each case, Katniss isn’t studying because it’s inherently enjoyable. Instead, she’s studying to achieve some external outcome (avoiding punishment, eliminating guilt, or getting into her desired classes). But clearly, these three options represent very different attitudes towards work and life. Option C might even be quite a healthy form of motivation: one that encourages Katniss to work towards goals she values, even if the process isn’t intrinsically pleasurable.

Katniss’ example demonstrates that, in fact, not all extrinsic motivation is inherently “bad”. Like Katniss studying for the subject she hates, we all have to do things we don’t enjoy at times. And even when we start off enjoying something, if we do it for long enough, there will always be periods of hardship. In these moments, it’s rarely helpful to be told that if only we were enjoying ourselves more, we’d be able to persevere.

Which brings us back to Sheldon and the PCT trail. He began to suspect that anyone who embarked on the PCT trail was pretty likely to experience a collapse in intrinsic motivation at some point. What was motivating them to continue, he wondered?

So he decided to test it out. In 2018, Sheldon recruited ninety-two people who were interested in hiking the PCT. This group represented a mix of abilities. Seven had never backpacked before; thirty-seven had backpacked “a few times”; forty-six had backpacked “quite a lot”; and four had done it all their life. Before the hike started, Sheldon measured their motivation by getting participants to rate the accuracy of the following statements, each measuring a different type of motivation:

“I’m hiking the PCT because . . .”

hiking the PCT will be interesting
hiking the PCT is personally important to me
I want to feel proud of myself
I would feel like a failure if I didn’t hike the PCT
important people will like me better if I complete the PCT
honestly, I don’t know why I am hiking the PCT

When Sheldon looked at the data, he found that practically all the hikers saw drops in intrinsic motivation during the marathon hike. This isn’t surprising—when you’re walking 2,650 miles across freezing terrain over five months, it’s hard to enjoy every step genuinely.

Sheldon was more interested in the form of extrinsic motivation the hikers turned to when their intrinsic motivation inevitably declined. By 2017, many scientists had begun to suspect that, as with Katniss studying for her exams, there were three discrete types of extrinsic motivation in addition to the purely intrinsic form. They fall on a spectrum called the Relative Autonomy Continuum (or RAC):

External Motivation. “I’m doing this because important people will like and respect me more if I do.” People who highly rated this statement have high external motivation.
Introjected Motivation. “I’m doing this because I’ll feel guilty or bad about myself if I don’t.” People who highly rated this statement have high introjected motivation.
Identified Motivation. “I’m doing this because I truly value the goal it’s helping me work towards.” People who highly rated this statement have high identified motivation.
Intrinsic Motivation. “I’m doing this because I love the process as an end in itself.” People who highly rated this statement have high intrinsic motivation.

We can plot these four forms on a spectrum from less to more autonomous.

Linear spectrum of different types of motivation between intrinsic and extrinsic.

External motivation is the form of extrinsic motivation that’s the least autonomous; instead of being motivated by any kind of internal force, we’re being controlled by the opinions, rules, and rewards offered by others. At the other end of the spectrum, identified motivation is the most autonomous form of extrinsic motivation. Even though we might be doing something for the external reward associated with it, we value that reward or end goal—and crucially, that value was determined by us, not foisted upon us by others.

Using this framework, Sheldon spotted something fascinating about the PCT hikers. When inevitably, their intrinsic motivation waned through the course of the hike, the best predictor of their performance was the specific kind of extrinsic motivation they drew upon to help complete the trail. Using the data he collected on the hikers’ motivation, wellbeing, and hike performance, he showed that those who had higher levels of both introjected and identified motivation were far more likely to complete the trail. They managed to tap into these forms of extrinsic motivation to help sustain their progress even when the going got tough.

At the same time, Sheldon asked each of the walkers about their mood on the hike, using a series of well-established tests for Subjective Well-Being (SWB), psychology jargon for “happiness”. Therein lay his second intriguing insight: the only type of extrinsic motivation that corresponded with greater happiness was identified motivation. In other words, it was the hikers who motivated themselves by aligning their actions with what they truly valued and who not only completed the trail—but also felt happiest at the end of it. Sheldon didn’t use the term, but you might say that these hikers were experiencing Feel-Good Productivity.

This study hints at an insight into reducing our risk of misalignment burnout—the sort of burnout that arises from working towards goals that don’t ultimately match up to our sense of self. We feel worse—and so achieve less—because we’re not acting authentically. In these moments, our behavior is driven by external forces—rather than by a deeper alignment between who we are and what we’re doing. This alignment is something that only intrinsic and identified motivation can offer.

So how do we get more intrinsic and identified motivation in our lives?

Entire books have been written about increasing our intrinsic motivation—Daniel Pink’s Drive, for example, talks about how autonomy, competence, and purpose help drive intrinsic motivation. And the first three chapters of my book Feel-Good Productivity talk about the three energizers that drive intrinsic motivation: Play, Power, and People.

But a lot less has been written about boosting our identified motivation. The key to doing that, broadly, is to (a) figure out what really matters to you, and (b) align your behavior with it.

This is, of course, easier said than done. I go into much more detail about the specific methods to do this in the final chapter of Feel-Good Productivity, but I’ll summarize the strategies here in the interest of saving you time.

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1. Figure Out What Really Matters to You

I’d recommend considering this on long-term, medium-term, and short-term time horizons.

Long-Term: The Eulogy Method

It might sound morbid, but it’s worth beginning with the end in mind. Specifically, your funeral. Simply ask yourself: “What would I feel good about someone saying in my eulogy?” Think about what you’d like a family member, a close friend, a distant relative, or a co-worker, to say at your funeral.

This method helps us understand the question of “What do I value?” from other people’s perspective. At your funeral, even your co-workers would be unlikely to say, “He helped us close lots of million-dollar deals.” They’d talk about how you were as a person—your relationships, your character, your hobbies. And they’d talk about the positive impact you had on the world, not how much money you made for your employer.

Now apply what you’ve learned to your life today. What does the life you want people to remember in a few decades mean for the life you should build now? So having started in this cheerful place, let’s bring things a little closer to home.

Medium-Term: The Odyssey Plan

This is a great exercise from the Design Your Life course run by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans at Stanford Business School. It revolves around a simple question: What do you want your life to look like in five years’ time? But instead of answering it at face value, consider approaching it from the following three angles.

Your Current Path: Write out, in detail, what your life would look like five years from now if you continued down your current path.
Your Alternative Path: Write out, in detail, what your life would look like five years from now if you took a completely different path.
Your Radical Path: Write out, in detail, what your life would look like five years from now if you took a completely different path, where money, social obligations, and what people would think, were irrelevant.

Different road posts indicating current versus alternative life paths

Short-Term: The Wheel of Life

This framework is similar to an exercise in Nir Eyal’s book, Indistractable, regarding examining your values. The idea is to first split up “life” into a number of different areas—I personally find a 3×3 separation to be the most helpful:

Health: Body, Mind, and Soul
Work: Mission, Money, and Growth
Relationships: Family, Romance, and Friends

Next, you rate how aligned you feel in each area of your life. Ask yourself: “To what extent do I feel like my current actions are aligned with my personal values?” Color in the segment accordingly – if you feel fulfilled, fill it in entirely; if you feel completely unfulfilled, leave it blank. If you’re doing this without drawing it out physically, you might find it easier to just rate each area from 0 to 10, with 0 being “completely misaligned” and 10 being “completely aligned”.

In just a few minutes, you’ve done an audit of your life and identified the areas in which the actions you’re taking in the present moment do align with where you’d like to go, and, more importantly, the areas in which the actions you’re taking in the present moment don’t.

Wheel with satisfaction levels for 9 sectors within 3 categories: relationships, work, and health

Ask yourself: 'To what extent do I feel like my current actions are aligned with my personal values?' Click To Tweet

2. Align your Actions to What Really Matters to You

The exercises above should give you plenty of prompts to figure out what’s truly meaningful to you. So then, the final step to generating identified motivation is to align your actions with this (perhaps) newfound clarity to where you want to go.

For example, if you’re struggling to motivate yourself to work out, you might say to yourself—“I recognize that staying physically fit is important for my long-term health and happiness. Therefore, I’m not just working out to look good or because I feel I have to; I’m doing it because it aligns with my values and contributes to the life I want to lead.” This mindset shift, from seeing exercise as a chore to viewing it as a vital part of living your values, can be incredibly motivating.

Alternatively, if you procrastinate on a work project, reflect on how this task fits into your broader career goals. You might tell yourself, “Completing this project isn’t just about meeting a deadline; it’s a step towards mastering my craft and contributing to a field I’m passionate about.” By framing the task in the context of your professional aspirations and values, you transform it from a mundane obligation into a meaningful endeavor that resonates with your personal vision of success.

Or consider a common scenario like saving money. Instead of viewing it as a restriction, align it with your value of financial independence and security. Remind yourself, “I’m not just cutting back on expenses; I’m actively working towards my goal of financial freedom, which will allow me to pursue the things I truly care about without monetary constraints.”

These examples hopefully give you a sense of the transformative power of aligning your actions with your values. It’s not about blindly pushing through tasks or adhering to external expectations. It’s about consciously choosing activities that reflect your deepest values and aspirations, which helps infuse your daily routine with a sense of purpose and direction. This alignment is the essence of identified motivation—it turns routine actions into steps toward a fulfilling life, in line with your true self.

Again, there’s plenty more in the final chapter of my book Feel-Good Productivity, but in this post, I’ve tried to give you a few pointers about how you might generate more identified motivation for anything you’re struggling with.

A huge thanks to Nir for being a legend and giving me the opportunity to write this for you, his smart, lovely and rather good-looking readers. I hope you took something valuable from it 🙂

Multitasking During Meetings? How to Make Your Colleagues Indistractable

Nir’s Note: This guest post is written by Jenny Wood, an author, speaker, founder of Google’s popular “Own Your Career” program. She writes for the Harvard Business Review, Entrepreneur, and her own blog.

When I moved from a Google sales team in New York City to a Google operations team in Boulder, Colorado several years ago, I expected to find differences in culture and team norms. But one particular practice took me by surprise. Multitasking during meetings was rampant. Everyone was so distracted.

This became grossly apparent during my first presentation in my new role.

The move had included a promotion: I had joined the leadership team in Boulder, and I had plenty of imposter syndrome. I was trying to prove myself—which is why I spent over seven hours preparing for my first big business review presented to my peers and manager.

As I presented my slides to half a dozen people in a corner conference room, my heart sank. My teammates occasionally glanced up at me, but mostly they spent the time managing their email inboxes. Even though the information I shared pertained to them, I barely had their attention.

Multitasking during meetings is common at most companies, but I’d never seen it as rampant as in this department. It was such a contrast to the team I was on just a few weeks prior in New York City.

I could see that my team and our performance would suffer if such workplace distractions continued. It was dysfunctional. So I did something about it.

Previously, I had read Nir Eyal’s book Indistractable, and I became a big fan of his ideas on distraction versus traction. He wrote that traction and distraction are categories of actions: Our actions either contribute to our progress (traction) or inhibit it (distraction).

Using Nir’s Indistractable model, I’d put energy into curbing my own distractions. I turned off alerts on my phone, tucked away my laptop during bedtime with my kids, and made progress on timeboxing my calendar.

The changes were easy, and I could see the payoff almost immediately. I was more present in the moment, and more focused at work and home. Changing my own multitasking behaviors was relatively simple since it required no buy-in from anyone but me.

However, when I thought about how to change these behaviors in my teammates, it felt daunting. Not only was I in a new leadership role, but also I didn’t yet have a rapport with my team.

How would I set about changing the work culture without seeming like I was dictating changes? How could I get them to understand the benefits and participate in the change?

With Nir’s Indistractable methods in mind, I designed a framework that encouraged people to stop multitasking during meetings—while including them in the decision to fight against distraction.

I came up with S.T.O.P., which stands for: Signal, Talk, Opt-out, and Pause.

Signal

People need role models. If everyone is tapping away at their keyboards while someone is speaking in a meeting, it’s easy to fall in line. However, if someone takes the lead on the behavior change, others might follow.

Nir noted that the Indistractable organizations he studied didn’t just have rules of workplace behavior; they had managers who exemplified the cultural norms. Leaders should practice what they preach and model disconnecting.

Taking this to heart, I kept my laptop closed during others’ presentations. While my teammates didn’t immediately follow suit, a colleague did comment (in front of everyone in the room) that they were inspired by how present I was in the meeting. These signals can truly start to shift culture over time.

Leaders should practice what they preach and model disconnecting. Click To Tweet

Talk

I encouraged our team to talk. This was a huge part of making my teammates feel they were helping to build the new practices instead of just being on the receiving end of orders from me.

Creating a space for psychological safety was integral to getting them to talk openly.

Psychological safety, defined by organizational behavioral scientist Amy Edmondson, quoted in Nir’s book, is “a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.”

Edmondson provides three steps for managers to achieve psychological safety:

Frame an issue as “a learning problem, not an execution problem”
Admit that you don’t have all the answers, that the problem is one you’ll all solve together; and
“Model curiosity and ask questions”

At the next off-site meeting with my team, I reserved 20 minutes to discuss team norms. We batted around some challenges and ideas, and we agreed on new “bylaws” for meetings: for example, “Meetings begin on time even if only 30% of attendees are there,” and “Laptops down if someone is doing a formal presentation.”

Opt-out

One of the most popular norms we created was the “Opt-out.” We agreed that if someone had something urgent to tackle, they had a pass not to attend a meeting.

A crisis couldn’t be resolved quickly if the team member who could fix it had to spend 60 minutes in the weekly status meeting. Likewise, if they attended the meeting while dealing with a time-sensitive issue, they’d likely be too distracted to get value from the gathering.

Non-urgent meetings shouldn’t distract team members from important focused work.

Yet it’s hard to decline a team meeting, especially if your boss is leading it. “Opt-out” gave us the autonomy and the air cover to make smart decisions that best served the business and ourselves.

Pause

I began to take pregnant pauses when I presented, especially if I noticed people were not paying attention. This subtle trick is effective, without pointing fingers at any one person.

Sure, you could always stop mid-sentence and say, “Larry, I worked hard on this. These numbers are important for your team. Do you mind paying attention?” But that’s not something you’re likely to say to a peer, even if you’re frustrated.

A nice long pause reclaims people’s attention. The break makes them look up from their computers; when they do, they realize their mind has been elsewhere.

An Indistractable Team

These four steps didn’t turn us into focus friends overnight. But we did make considerable progress. Team members became more discerning about when to be fully present. Plus, simply talking through how teammates should show up was a valuable exercise in building psychological safety to encourage future discussions.

We’re all busy, we all attend more meetings than we want, and we all have intimidating inboxes. But we often forget that the urge to chip away at those emails when we’re supposed to engage with others has a real downside. It hurts professional relationships, and it increases our stress if we’re trying to do multiple tasks at once. It also doesn’t serve you as a multitasker; when we’re distracted in a meeting, the output of that meeting is often lower quality.

So, let’s all band together to STOP distracted behavior. When we’re meeting, let’s meet, and when we’re working, let’s work.

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« Older Entries

How to Talk Nice to Yourself

Talk to yourself as a friend would

Arm yourself with positive self-talk

Repeat self-affirmations

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Schedule Fewer Meetings

The Meeting Host Should…

Move things along

Ask for face time

Establish team norms

Pause for 10 seconds after asking something

Engage the team

Set expectations for attention

All Meeting Participants Should…

Turn your video on

Hide your video feed

Put your phone on Do Not Disturb

Set your status to Away on group chat

Close your internet tabs

Unplug your monitor

Take notes by hand

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Cut to the Core

Step 1. Look for the emotion preceding distraction (or any situation).

Step 2. Write down the internal trigger.

Step 3. Explore the negative sensation with curiosity instead of contempt.

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Surf the urge

Recategorize how you feel, aka adjust your mindset

Talk it through with a friend

Say nice things to yourself

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