Summary
Overview
Behavioral scientist Ayelet Fishbach shares 20 years of research on motivation, revealing that it's not about willpower or strength, but about wisdom and knowledge. She provides practical strategies for setting goals you'll actually enjoy pursuing, sustaining motivation through the difficult middle periods, balancing multiple goals, and leveraging social support to achieve your aspirations.
The Motivation Crisis and What Motivation Really Is
Fishbach opens by describing a widespread feeling of exhaustion and lack of motivation across American workers, with half actively seeking new jobs and many struggling with health and finances. However, she reveals a counterintuitive truth: you can't lose motivation because you never owned it in the first place. Motivation isn't a muscle that can be strong or weak—it's knowledge and wisdom about how to motivate yourself. The key is learning to either change your situation or change how you think about it.
- Half of American employees are currently looking for a different job, indicating widespread lack of motivation
- The median American family has only about $5,000 in savings, barely enough to pay next month's rent
- You cannot lose your motivation because you never owned it in the first place
- Motivation is not about being strong, it's about being wise—it's knowledge you learn
- To be motivated, you either change the situation or the way you think about the situation
" You cannot lose your motivation because you never owned it in the first place. "
" Motivation is not about being strong, it's about being wise. "
Setting Goals You'll Actually Enjoy Pursuing
The most common reason goals fail isn't lack of importance—it's lack of enjoyment. People abandon goals because they want to be the person who has completed it, not the person currently doing the work. Fishbach explains that intrinsically motivated goals, where you care about the journey as much as the destination, are what predict success. She illustrates this with examples of how we avoid investing in 'means' rather than ends, including a fascinating study where people valued a tote bag containing a book at half the price of just the book alone.
- Goals pull you forward, but the problem is setting goals you wish were already completed rather than goals you're excited to pursue
- Most goals are abandoned not because they're unimportant, but because people don't enjoy pursuing them
- Your enjoyment is what predicts whether you will stick with a goal, not its importance
- We don't like to invest in means—people bid $23 for a book but only $12 for a tote bag containing that same book
" Most goals are abandoned because we want to be the person who has done it, not the person who is currently doing it. "
" Your enjoyment is what predicts whether you will stick with a goal. "
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