Confident that you'll achieve your New Year's resolution?

Most people are. Only 12% succeed.¹

88% of New Year's resolutions fail.

Let's make this time different.

Gamble and wish for the best, or take the long-term approach and guarantee eventual success.

Develop The Skill of Accomplishment

Accomplishment is not one inspirational technique or burst of willpower away.

It's a skill, with lessons to practice and techniques to internalize.

The skills on this page have been tested by over 100,000 people across 103 scientific studies, to:

Accomplishment is hard. It has never in the history of human-kind ever been so unnatural.

Our brains weren't designed to resist fatty food or exercise because the doctor said so.

Luckily, we happen to be the most adaptable species in the galaxy. We can rewire our instinct-driven behavior into goal-driven behavior.

Done right, we can even make pursuing our goals enjoyable.

Let's take a look at the achievement equation. To hack it, we must first understand it.

Luck is uncontrollable and willpower requires too much effort, so let's put those aside.

↑Value, ↑Likelihood, ↓Delay, ↓Distractions, ↑Expertise → ↑Success

If you're not making the progress you want, one or more of those factors needs tweaking.

Let's get started.

1. Value

Obviously you care about your goal – otherwise, you wouldn't be reading this. But knowing your goal is important isn't enough. You've got to feel that it's important.

Our brain acts more on what it feels than on what it thinks. Let's not fight it.

We could try to control our emotions and develop indomitable willpower… but that's no fun.

There's an easier way. We can translate what we know into what we feel.

Energy

When you're tired or unhappy, the brain shifts towards short-term goals. A promotion years away may have once excited it, but bombard your body with fatigue or anxiety, and it will start to care much more about satisfying your instincts. On the flip side, when you're happy or energized, even the most grueling of tasks can seem enjoyable.

• ↑Energy & Mood
  • 1. Exercise,
  •  2. Consume Caffeine Intelligently,
  •  3. Listen To Music,
  •            4. Increase Your Positivity Ratio,
  •  5. Eat For Energy,
  •  6. Change Your Environment,
  •            7. Improve Your Sleep

Emotion Convincing

Scientists like to use stuffy language, calling it emotion regulation. I call it emotion convincing. Sometimes our heart needs a reminder or two for why it should care.

• ↑Emotion Convincing
  • 8. Implementation Intentions,
  •  9. Process Visualization,
  •  10. Internalize The Why

Social Power

The easiest way to reach success is to put yourself in a social situation where achievement is the only acceptable option. We care what other people think. Rather than pretending that we don't, let's use that to our advantage.

• ↑Social Power
  • 11. Join a Success Circle,
  •  12. Get Accountable,
  •  13. Choose Your Own D*mn Goals

2. Likelihood

We're all natural optimists, over-estimating our chances of success. That's often a good thing – if we didn't think our effort was going to make a difference, we wouldn't try.

You've got to make this year different. Not because there's anything wrong with you as you are, but because for every year that you don't make a change, you make your failure habit stronger, closing up the possibility of future change.

How much harder would you give this time a try if you thought you had a 100% chance of making it – of losing weight, getting published, or kicking your addiction?

100% is impossible, but you can do better than what you've been working with. You can increase your expectations of success.

• ↑Likelihood
  • 14. Kaizen,
  •  15. Outcome Visualization,
  •  16. Mental Contrasting

3. Delay

Our forefathers didn't have the luxury of worrying about retirement – of some uncertain event 30 years into the future. For them, every week was a challenge enough. They couldn't afford to spare any energy.

Now it's the other way around – those who invest do the best. But still, our natural inclination towards the present remains unchanged.

No surprise that school children are unmotivated – we adults often have difficulty motivating ourselves for rewards that lie just a few months away (e.g. cookie now vs. look good four months later); children are expected to train for adulthood that is years into the future? Absurd!

It's easier to bring our rewards closer to the present than to suppress our natural, short-term orientation.

• ↓Delay
  • 17. Chunk,
  •  18. Timebox,
  •  19. Create Artificial Rewards

4. Distraction

Value is relative. Growing up, my parents didn't allow me to watch TV or play video games. Reading and playing with the neighbors was a joy because compared to my next best options of studying or doing nothing, they were so much better.

If you want your kids to read, don't force them. Rather, setup their environment in such a way that reading becomes enjoyable – make it their best form of entertainment.

When I wanted to start eating healthy, I threw away all of the junk food in my home and paid others to shop for me (the candy was too tempting in person).

If you want to get work done on your computer, disconnect from the internet – deal with the distraction.

• ↓Distraction
  • 20. Mono-task,
  •  21. Destroy Distraction,
  •  22. Just Do It

5. Expertise

All the motivation in the world is useless if you're doing the wrong things. Most personal goals fail, but often because of lack of knowledge, not lack of motivation.

Most of what we read on the internet about dieting is worse than garbage – making it near impossible to keep off any of the weight that we manage to lose.

Pursuing your goal without building expertise is like gambling – maybe you'll get lucky and do the right things, maybe you won't.

A little effort upfront can save you dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of hours of unnecessary floundering later. Almost 4 out of every 5 small business owners fail. It's not because they're lazy.

• ↑Expertise
  • 23. Premortem,
  •  24. Read Up,
  •  25. Ask For Help,
  •  26. Track & Experiment

6. Cocktails

There are almost 15,000 words on this page, enough to fill a 30 page e-book. Overwhelming, I know.

The point of this article isn't for you to pick out a single technique and then go running. It's to transform the way you look at accomplishment from yes/no, success/failure into structured training, gradual experimentation, and consistent progress.

For that to happen, you have to know which combination of accomplishment sub-skills to deploy against each unique challenge. Then you've got to be able use them effectively. Over time, you'll develop those abilities.

Maybe you're already a super-achiever. Maybe not. Doesn't matter.

Accomplishment is a skill, with dozens of sub-components to be studied and trained. Level 10 or level 0, all of us have room for tremendous improvement.

To get started right away, I recommend trying out a few of my favorite cocktails.

• Cocktails
  • 27. Ulysses Contract,
  •  28. MCIIPV,
  •  29. EChunk,
  •  30. The Skill of Accomplishment

If you already have a goal in mind, consider which part of the achievement equation could use improvement. Is your reward too far out? Then jump to the ↓Delay section. Afraid your effort won't pay off? Jump to the ↑Likelihood section.

Let's get to it! Click below or keep on scrolling.

• ↑Value
  • ↑Energy & Mood
    • 1. Exercise,
    •  2. Consume Caffeine Intelligently,
    •  3. Listen To Music,
    •            4. Increase Your Positivity Ratio,
    •  5. Eat For Energy,
    •  6. Change Your Environment,
    •            7. Improve Your Sleep
  • ↑Emotion Convincing
    • 8. Implementation Intentions,
    •  9. Process Visualization,
    •  10. Internalize The Why
  • ↑Social Power
    • 11. Join a Success Circle,
    •  12. Get Accountable,
    •  13. Choose Your Own D*mn Goals

• ↑Likelihood
  • 14. Kaizen,
  •  15. Outcome Visualization,
  •  16. Mental Contrasting

• ↓Delay
  • 17. Chunk,
  •  18. Timebox,
  •  19. Create Artificial Rewards

• ↓Distraction
  • 20. Mono-task,
  •  21. Destroy Distraction,
  •  22. Just Do It

• ↑Expertise
  • 23. Premortem,
  •  24. Read Up,
  •  25. Ask For Help,
  •  26. Track & Experiment

• Cocktails
  • 27. Ulysses Contract,
  •  28. MCIIPV,
  •  29. EChunk,
  •  30. The Skill of Accomplishment

↑Energy & Mood → ↑Value → ↑Success

1. Exercise

Exercising regularly is one of the best things I've ever done for my productivity. The energy from just a few minutes of intense jogging can propel me throughout the day. I use to loath physical exercise. Now I'm a junkie – whenever I'm tired I go for a quick sprint or pull out some squats. 30 minutes later, I'm perked up and work is fun again.

I don't do it because I care much about my health. I do it for the energy and motivation it brings.

Why: Exercise reduces symptoms of fatigue, increases vigor, reduces stress, and may increase mood almost as effectively as the anti-depressant Zoloft. ^2,3,4,5 Exercise has been repeatedly shown to increase workplace performance.

In eight studies which implemented workplace exercise programs, burnout and anxiety were reduced and productivity and job satisfaction increased.⁶ Employees performed better on exercise than non-exercise days.⁷

Time Commitment: medium

For folks just getting started – walking is not exercise. It's better than sitting… but you'll only be getting a fraction of the productivity and mood gains.

At the same time, studies have shown that non-exercisers going harder than they are capable may make them feel worse – both physically and emotionally. The key is to self-select a challenge you think you are capable of handling; it is in those cases that participants have reported the greatest mood and energy improvements.³

Don't worry if you have to start really low. When I started training for my 8k over six months ago, all I could run was .2 miles before getting wiped out.

2. Consume Caffeine

Caffeine is a wonder drug – more than 90% of Americans take at least one hit a day. The few who don't are often under or over-sensitive, unable to access caffeine's benefits.

Why: Caffeine is awesome.¹³

Time Commitment: low

Studies have suggested that many habitual, heavy coffee drinkers (300mg+ per day) have lower mood and greater anxiety and irritability than non-consumers.^14,15,16 Because we quickly develop tolerance, much of caffeine's mood boost then comes from withdrawal alleviation.

Although the scientists are still debating the specifics, the underlying principle is clear – those who regularly consume large amounts of caffeine are doing it wrong.

Near all habitual caffeine, drinkers have developed tolerance – where one soda once sufficed, three cups of coffee are now required. The tolerance is only partial – although they may have lower baseline mood, their overall concentration will be still higher.¹⁶

But heavy drinker or not, by keeping in mind a few principles and exercising some self-control, you can maximize caffeine's mood and productivity-boosting potential:

1. In one study of habitual drinkers, consuming caffeine again after 4 to 6 hours had no overall impact on mood – the total quantity of caffeine and its resulting tolerance was too strong. On the other hand, those who waited 8 hours saw an increase in energy and relaxation and a much larger increase in cognitive performance.¹⁷ Other studies concur – less is more, even if it seems like less at first.
2. Don't drink before sleeping. Caffeine stays in our systems for five to ten hours. Although you may not have any trouble falling asleep, your sleep quality will be reduced, hurting your mood and energy levels.^18,19

Because I'm a slow metabolizer (drugs last in my system much longer than in normal people), my optimal dosing schedule is 100mg of caffeine and l-theanine once every other day first thing in the morning. Much more effective for me than twice or thrice daily consumption.

3. Listen to Music

The sweet sound of Lady Gaga or Britney Spears… what could possibly be more motivating?

Why: In the short-term, music is distracting. It has been shown to reduce reading comprehension, memory recall, and performance on a variety of other cognitive tasks.^{21,22,23,24,25} But still, music is awesome – it releases serotonin and dopamine, effortlessly increasing mood and motivation.²⁶

Time Commitment: low

Music is more distracting than it is motivating, which is why, on balance, it reduces short-term performance. However, because it increases mood and motivation, music makes work seem less demanding (perhaps even bearable pleasurable), extends the amount of time we can focus (often more important than having optimal performance), and makes boring tasks more tolerable (where it doesn't matter if our mental performance has declined – drudge work doesn't usually require peak intelligence).

Vocal music is more distracting than non-vocal music. Even if enjoyable, the brain must further split its attention to process the lyrics.²⁷

But don't switch to classical music just yet. What's more important is that you enjoy the music; otherwise, you won't find any of the benefits.³⁰

4. Increase Your Positivity Ratio

Make happiness an active priority – practice gratitude, do yoga, make more time for friends, exercise.

Why: One of the primary functions of positive emotion is to signal safety and satiety.

See what Barbara Fredrickson, the discoverer of the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotion, Has to say about increasing yout poditivity ratio.

“When there are few threats demanding intense, narrowed attention, positive emotions allow us to pursue our long-term interests. In our ancestors, transitory states of positive emotions led to behavior that may seem pointless or extravagant from the perspective of immediate survival, but that conferred serious advantages in the long term.”

When we are happy, short-term distractions become less biologically important, and therefore less psychologically alluring (e.g. fatty food and facebook become easier to resist).³¹

Happier people make more money (the happiness comes first), devote more energy to making their marriage successful, are more productive employees, and more.^{32, 33, 34, 35, 36}

Time Commitment: high

For me, happiness and goal achievement are a positive spiral – the more I achieve, the happier I am, and the happier I am, the more energy I have to achieve.

More on the power of positive emotion.

5. Eat For Energy

Don't skip breakfast and try to avoid large, carb-heavy lunches. I won't say more than that, anything else and I'll be treading into quasi-religious territory. Everyone has their own ‘true' beliefs (and for good reason, nutrition science is hard stuff).

Why: Without energy, work just isn't going to get done – low energy equals low motivation. My afternoons became a lot more productive once I stopped gorging on Indian food for lunch.

Time Commitment: medium

You don't need me to tell you how to improve your diet. You already know how. Just don't underestimate its impact on your productivity. Like I said with exercise when I do eat healthily, I don't do it because I care about my body, I do it because I want to be energetic and productive.

6. Change Your Environment

Go somewhere different. Now pursue your goal. If you're trying to get into an exercise habit, drive to a park; if you're trying to study for an exam, go to the library. Once you feel your motivation dropping, move somewhere else.

Why: As we become more and more comfortable in the same environment, our level of energy decreases – we feel safe and no longer need to be as alert. In which environment do you think you'd feel more motivated – sitting in your office, or sitting on top of a moving train?

Sitting on top of a moving train is probably too much, but we could often use a splash in the face. Moving to a new environment can give you just that, but without the cold punch.

Time Commitment: medium

When I have trouble motivating myself, I either go for a quick run or drive over to my local library. The change of environment gets me re-energized. After an hour, when my motivation has started falling low again, I'll go to the local cafe. After another hour, I might go to Barnes & Nobles.

Because of all the driving, I'm spending less time actually working, but the effort I do put in is of higher quality.

Every change of scenery replenishes my motivation.

7. Improve Your Sleep

It matters.

Why: 150 research studies confirm what you already knew – poor sleep impairs health, lowers mood, decreases life satisfaction, and cuts productivity.³⁷ For a laymen friendly review of the research, read this article: Lack of Sleep in the Workplace: What the Psychologist-Manager Should Know About Sleep.

Some highlights:
-Poor sleep costs the US economy between $16 and $136 billion a year in lost productivity.
-Routinely getting poor sleep (e.g. insomnia, less than 7 hours of sleep a night, drinking caffeine in the evening): slows response times, causes lapses of attention, reduces mental endurance, impairs learning, reduces willpower and goal commitment, and increases impulsivity.
-In a 2007 survey of 28,902 American workers, 38% reported feeling fatigued at work within the past 2 weeks.³⁸

Is that extra hour or two really worth it?

Time Commitment: high

I know it can be tough – I've been fighting with sleep problems my entire adult life. But by treating sleep like a skill, rather than a one-off problem to be shooed away, I've made slow but consistent progress.

P.S. For you dieters – poor sleep is correlated with future weight gain.³⁹

↑Emotion Convincing → ↑Value → ↑Success

8. Implementation Intentions

Write down or verbalize your response given a set of two to five triggers, in the form ‘when [trigger], I will [action]'. For example, if you're trying to lose weight:

1. ‘As soon as I come home from work, I will change clothes and then go for a 10-minute jog.'
2. ‘Whenever I am given unhealthy food, I will throw it into the garbage.'
3. ‘When I am hungry in-between meals, I will eat an apple.'

Why: Planning when and where to implement an action strengthens the mental association between a particular situation and its desired action.⁴⁵ For example, implementation intentions helped participants of one study to more regularly consume a vitamin – when they encountered certain triggers (e.g. finishing breakfast, getting home from work), their emotions were trigger in such a way to encourage consumption of the vitamin.⁴⁰

This skill has a strong track record, having been used to increase grades, increase consumption of fruits and vegetables, increase physical activity, and reduce alcohol consumption.^41,42,43,44

A review of 94 implementation intention studies showed a consistent result – it helps.⁴⁶

Time Commitment: low

Flossing regularly before going to sleep will form a subconscious trigger – making it easier and easier with time. This is why habits are so powerful. Implementation intentions helps form habits without the need to actually perform the actions, making it easier when time comes to actually do it.

9. Process Visualization

Visualize yourself in the process of completing the steps involved in your goal in such a way that leads to success. For example, if you wish to get good grades, vividly visualize yourself studying in a way that leads to your getting an A – visualize the locations that you will be studying at, you flipping through your notes, eliminating distractions, turning down your friend's offer to go partying, and so on.

Why: Process visualization creates two positive changes:

1) The process of mentally rehearsing the steps required to achieve a goal reduces the stress and anxiety that thinking about it generates – students are able to get themselves to more easily study after process visualization in part because the act of studying is no longer as aversive (“I visualized it, and it wasn't so bad”). As a result, they study longer and get better grades compared to those who do nothing special or use outcome visualization (4 more hours studying for an exam & a 9% higher grade).⁴⁹

2) Process visualization translates vague goals into concrete steps, taking the S in SMART goals a step further. Furthermore, the act of visualizing these steps convinces the brain that they are more do-able than previously thought. When the brain thinks its effort is more likely to pay off, motivation further increases. Those students who used process visualization were three times more likely to complete a school project by a self-selected deadline (as opposed to the usual last minute).⁴⁹

Time Commitment: low

Although process visualization easily makes up for the time commitment required, there is a technique that requires just a bit more effort, but is much more powerful.

10. Internalize The Why

Write down three to ten positive changes that will occur if you successfully complete your goal. Now list three to ten negative aspects of reality which will not change if you do not successfully complete your goal.

Why: We can convince our subconscious that a goal is more important than it previously thought by bringing to conscious awareness particular reasons, positive or negative, why it should devote more of its scarce energy towards that pursuit. The more emotionally evocative the reason the better.

If you cannot immediately and without effort name five to ten reasons why you are pursuing a particular goal, you have yet to internalize your motivations for pursuing it. The more internalized a motivation, the more powerful it becomes.⁵⁵

Time Commitment: medium

To maximize the effectiveness of this skill, re-read your reasons for pursuing your goal until you can effortlessly recall them from memory. At that point, verbalize that list in your head (or out-loud if you're alone or not self-conscious) whenever you need a boost of motivation.

↑Social Power → ↑Value → ↑Success

11. Join a Success Circle

Join a physical or virtual community of people who are successfully pursuing the same goal(s) as you.

Why: We are social creatures:

1. 1. We subconsciously value higher those goals actively pursued by others, even strangers.^50,51,52
   2. The higher the group standard, the greater the loss of status when you underperform.⁵¹ Loss of status is one of the most powerful motivators in the world.

Time Commitment: medium

Asian American immigrants are not smarter than you – they just get whipped when they don't get A's.

12. Get Accountable

Find someone else who is trying to achieve a goal. If it's the same goal, that's even better. A few times a month, check-in with each other. Discuss progress. If there's been no progress, discuss roadblocks and potential countermeasures.

Don't find a nagging partner, but someone who can help you stay true to your own intentions.

Why: It's not so embarrassing to make excuses to ourselves when we fail. But once we've made a public commitment to someone we respect, those flimsy excuses no longer hold up as well. Within cooperative environments, we have a strong instinct to appear consistent and reliable – of doing what we said we'd do.^53,54

Time Commitment: medium

A wise life coach once said to me that the most valuable service she provided was accountability. Lucky for us, we don't need to pay $80 an hour to get that service – all we need is a willing friend or family member.

7 Benefits of Accountability

13. Choose Your Own D*mn Goals

Excuse my language, but I've got a long personal history of relentlessly pursuing goals not of my own choosing. These goals were self-initiated, it's not as though someone else explicitly told me to pursue them. But just as social pressure can be a powerful tool for promoting goal achievement, it can be a powerful tool for goal dissonance – for pitting one part of our self against another.

So ask yourself – “am I pursuing this goal because I really want to?, because it matches with my broad goals in life and is enjoyable? or because social pressure is making me feel insecure?”

Why: There's nothing wrong with losing weight because you're insecure about your appearance – the world would be a disgusting place (probably) if no one showered, everyone weighed over 500 pounds, and walked around naked.

The problem is that the further the goal from your underlying values and desires, the more difficult it becomes to generate and sustain motivation. Just as important, the further your goal from your core desires, the smaller the emotional benefits from making progress on and completing it.^55,58

Time Commitment: high

One reason work is often such a chore is because we have little intrinsic motivation – we do it for the money. Sadly, money is a necessity.

Many of our goals are not. They should be relentlessly discarded and selectively pursued – after all, our time is limited. Better to spend it on things we actually care about.

↑Likelihood → ↑Success

14. Kaizen

Make the task so small that you cannot fail. If your goal is to start a flossing habit, make the task to floss just one tooth. If your goal is to exercise 60 minutes a week, make the task to go for a 30 second jog.

Once you've got step one under control, move on to step two – floss two teeth or go for a 60 second jog.

Why: Small continuous improvement has four advantages: low risk, re-commitment, positive spirals, and strong foundations.

Time Commitment: low

I used Kaizen to help build my meditation and running habits. For the first few months, I only ran for a few minutes. Although I knew that a few minutes was not enough to get my body in shape, I was building the foundations for a running habit. A few months later I was able to run an 8k.

Likewise with meditation. I currently only meditate for 5 minutes a day. It's not much, but it's much better than before when I would meditate for 30 minutes one day and then 0 minutes for the next week. Because 5 minutes is so easy, I do it. I'm building a foundation for later.

15. Outcome Visualization

Visualize completion of a desired goal – you've finally lost that weight, completed that project, developed a meditation habit. The more vivid, the better. Activate multiple senses if you can.

Why: By making a desired future appear so easily in our mind's eye, our expectation of success increases – generating motivation. Our reward system thinks that because we were able to so easily imagine the desired future, it must be more likely to come true than we previously thought.⁷³ When we think our effort is more likely to payout, we get more motivated.

Outcome visualization has been shown to increase goal commitment, increase music and sports performance, help with weight loss, and more.^65,66,67,68 There's a reason you've heard about visualization so many times already. But it's not all smiles.

Time Commitment: low

Some studies have shown outcome visualization be harmful, causing participants to take longer to establish a romantic relationship, get a good job, and recover from surgery.⁶⁹ Others have shown that in many circumstances, it is ineffective.⁷⁰

So don't actually use positive visualization!

We've got stronger, more reliable tools now, like process visualization, mental contrasting, implementation intentions, and MCIIPV.

16. Mental Contrasting

Visualize completion of the desired goal – you've finally lost that weight, completed that project, developed a meditation habit. Hone in on the most positive aspect of having made the change.

Now visualize three to five aspects of your present reality that stand in the way of making that change come true, like being distracted, having no time, or feeling unmotivated.

Why: Mental contrasting is outcome visualization on steroids – it takes away much of the risk while significantly increasing the potential upside, helping to increase grades, manage weight, and quit bad habits.

Time Commitment: low

Mental contrasting is more effective than positive visualization alone because it draws a clear connection between the desired future and the obstacles that stand in the way. In other words, it causes the brain to think – if I can mobilize the energy to conquer these specific, present challenges, I can make real my desired future.

Mental contrasting is effective in translating temporary motivation into a long-term commitment, but only when the brain is convinced. When expectations are low, mental contrasting has been shown to reduce goal commitment – it makes even more clear to the brain how out-of-reach the visualized future is (because of how large the visualized obstacles are).⁷⁹

That's a good thing – it's good to give up on unrealistic goals from the get-go. Then attention can be focused on goals more likely to be achieved. This doesn't mean giving up on large dreams – only on breaking them up into smaller, more digestible pieces.

Learn more about mental contrasting.

↓Delay → ↑Success

17. Chunk

Break up your goal into smaller pieces. Commit to achieving just the first piece. After completion, commit to achieving the second piece, and so on.

Why: One of the principal complaints against the kaizen technique is that it is too slow. Chunking is faster – rather than slowly working up to the final pace (jogging 30 seconds –> jog 3 minutes –> jogging 30 minutes), the same pace is maintained throughout the whole process, while the focus is on the actual outcome (lose 1 pound –> lose another pound –> eventually lose enough pounds to meet overall goal).

Breaking up a goal into smaller pieces and re-committing for each piece has the advantage of making it more digestible, creating shorter deadlines, and forcing re-commitment.

Time Commitment: low

Writing this article has taken me almost 100 hours. Finding the motivation to complete such a gargantuan task can often be difficult: ‘will anyone even read it?', ‘why am I putting in so much effort?', and ‘I can't believe how much more I've got left to do!'.

To maintain my motivation, I used a combination of the skills introduced on this page, prominent of which was chunking.

18. Timebox

Split your goal into subtasks which can be completed within a few minutes to a few hours. Select one subtask, estimate the amount of time required to complete it, and multiply by 1.3 (we tend to chronically underestimate how long things will take to finish). Now schedule this time into your calendar, or start immediately and use a timer.

Once time is up, never work on the subtask again (or less extreme, for another 7 to 30 days).

Why: The further away a reward, the less valuable it becomes.⁸⁰ Quintessential procrastination – more than 80% of college students wait until right before the deadline to get serious. By creating artificial deadlines, we can focus our effort, days or weeks before the actual deadline.⁸¹

Time Commitment: low

The problem is that unless we actually believe our self-threat to never again work on the subtask, the artificial deadline won't work. The artificial deadline must become real.

So pick a sub-task which is important but not critical – one where perfection isn't necessary. Don't use timeboxing half-heartedly, if you set deadlines and then repeatedly miss them, you'll be lowering your self-credibility.

Difficult but powerful.

19. Create Artificial Rewards

After making difficult progress on your goal, reward yourself. For example, whenever I beat one of my running records, I drink a bear afterwards.

Why: The ultimate reward for your goal could be months or years away. By providing more immediate rewards, we can also provide more immediate motivation. Just as important, by rewarding only high-effort, you can develop your learned industriousness.⁸²

Time Commitment: medium

Using extrinsic motivators can be dangerous. It can:

1) Displace intrinsic motivators, causing pursuit of the goal to become less enjoyable over time (e.g. giving a bonus to the programmer who worked overtime for fun backfires and causes him to slowly find over time less and less enjoyable).^84,85

2) Reinforce the wrong behavior (e.g. when you have a beer after exercising, regardless of how much time you put in, you will be more likely to exercise, but less likely to have high-effort sessions; when CEO's are rewarded for short-term firm profitability, they are significantly more likely to take dangerous risks *cough cough* financial crisis).⁸⁶

3) Completely backfire (e.g. if you're trying to lose weight, and you reward yourself with ice-cream after exercising, you may end up gaining rather than losing weight).

For best results, use extrinsic motivators in moderation, and especially after applying high-effort. When possible, reward effort rather than results.

One of the most dangerous extrinsic motivators? Tests and report cards. They often turn the love of learning into hate of all things related to education.

155 Ways to Reward Yourself

↓Distractions → ↑Success

20. Mono-task

Focus single-mindedly on the task at hand.

If your goal is to lose weight, stop working/reading/etc… while eating lunch. Focus exclusively on the food – how it tastes, how full you are, and so on.

If your goal is to write chapter 1 of your long-overdue novel, turn off your TV and internet connection – then get writing.

Why: Our desire for fatty, sugary food is vestigial – thousands of years ago when food was scare that desire kept us alive. Now it gives us heart attacks. Likewise, our desire for information is vestigial – thousands of years ago when information was scarce, the more we knew the better. Now, in an endless sea of information (e-mail, facebook, news, youtube, etc…), it keeps us from focusing on the things that really matter.

Time Commitment: medium

Sometimes multitasking is the price we pay for living in the modern world – some e-mails just can't wait.⁸⁷ Other times, the task at hand is so aversive that without something else to keep us distracted, it just isn't getting done (e.g. listening to music while exercising). But in many other cases, multitasking is biology gone wrong.

With respect to control over attention, the mental state of a multi-tasker may be similar to that of a depressed person.⁹⁰

21. Destroy Distractions

Identify your largest distractions – cookies in the pantry if you're trying to lose weight or internet access if you're trying to write a book, and destroy it. Throw out the cookies; turn off your internet modem.

Why: It is usually easier to destroy a distraction than to resist it, as destruction is one-off and preemptive.

Time Commitment: medium

One of the two reasons why talk of willpower is absent from this article is because I believe it's more productive and enjoyable to be strategic (e.g. destroy distraction), than to perpetually fight against yourself (willpower).

22. Just Do It

The start is often the hardest part. So just do it. Stop all of your current activity. Pause. Then start. Commit to working on your goal for just 1 minute.

Why: Being in the moment of pursuing your goal can sometimes be pleasurable. Yet the act of starting pursuit almost always seems highly aversive.

For example, if you were to compare the pleasure of writing with the pleasure of procrastinating (e.g. reading the news), writing would almost always come out on top for me. Yet I find I need to motivate myself to stop reading and start writing. This is happening because of emotional baggage, hyperbolic discounting, and terrible affective forecasting.

Time Commitment: low

Logically knowing that pursuing your goal may not be as bad as it feels can help give you the push you need.

Stopping all of your current activity and pausing can help deal with hyperbolic discounting.

Just committing to work for 1 minute can help deal with the aversiveness of the task (“I'll only be doing it for a minute, so it won't be so bad”).

Hopefully, you'll find that 1 minute becomes 15, 30, 60 or more minutes. It often does with me.

↑Expertise → ↑Success

23. Premortem

Imagine that it's a few months from now and the worst has happened – your most important goal lies unfulfilled. Within this hypothetical reality, ask yourself what happened – “where did I go wrong?” Then develop and deploy specific counter-measures to avert that horrid future.

Why: “Projects fail at a spectacular rate.”¹⁰⁰

Wise words, Harvard. They're talking about corporate projects – for example, some 70%+ of IT projects fall behind schedule, under deliver, or outright fail. The same applies with personal projects – the majority of New Year's resolutions go uncompleted.

Without taking a cold, hard look at reality, that's unlikely to change.

“Why do most projects fail? Are we specifically doing things to address those reasons?” Asking those questions is a first step, and it's effective.

Moving on to “Why did my project fail?” next increases the specificity, making the counter-measures more effective. Sadly, these questions usually go unasked.

Time Commitment: < 1 hour, but sometimes longer

I've already started work on a marriage premortem, even though I'm single at the moment (ladies, feel free to e-mail me your number). It's no use ignoring the divorce statistics – there will be nothing special about my marriage until I specifically make it so.

For each of my major life goals, I have completed a premortem. If you're already failed once, you're in luck – you can complete a post-mortem. Given that events have already come to pass, no hypothesizing required.

24. Ask For Help

Make an appointment with a professional or talk to a few winners.

Why: Can you imagine trying to become a piano virtuoso without taking lessons? I can't. Then why do you try to lose weight without talking to a nutritionist or trainer?

Because it's easier to lose weight than to learn piano, sure. But so much easier that you've been able to reach success on your own?

Professionals provide accountability. It's also their job to know what works and what doesn't, specifically for you.

Time Commitment: medium

The role of luck in our culture is too far downplayed. That's dangerous because it means that many people who are giving advice shouldn't be (perhaps me? :)). In the gym, we may try to emulate the routines of the most ripped out hunk. Sadly, their routine may be no better than one picked randomly. Because of their genetics, any routine may have gotten them ripped.

It's common practice in business school to study successful businesses and draw generalized lessons from them.

That's dangerous.

25. Read Up

Go to amazon.com, your library, or your bookstore and pick out at least three books about the goal you are trying to achieve. Make sure the books provide different perspectives – you don't want three books from the same author or 3 books pushing the same ideas.

Why: You're not the first person to try to quit smoking, lose weight, or start a business. Millions have before you. Many offer to share their wisdom and experience – all you need do in order to gain access is borrow or purchase their books.

Time Commitment: high

More than a few times in my life I've managed to quickly change failure into success or even avert failure altogether, all by pickup up and digesting a few quality books. Sadly, books don't hold all the answer. That's why we've got to track & experiment.

26. Track & Experiment

Select one easily measurable marker of success. If you're trying to lose weight, measure your weight at the end of every week; if you're trying to quit smoking, measure the number of cigarettes you smoke each day. Now create an achievement strategy (e.g. I will exercise three times a week, and use mental contrasting and social accountability to help motivate me).

Measure your results. Make some new changes (e.g. consume a vitamin supplement). Measure your results. Repeat until you're satisfied with your trajectory.

Why: If we humans were all the same, there would be no need to experiment. We could do whatever the blog or book recommended and be guaranteed of success. Because we're so different; however, we have to work incrementally to increase our understanding of our brain and body – of what works and what doesn't.

Time Commitment: medium

Tracking progress can also help maintain and focus motivation – we see progress and know it's working, and because we're tracking something quantifiable, we also have a more specific goal to work towards (e.g. rather than trying to ‘improve your smoking habit', you are trying to ‘decrease consumption by 5%').

Cocktails

27. Ulysses Contract

Go to stickk.com, select an anti-charity, goal, referee, and dollar amount.

For example, two months ago I funded an escrow account with $200. If I bailed on running the Philadelphia 8k, the money would go to the NRA. I ran the 8k, so a friend, my referee, gave me the money back.

Why: Stickk.com combines two powerful motivators – social pressure and loss aversion.^101,102

Social pressure is motivating because we don't want to look lazy and inconsistent in-front of our friends. Loss aversion is motivating because we fight harder to keep what we have than to get more of it.

Said differently – the amount of sadness and anger you would feel if you were robbed of $5,000 would be much greater than the happiness and joy from randomly winning $5,000.

Read Thinking Fast And Slow for a review of this and other fun quirks of human decision making.

Time Commitment: medium

Last week I funded an escrow account with $500. If I don't finish my first book within the next four months, the money will go to the NRA. I really don't want to lose $500. I really, really don't want the NRA to have an extra $500 to spend. Considering my lack of funds and stance on gun control, I expect to be highly motivated as I get closer to the deadline.

Support the NRA? No problem – stickk offers a range of anti-charities.

Expect your success rate to double once you put money on the line.

28. MCIIPV

MCIIPV = Mental Contrasting (MC) + Implementation Intentions (II) + Process Visualization (PV)

1. Visualize completion of the desired goal – you've finally lost that weight, completed that project, developed a meditation habit. Hone in on the most positive aspect of having made the change.

Now visualize two to four aspects of your present reality that stand in the way of making that change come true, like being distracted, feeling tempted, or binge-like behavior.

2. Write down or verbalize an implementation intention for each of the obstacles you identified, in the form ‘when [trigger], I will [action]‘. For example,:

1. ‘When I feel distracted, I will move to a quiet space.’
2. ‘When I feel tempted, I will internally repeat to myself the value of what I'm trying to accomplish.’
3. ‘After I start to binge, I will remind myself that the whole day has not yet been wasted. I will create an easily achievable chunk.’

3. Visualize yourself encountering each of those obstacles and then taking the responsibility that you indicated in the previous step. The more sensory detail, the better.

Why: Mental contrasting, implementation intentions and process visualization are each individually effective. According to a promising new line of study, they become even more effective when used together.

Over 7 days, implementation intentions alone increased fruit consumption by 75%. Combined with process visualization, it increases fruit consumption by 115%.⁴²

Used separately, both implementation intentions and mental contrasting reduced calorie consumption. Combined, they caused participants to consume 160 fewer calories per day for a week.¹⁰³

In another study, participants who used mental contrasting combined with implementation intentions just once completed 60% more PSAT practice questions during their summer break.⁴¹

Time Commitment: low

Because this cocktail is so easy to use, takes little time, and is yet still so powerful, I use it frequently.

29. EChunk

Decide on and commit to immediately completing a chunk. Now go for a quick sprint or jog. Come back and complete the chunk. Repeat as many times as desired.

Why: Chunking lowers the amount of energy required to make progress on a goal, as it makes the work more digestible and the deadline more immediate. Going for a quick jog or sprint provides the necessary energy.

Time Commitment: medium

I often wish my body could handle more frequent exercise so that I could utilize this cocktail more often.

30. The Skill of Accomplishment

Accomplishment is a skill. Lacking motivation? Do you know why?

Do you know which part of the motivation equation needs tweaking?

Is it low value? Do you not care enough?
Is it low likelihood? Do you think you don't have a chance of making it?
Is it high delay? Is the reward too far out into the future?
Is it high distraction? Too much competing for your attention?
Is it low expertise? Motivated but still stumbling?

To be able to identify the problem as well as a possible solution is the final but most important skill – the skill of accomplishment.

The gamble of accomplishment is to hope that during those few critical moments of success or failure, the necessary willpower will auto-magically appear.

The skill of accomplishment is to prepare in advance.

The gamble of accomplishment is to put self-esteem first, pushing responsibility for failure onto others or lack of effort.

The skill of accomplishment is to make incremental progress, making sure that from each failure comes a lesson learned and skill further trained.

The skill of accomplishment is to get your goal done.
Ready, set, start!

Did I miss an important skill? Have a useful story to share? Know which skills you're going to use to make this year a success? Please, share below!