Ayelet Fishbach

We are highly motivated at the beginning.

We want to reach our goal and we want to do it right.

Over time, our motivation declines as we lose steam.

To the extent that our goal has a clear end point, as in the case of graduating with a diploma, our motivation will pick up again toward the end.

In one experiment, Rima Tuatileri and I found that people literally cut corners in the middle of a project.

We handed our participants a pair of scissors and asked them to cut out several identical shapes with many corners.

They cut through more corners in the middle of the task.

The solution?

Keep meals short.

A weekly healthy eating goal is better than a monthly eating healthy goal as it offers fewer days to cheat on your diet.

It's hard to learn from feedback, especially negative ones.

Emotionally, failures bruises the ego.

We tune out missing the information feedback offers.

Cognitively, people also struggle.

The information in negative feedback is less direct than the information in positive feedback, whereas success points us to a winning strategy.

For failure, people need to infer what not to do.

To increase learning from negative feedback, try giving advice to others who might be struggling with a similar problem.

Lawrence Chris Winkler, Angela Duckworth, and I found that when students, job seekers, and overweight individuals gave others advice on how to succeed in studying, finding a job, and eating healthily, they were more motivated to follow through.

Support intrinsic motivation.

You're intrinsically motivated when you pursue an activity that feels like an end in itself.