Dr. Maya Shankar

We get a huge boost in motivation at the outset of working toward a goal.

And then we get a huge boost in motivation right when we're near the end, when we can see the finish line.

But there's actually a lull in motivation in that middle section.

And when you have a year-long goal, the middle section is months long.

When you have a weekly goal, the middle section is days long.

And so when you only have a couple of days, you're less likely to fall off the wagon, right?

And just give up on the goal altogether.

So that's number one, break big goals into small, manageable, achievable goals that will give you a feeling of accomplishment in the short term.

The second thing, and this is one of my absolute favorites, is called temptation bundling.

So this is when we pair, I think we might've talked about this one.

This is when we pair the challenging thing that we're trying to make progress on with an immediately...

rewarding thing that we otherwise wouldn't give ourselves access to.

So I kid you not, I clearly am a child.

When I was writing the book, I would have a little bowl of candy on my desk and I would allow myself to eat as much of these like little coffee chews as I wanted during my writing sessions.

But I was never allowed to have the coffee chews outside of that space.

Okay.

Or in other cases, I will save my favorite music to listen to when I'm working out, and I'm not allowed to listen to that music when I'm not working out.

And so what happens is that the challenging thing becomes mentally associated with this really positive, fun thing, and you start wanting to return to it with more frequency.

The last insight that I would share speaks to another funny quirk in the brain, which is around how we build memories of things in the past.

It turns out that when we reflect on an experience, not all moments are created equal.