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Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals Paperback – December 27, 2011
Heidi Grant Halvorson Ph.D. (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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• Set a goal to pursue even in the face of adversity
• Build willpower, which can be strengthened like a muscle
• Avoid the kind of positive thinking that makes people fail
Whether you want to motivate your kids, your employees, or just yourself, Succeed unlocks the secrets of achievement, and shows you how to create new possibilities in every area of your life.
- Print length304 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPlume
- Publication dateDecember 27, 2011
- Dimensions5.26 x 0.65 x 8 inches
- ISBN-100452297710
- ISBN-13978-0452297715
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Both brilliant and practical, entertaining and rigorous."—Edward Hallowell, M.D., author of Married to Distraction
"If you have goals, then you should read this book. If you manage others or are in a position to help others achieve their goals, then you have to read this book! It's filled with fascinating studies revealing the secrets of success."—Peter Bregman, CEO of Bregman Partners, Harvard Business Review blogger, and author of 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done
"Strategies people can utilize to help themselves achieve success."—CareerBuilder
"Halvorson makes academic studies palatable by writing with clarity and interspersing personal anecdotes along the way."—Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Dr. Grant Halvorson is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and was recently elected to the highly selective Society for Experimental Social Psychology. She received her PhD from Columbia University working with Carol Dweck (bestselling author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success), and her BA in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Why do we fail to reach our goals? Whether it's wanting to impress our bosses, find a loving relationship, straighten out our finances, or take better care of ourselveswe all feel that there is at least one part of our lives that is in real need of improvement. (And, in reality, it's usually more than just one part.) We want to do better, we even try to do better, but somehow we fall short or miss the marksometimes over and over again. So we go looking for something to blame for our failures, and most of the time we blame ourselves. We feel like we just don't have what it takeswhatever that isto reach our goals. And we could not be more wrong.
As a social psychologist, I've spent years studying achievement. I've carefully observed thousands of research participants pursue goals at work, in the classroom, on the playing field, and in my own laboratory. I've asked people to fill out weeks of daily diary reports, telling me all about the goals they pursue in their everyday lives. I've reviewed hundreds and hundreds of studies on goals and motivation. And I've come to a few conclusions, two of which I'll share with you now.
Most of us blame our failures on the wrong things. Even very smart, accomplished people don't understand why they succeed or fail. Before I started studying this for a living, my intuitions about achievement were no better than anyone else's. I thought that I was good at school and disastrous at sports because I was born that way. I wasn'tactually, no one is simply "born that way." I had a lot to learn.
Another conclusion I've reached after all these years of studying achievement is that anyone can be more successful at reaching his or her goals. Anyone can. I really can't emphasize that enough. But the first step is to put aside your beliefs about why you've succeeded or failed in the past, because they are probably wrong. And the second step is to read this book.
You may not be aware that the government keeps track of this, but on its website www.USA.gov, you can find a list of the most popular perennial New Year's resolutions Americans make. On that list, you probably won't be surprised to find both "lose weight" and "quit smoking." Every January, millions of peopleand like me, you may be one of themhave set one of these two goals for themselves, vowing that this is the year that they will finally get healthy, fit into their skinny jeans, or stop spending a small fortune on cigarettes.
According to the latest reports issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), two out of three Americans are overweight, and one in three is obese. The majority of these individuals would very much prefer to weigh less. Overweight individuals not only grapple with an increased susceptibility to heart disease and diabetes, but they contend with the self-esteem-crushing consequences of being heavy in a society in which thin is in. And yet, despite an abundance of diet books and plans, and a very real and powerful desire to be slim, relatively few people who set out to lose weight actually manage to lose it and keep it off long-term. We're not getting any thinner, and our skinny jeans are still waiting for us in our closets.
The CDC also keeps track of smokerstoday, roughly one in five adult Americans smoke. In its surveys, seven out of ten smokers reported that they wanted to quit smoking completely, and nearly half of those who wanted to quit (over 19 million) had stopped smoking for at least one day in the previous twelve months in an attempt to kick the habit. Only about 3 million manage to make it lastthat means that about 85 percent of the people who want to quit, and have actually set themselves the goal of quitting, fail. In spite of all the public awareness of the serious risks to one's health, nearly half a million Americans die every year from smoking-related illnesses. So if you're a smoker and you fail to quit smoking, you may well die as a result of it. And the 85 percent of people who try to quit and fail each year know it.
So, why the high failure rates? It's obviously not that the many who try to lose weight or quit smoking aren't motivated. There aren't many incentives more powerful than knowing "this could kill you." Why then do people fail, over and over again, to achieve goals that are vital to their well-being? The most common answer you'll hear, and probably the one you were thinking when I asked that question, is that it's about willpower. And by "willpower," I mean some innate quality of inner strength that allows those who have it to successfully avoid temptation. Most people believe that it's fundamentally a character issue. Some people have willpower (the thin, nonsmokersand we admire them for it). Others don't, and we judge them accordingly. Those who don't are simply weaker, less successful people, with less admirable character traits.
Interestingly, that's not only how we describe the failures of othersit's also how we describe our own shortcomings. Countless times I've heard colleagues, students, and friends talk about how they "just can't stop" smoking, "just can't resist" the dessert cart, "just can't get going" on a difficult project. And once you've decided you just don't have the willpower to lose weight or quit smoking or stop procrastinating, why bother trying? What hope is there for you?
Well, the answer is that there is actually plenty of hope for you, because it turns out that willpower is not what you think it is. And it might be helpful to use a less lofty term for it, because what we are really talking about here is plain old self-control. Self-control is the ability to guide your actions in pursuit of a goalto persevere and stay on course, despite temptations, distractions, and the demands of competing goals. It's really, really importantone of the critical elements necessary for achieving your goals that I'll be talking a lot about in this book. But it doesn't work the way you think it does.
Successful People and the Paradox of Self-Control
First of all, it's simply not the case that some people have it and others don't. If that were true, then you'd expect all the people in the world to break down very clearly into "winners" and "losers." Because they are in possession of the mighty power of self-control, successful people would be successful all the time, winning at everything they do. And unsuccessful people, the ones utterly lacking in this critical ability, would pretty much stink at everything they tried. Why, without any self-control, these people would find it nearly impossible just to get out of bed in the morning!
It's obvious that none of that is actually true. Winners don't win at everything, and no one is so lacking in self-control that they can't accomplish anything. It's true that some people may have more self-control than others, but everyone has some. And as it turns out, even people with a lot of self-control sometimes run out. To vividly illustrate this point, all you need to do is think about all the very successful peoplepeople who have risen to the very top of their gamewho have struggled publicly with one of these two difficult New Year's resolutions.
Celebrities who have talked openly about their many attempts to lose weight and keep it off include Grammy-winning musicians (Janet Jackson, Wynonna Judd) and Oscar or Emmy-winning actors (Oprah Winfrey, Roseanne Barr, Kirstie Alley, Rosie O'Donnell, Elizabeth Taylor). As you've probably noticed in the checkout aisle, popular magazines are constantly splashing photos of these and other well-known faces on their covers. Sometimes, the celebrity proudly displays a slimmed-down body that is the hard-earned result of a healthy diet and exercise. At other times, the photo reveals the consequences of a return to bad habits, along with some very unkind comments. (If you're wondering why I listed only women celebrities, it's not because successful men don't struggle with their weight, too. Women are simply more likely to talk publicly about it.)
This is probably a good time to point out that while we do sometimes fail to reach our goals because we don't know what we need to do to reach them, it's more often the case that we know exactly what needs to happen, and still we fail. Everyone knows that eating less and exercising more will help you lose weight. But knowing is one thing, and actually doing it is another thing entirely. Many of us can look at our own struggles with whatever it may be and see that very clearlywhether it's weight loss, quitting smoking, realizing our potential at school or work, repairing (or staying out of ) dysfunctional relationships. We seem to make the same mistakes over and over again, even though we feel we know bettereven when failing to reach our goal subjects us to unpleasant, often cruel public scrutiny.
Speaking of public scrutiny, there is perhaps no better example of how a very successful person can have a tough time conquering his New Year's resolutions than our current president and his on-again, off-again battle to quit smoking. In February 2007, then senator Obama told the Chicago Tribune that he had resolved to quit smoking once and for all.
I've quit periodically over the last several years. I've got an ironclad demand from my wife that in the stresses of the campaign I don't succumb.
It didn't last. President-elect Obama told Tom Brokaw in late 2008 that he had stopped, but that "there are times when I've fallen off the wagon." As the New York Times reported in December 2008, "his good-humored waffling in various interviews about smoking made it plain that Mr. Obama, like many who have vowed to quit at this time of year, had not truly done so." There's really no way of knowing if or when the president kicks his habithis staff doesn't discuss it, and he's not likely to be caught smoking on the White House lawn. I certainly hope he has quit; but it would hardly be surprising if he hasn't, given that it can take smokers as many as ten or more attempts before they finally quit for good.
Does President Obama lack self-control? Hardly. Barack Obama worked his way up from relatively modest beginnings to become arguably the most powerful man in the world. His meteoric rise from community organizer to Harvard Law Review president, state senator, U.S. senator, and finally president of the United States would be worthy of admiration were he the son of well-connected, New England bluebloods. But he isn'the's the mixed-race child of a broken home and a family of average means, with no particular advantages other than his clearly extraordinary intelligence and determination. Even if you're not a fan, you've got to admit that this is a guy who knows something about reaching goals.
All the individuals I've mentioned have known extraordinary success. Many have overcome nearly insurmountable obstacles and adversity in order to achieve what they've achieved. Countless children dream of one day becoming an award-winning artist or a powerful world leader. Very few actually do it. No one achieves that kind of success without possessing a lot of self-control. Achieving even ordinary, garden-variety successes requires plenty of self-control. Think back to the achievements in your own lifethe ones you are most proud of. I'll bet you needed to work hard, persist despite difficulty, and stay focused, when it would have been much easier for you to just relax and not bother. You needed to avoid temptation, when it would have been more fun to give in. And you probably needed to be critical and honest with yourself, when it would have been far more pleasant to just let yourself believe that you were awesome and needed no improvements. Each of those aspects of reaching a goal requires self-control. Undoubtedly, someone like President Obama is in possession of an extraordinary capacity for self-control. But the president has repeatedly quit smoking only to start up again. How can that make sense?
What Self-Control Is Really Like
Actually, it makes perfect sense if you understand the true nature of self-control. And recently, in light of some very interesting research findings, psychologists have come to understand that the capacity for self-control is very much like a muscle. That's rightlike a bicep or tricep. I know that sounds odd, but let me explain.
Like a muscle, self-control can vary in its strengthnot only from person to person, but from moment to moment. Even well-developed biceps sometimes get tired, and so too does your self-control muscle. In one of the earliest tests of this theory of self-control strength (or self-regulatory strength, as it is sometimes called), Roy Baumeister and his colleagues presented very hungry college students with a bowl of chocolates and a bowl of radishes.
Both bowls were placed on a table in front of each student, who was then left alone to stare at the bowls. Some of the students were asked to eat two or three of the radishes during their alone time, and to not eat any of the chocolates. Others (the lucky ones) were asked to eat two or three chocolates, while avoiding the radishes. Compared to the chocolate eaters, the radish eaters should have had to use up a fair amount of self-control. It's hard enough for most people to eat a raw radish, or to not eat readily available chocolatesjust imagine doing both.
Next, to see how much self-control the students in each group had used up, Baumeister gave them each a puzzle to work on. The puzzle was difficultactually, it was unsolvablebut what interested Baumeister was how long the students would work on it before giving up. As the "muscle" theory would predict, he found that the radish eaters gave up much faster than the chocolate eaters. They even reported feeling more tired afterward.
So how does this relate to you and me, and to situations that don't necessarily involve radishes? Think of it this wayif you've just finished working out, chances are your muscles will be tired, and you'll have sapped some of the strength you started with when you arrived at the gym. If you've just finished doing something that requires a lot of self-control (like producing a television show or leading the free world), you've probably spent a lot of your self-control strength as well. Recent research shows that even everyday actions like making a decision or trying to make a good impression can sap this valuable resource. People who are very successful in one or more areas of their life are successful precisely because that's where they devote the bulk of their capacity for self-control. When you deal with a lot of stress all day, no matter who you are, you may find yourself depleted and vulnerable to goal failure.
In an article in O magazine, Oprah concludes a discussion of her most recent weight gain by observing:
What I've learned this year is that my weight issue isn't about eating less or working out harder…; It's about my life being out of balance, with too much work and not enough play, not enough time to calm down. I let the well run dry.
I think that last remark is particularly insightful and right on the money. When you tax it too much, the well of self-control will certainly run dry.
What You Can Do about It
So perhaps now you're thinking, "Okay, my failure to lose weight isn't because I lack willpower in general, but because I've spent it all on other important goals, like succeeding at work. Great. How does that help me, exactly?" Fair enough. It helps you because, if you understand the kind of thing self-control is, you can plan accordingly. This brings us to another way in which self-control is like a musclenamely, that if you rest it for a while, you get your strength back. Depletion is only temporary, and you are most vulnerable immediately after you've used up your self-control reserves. Did you ever notice how dealing with a temptation seems to get easier over time? It may feel like torture to forgo that dessert or cigarette, or to think about starting work on that project you've been dreading, but it doesn't keep torturing you quite so much as time passes. If you can get past that moment when your self-control is nearly spent and give it time to bounce back, you're probably going to be just fine.
There are other ways around this problem, too. A lack of self-control strength can sometimes be overcome with well-chosen incentives or rewards. Psychologists Mark Muraven and Elisaveta Slessareva told students participating in a study at Case Western Reserve University to watch a five-minute video clip of Robin Williams performing a particularly funny piece of stand-up. Half of the students were told that they would be under observation and were instructed not to laugh or smile while watching the video. This took a lot of self-control (it was a very funny clip), and it sapped their willpower resources. To demonstrate this depletion, all of the students were then given a cup of orange Kool-Aid to drinkexcept instead of using sugar, the experimenters made it with vinegar. It was unpleasant, though drinkable if you forced yourself. If you've ever psyched yourself up to swallow cold medicine, you know that it's an act that requires significant self-control, but it's doable.
Muraven and Slessareva didn't stop therethey also varied how much the students would be paid for every ounce of vinegar Kool-Aid they managed to get down. When the students were receiving relatively low pay for drinking the vinegar Kool-Aid (one cent per ounce), those who had been allowed to laugh at Robin Williams drank twice as much as those who had to suppress their laughter, demonstrating that that latter group had indeed depleted their self-control strength. But among students who were paid well (twenty-five cents per ounce) the effect completely disappeared. Even the suppressors managed to drink down quite a lot of the gross concoction.
Does this mean that money can create self-control? Or, to put it differently, that rewards can replenish your willpower? Not exactlyit's probably more accurate to say that increasing your motivation through better rewards can help you compensate for a temporary loss of self-control. This is no doubt why so many successful dieters report that they used nonfood rewards as a key part of their diet strategies. Increasing your motivation, in whatever way works for you, is an excellent way to tip the scales back in your favor when you're just too tired to resist temptation.
Another way in which willpower, or self-control, is different than you may have imagined is that it's neither innate nor unchangeable. Self-control is learned, and developed and made stronger (or weaker) over time. If you want more self-control, you can get more. And you get more self-control the same way you get bigger musclesyou've got to give it regular workouts. Recent research has shown that engaging in daily activities such as exercising, keeping track of your finances or what you are eatingor even just remembering to sit up straight every time you think of itcan help you develop your overall self-control capacity. For example, in one study, students who were assigned to (and stuck to) a daily exercise program not only got physically healthier, but they also became more likely to wash dishes instead of leaving them in the sink, and less likely to impulsively spend money.
In another demonstration of how self-control strength can be increased through regular use, Matthew Gailliot and his colleagues asked participants in an experiment to spend two weeks using their non-dominant hand to do things like brush their teeth, stir drinks, eat, open doors, and use the computer mouse. (In another version of this study, they asked participants to refrain from cursing, only speak in complete sentences, say yes and no instead of yeah and nope, and avoid starting sentences with I.) After two weeks of training their self-control muscle, compared to a no-training group, they performed significantly better on a task that required self-control. Specifically, they were better able to avoid using any stereotypes when forming an impression of a person. Sadly, that turns out to be very hard to do, though that is a topic for another book.
The Topic of This Book
I've spent a lot of time in this introduction talking about self-control, not only because it's important, but because it's a great example of how our intuitions about things that seem obvious can sometimes fail us. And consequently, it's also a great example of how the science of psychology can be really usefulhelping us to see not only what kind of thing willpower really is, but also how we can, if we want to, get our hands on some more of it.
This book isn't actually just about willpower, however. It's about achieving goals, and self-control is just one piece of that puzzle. Specifically, Succeed is about understanding how goals work, what tends to go wrong, and what you can do to reach your goals or to help others reach theirs.
Too much of the advice you'll typically hear about reaching your goals is both obvious and uselesswe all know we're supposed to do things like "Stay Positive!" "Make a Plan!" and "Take Action!" But why do I need to stay positive? Is that even always true? (No.) And what kind of plan should I make? Does it matter? (Yes.) And how do I take action? I know that to lose weight I need to eat less and exercise more, but I never seem to actually do it. Can I fix that? (You bet.)
Some of the advice in this book may surprise youin fact, I'm certain it will. But that advice is drawn from excellent sourcesnot only my own research on goals and motivation, but several decades and many hundreds of rigorous experimental and field studies, conducted by some of the world's leading scientific psychologists. I wish that I could have called this book Succeed: The Three Things You Need to Do to Reach All Your Goals. At the very least, I'd probably sell more books that way. But it's not that simplethere are more than three things you need to know. For example, it turns out that there are many ways to frame the same goal in your mind. Do you think of getting that promotion as something you ideally would achieve, or as something you ought to achieve? Is mastering your classwork about developing skills or proving that you're smart? Those differences matterdifferently framed goals need to be pursued with different strategies and are more or less vulnerable to different kinds of errors. Frame a goal one way, and the person pursuing it will work hard but never love what he is doing. Frame a goal another way, and you'll create interest and enjoymentbut to be honest, probably not spectacular performance (at least not in the short run). For some goals, confidence is essential, while for others it doesn't seem to matter if you're sure or shaky.
The important thing is that while achieving your goals is a bit more complicated than just doing "Three Things," it's not overly complicated, either. In Part 1 of the book, "Get Ready," I'll talk about the key principles of goal-setting that seem to be universally true, whether you're pursuing goals at work, in relationships, or for self-development. In Part 2, "Get Set," you'll learn about the different kinds of goals we set for ourselves, focusing on the few distinctions that seem to matter the most. I'll show you how to choose the goal that will work best for you personally in your situation. And you'll learn how to instill the most beneficial goals in your children, students, and employees. In Part 3, "Go," I'll take you step by step through the most common reasons we fail to reach our goals once we've started pursuing them. And you'll learn effective, often simple and easy-to-implement strategies for avoiding these pitfalls in the future.
In the last decade or two, social psychologists have come to know a lot about how goals work. Succeed is my attempt to take that knowledge out of the academic journals and handbooks and spread it around a bit more so that it can do some good.
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Product details
- Publisher : Plume; Reprint edition (December 27, 2011)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 304 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0452297710
- ISBN-13 : 978-0452297715
- Item Weight : 8.1 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.26 x 0.65 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #629,224 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,855 in Business Motivation & Self-Improvement (Books)
- #3,997 in Motivational Management & Leadership
- #8,737 in Success Self-Help
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Heidi Grant Halvorson is a social psychologist, and Associate Director of Columbia's Motivation Science Center. Her research has focused on understanding why some people give up when their goals give them trouble, while others can rise to the challenge. She is the author of SUCCEED, NINE THINGS SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE DO DIFFERENTLY, FOCUS, and THE EIGHT MOTIVATIONAL CHALLENGES. Through her books, articles, and her blogs (99u, Harvard Business Review, Psychology Today, Fast Company), she hopes to help people understand that ANYONE can reach their goals, and give them the scientifically-tested strategies they need to succeed.
In addition to her work as author and co-editor of the highly-regarded academic book The Psychology of Goals (Guilford, 2009), she has authored papers in her field's most prestigious journals, including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, European Journal of Social Psychology, and Judgment and Decision Making. She has received grants from the National Science Foundation for her research on goals and achievement. She also serves on the Board of Advisors for Columbia University Business School's Motivation Science Center. Her work has been praised by Carol Dweck, Matthew Kelly, Dr. Edward Hallowell, and Peter Bregman, among many others.
Dr. Grant Halvorson is a member of the Association for Psychological Science, and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and was recently elected a Fellow of the Society for Experimental Social Psychology. She gives frequent invited addresses and speaks regularly at national conferences, and is available for speaking engagements and workshops, primarily in education and management. She received her PhD from Columbia University.
You can contact Heidi at heidi@heidigranthalvorson.com
Visit her website at www.heidigranthalvorson.com
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“Most of us blame our failures on the wrong things. Even very smart, accomplished people don’t understand why they succeed or fail. Before I started studying this for a living, my intuitions about achievement were no better than anyone else’s. I thought that I was good at school and disastrous at sports because I was born that way. I wasn’t— actually, no one is simply 'born that way.' I had a lot to learn.”
What she learned from the professional study of goals and how to achieve them is what this book is about. She uses the introduction to discuss what we know about willpower and why what most of us “know” about it is wrong. That sets us up perfectly for the rest of the book which is divided into three parts: Get Ready, Get Set, and Go.
Part One: Get Ready
The first chapter is titled “Do You Know Where You Are Going?” We learn that good goals are specific and hard. The author also talks about different types of goals, what to consider when you’re setting a goal, and the fact that positive thinking is good but it can get you in trouble.
The last section of the first chapter is about using mental contrasting to set your goals. This section is worth the price of the book. It’s the best short tutorial I’ve seen on basic goal-setting.
Chapter two is “Do You Know Where Your Goals Come From?” It’s about the plasticity of the brain and how we are so much less than what we can be. That will be familiar to you if you’ve read Carol Dweck on mindsets. But there’s also material about how unconscious thoughts help us trigger our goals and how we can use those triggers to do a better job of getting what we want.
Part Two: Get Set
Chapter three is “The Goals That Keep You Moving Forward.” Halvorson defines “Be Good” and “Get Better” goals and then discusses when each is appropriate.
Chapter four is all about goals for optimists and goals for pessimists. Chapter five, “Goals Can Make You Happy,” describes the research of Edward Deci and Richard Ryan. They identified the three basic human goals of autonomy, relatedness, and competence. If that sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because Daniel Pink’s writing has taken that research and distorted it. The Deci and Ryan research is covered well here and you’ll learn about intrinsic motivation and how to make it work for you.
Chapter six is “The Right Goal for You.” By now Halvorson has laid the groundwork by defining different types of goals and different types of motivations. Now she shifts to outlining how we can use different kinds of triggers to get the performance that we’d like. In this chapter, you’ll find out how to choose goals for specific situations.
This is a “bring it all together” kind of chapter. You might find it helpful to read this chapter quickly and then start the book from the beginning. Chapter seven is like chapter six except that it describes how to set goals for others.
Part Three: Go!
Halvorson moves from a general discussion of goal-setting to specific situations. Chapter eight is about conquering the things that are out to conquer your goals.
Chapter nine is “Make A Simple Plan.” Halvorson introduces you to the very simple and very powerful concept of “if-then planning.” Researcher Peter Gollwitzer has described this kind of planning as “instant habits.” It is an incredibly powerful tool and this chapter is another one of those parts of the book that will repay your money and attention.
Chapter ten is about building the self-control muscle. This was an amazing chapter for me because I’ve studied building self-discipline and self-control for most of my adult life. It’s a key to being successful at what I do. I’ve learned an awful lot about building, maintaining, and recovering self-control, but this chapter was full of “ahas” for me. I don’t know if this is a chapter that would be great for everyone, but it was absolutely incredible for me.
Chapter eleven, on keeping it real, introduces you to the concept of realistic optimism. I found this similar to a part of Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great. He talks about “confronting the brutal facts but never losing faith.” This is a chapter about optimism, when it can work for you and when it can be trouble and how you can make it more likely that it will be a positive force.
Chapter twelve is titled “Know When to Hang On.” This is another one of those “worth the price of the book” chapters. There’s an awful lot that’s written, especially in the areas of personal development and goal-setting, about the need for persistence, but almost nothing on when to decide to quit. In fact, the only book I know about quitting is Seth Godin’s excellent book, The Dip. Yes, this is another of those worth the price of the book chapters.
The final chapter in the book is “Give the Right Feedback.” If you’re a person who’s responsible for the performance of a group, or if you’re a parent, or even a grandparent, read this chapter. Halvorson shares the research of Jennifer Henderlong and Mark Lepper and their five rules for giving feedback well. This is another subject I’ve spent a lot of time on. It was a key part of my classes for new supervisors. I’ve studied the research and spend decades applying it in class and coaching with supervisors. Even so, I learned a ton from this chapter. I learned some important details from the research that I wasn’t aware of and I also learned the science behind some effective tactics.
Bottom Line and Reading Suggestions
As you’ve probably guessed by now, I think this is a truly great book. It will help you set goals for yourself, help you help others set goals, and help you meet certain specific life situations with the knowledge to handle them effectively. You will be tempted to jump into the chapter that is about what most interests you. Resist that temptation. This book is written in a manner that builds knowledge throughout. You go from general principles to general guidelines to specific situations. That said, I think you’ll benefit if you scan chapter six to get an idea of the framework into which the information on earlier chapters will fit. Then go back to the beginning and read through.
Halvorson has helped you make this book useful by including a section at the end of every chapter titled “What You Can Do.” It provides a great overview of the chapter. Use it get the key points before you read a chapter, then use it to review them after you’ve read the details.
The Very Bottom Line
This is easily the best book I have ever read about setting goals because it brings the understanding of science to the practical reality of setting goals in real life. No matter who you are, how successful you’ve been, or how much you know about goal-setting, this is a book you should buy and read and read again. I’m about to start my second time through.
-Use IF-THEN plans to control yourself; I've got very fast results; IF cue("It's 2 o'clock etc.") THEN action ("I'll do this...")
-constantly think about your obstacles; how are you going to fail and what can you do about it?
-focus on GETTING BETTER, not comparing yourself to a standard/other people
-Get specific on what is your goal.The more specific your goal is,the better
-stop making excuses for your IQ, problems etc.
-USE your willpower, to GET more willpower; it's like a muscle
-Do something that makes you a little uncomfortable,that's how you build your willpower
-try to visualize the the process not just your end-goal
-think about the path from A to B: what are EXACTLY the steps that you need to do in order to achieve your goal
-combine the WHY - why you want to achieve your goal (think deeply) with HOW (are you going to achieve it)
-WHY - provides the motivation, HOW-provides the direction and practical steps
Overall it's an amazing book, I wish I knew this when I was younger :)
It is science-based yet not dry.
The author puts a lot of effort trying to be engaging and she largely succeeds (pun intended).
Being based on science, this book does not offer the simple, clean-cut, one-size-fits-all solutions of many delusion-based self-help books, so most of the time the answer to a practical question raised in the book is "it depends" - immediately followed by a clear explanation of the key variables at play, which should make it very easy to any readers to plot their own course.
Here is a break-down of the chapters, I hope this is useful:
Chapter 1 - do you know where you are going?
About choosing an appropriate formulation for your goal ( "well formed"): being specific, making it hard, why vs. what frame, value vs. feasibility, chances of success vs. the road to get there, mental contrasting as a decision making tool for goal setting.
Chapter 2 - do you know where your goals are coming from?
About beliefs (fixed vs. growth mindset; see Carol Dweck's work) and about environmental triggers for goal pursuit
Chapter 3 - the goals that keep you moving forward.
An excellent explanation of be good (achievement, performance) vs. get better (progress, mastery) goals.
Chapter 4 - goals for optimists and goals for pessimists.
Promotion-focused (maximizing gains) vs. prevention-focused (avoiding loss) goals. A very important and extremely useful distinction, further articulated in terms of when to choose one or the other, how the distinction is linked to optimism / pessimism, motivation, feedback, risk-taking and inner needs. I think the book is worth buying for this chapter alone.
Chapter 5 - goals can make you happy.
How some goals are better than others because they nourish our essential needs of Relatedness, Competence and Autonomy (see Self-Determination theory). How internal goals are different from external goals and the important role played by intrinsic motivation in goal pursuits.
Chapter 6 - the right goals for you.
In this chapter the author recaps the ground covered so far but from the perspective of the user. In the previous chapters the author presented psychological research results and how they are relevant to goal setting. In this chapter the author starts from a specific need / situation (e.g. "when you can't seem to get going"; "when you need speed"; "when you want to be creative"...) and then matches the situation with the appropriate goal frame (e.g. in the 3 examples above, why & prevention goals, promotion goals, promotion & autonomous goals respectively).
Chapter 7 - the right goals for them.
The author shift gears, and this chapter is about assigning goals to others (vs. to oneself, the topic of the previous 6 chapters). The tips given center around leaving a sense of personal control, using the right triggers, using the right frame, making the goal contagious.
Chapter 8 - conquer the goal saboteurs.
This chapter is about seizing opportunities, knowing what to do, increasing monitoring and shielding your goal pursuit from distractions or competing goals.
Chapter 9 - make a simple plan.
This chapter is all about the virtues of the magical formulation "if... then...", i.e. "if I am in this situation, then I will take this action". Making such plans is the most effective strategy for goal pursuit. According to the author, if you take nothing else from the book, take at least this.
Chapter 10 -build the self-control muscle.
This chapter explains the concept of self-control as a muscle and useful strategy for goal pursuit based on this insight - namely, like any other muscle, strengthen it, rest it and compensate when tired. I am personally very critical of some formations of this analogy (e.g. the glucose explanation, see Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind ) and I think a better treatment of the topic is given in the book The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It by Kelly McGonigal. However it is true that this is not the main focus of Grant Halvorson.
Chapter 11 - keep it real.
This chapter further elaborates on the role of optimism in goal pursuit. Given the good press optimism gets in self-help books, the distinction made by the author in this chapter between realistic vs. unrealistic optimism is pure gold.
Chapter 12 - know when to hang on.
This chapter is about another key ingredient of goal pursuit: grit. That old-fashioned virtue of commitment to long term goals and persistence in the face of adversity. And no, long term does not mean tomorrow and adversity does not mean "twitter is down, OMG!" or "I do not have the latest iPhone".
Chapter 13 - give the right feedback.
Frankly the least interesting chapter of the book, at least for me. The good part though was the author presenting the "5 rules of positive feedback" by Henderlong and Lepper. It is research-based and it is a useful checklist for anyone tasked with giving feedback to others.
Overall a great book, an essential reference for anyone (coaches, executives, consultants) involved in developing leaders, and a useful treasure throve of good tips for anyone engaged in goal pursuit.
Top reviews from other countries

One example I love (!) Is the idea of promotion or prevention goals. NLP users will recognise these as towards and away meta programs. But Heidi suggests starting a difficult goal looking for gains (promotion) and one achieved look for what could detail you from keeping it (prevention).
The books insights are stunning and necessary to memorise, I believe. Some goals I'd struggles to pursue now become easier to conceive with these tips. Deserves wider recognition.




It helped me to make clear my view of how goals are being handled.
It contains many informations about psycolodgy that underpin the given arguments.
I love learning why something happens.
I suggest it to everyone.