Get It Done

when abstract goals become too abstract, they’re at risk of turning into fantasies that substitute for action.

Mark Twain offers an insight into the psychology of intrinsic motivation. He observes that “work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”

To maximize your intrinsic motivation, you also need to understand what it’s not. For one, intrinsic motivation is not limited to resolving curiosity.

These examples illustrate three traps in setting and framing a goal: framing it as a means to another goal instead of the end goal itself, setting a goal that is too specific or concrete instead of an abstract goal, and setting a goal in terms of something you wish to avoid rather than something you wish to approach.

There is, of course, a downside.

Regardless of whether you’re conscious of your mental preparation, you’re mostly energized when expecting a difficult but not impossible task. Easy tasks don’t require preparation, and for impossible ones, you don’t bother. You give up. But when people prepare to meet a medium challenge, their motivational system gets geared up. They’re energized.

When there’s no clear path to get from point A to point B, people revert to fantasizing about their goals instead of taking action toward achieving them.

This study explains why multipurpose items often end up serving no purpose at all—we’d rather a pen just be a pen.

you don’t select a goal to point you in a specific direction, you’re likely to move in circles.