Year after year, readers pulled me aside at events and said, โIโve never had a problem starting. Iโve started a million things, but I never finish them. Why canโt I finish?
According to studies, 92 percent of New Yearโs resolutions fail. Youโve practically got a better shot at getting into Juilliard to become a ballerina than you do at finishing your goals.
For years, I thought my problem was that I didnโt try hard enough. So I started getting up earlier. I drank enough energy drinks to kill a horse. I hired a life coach and ate more superfoods. Nothing worked, although I did develop a pretty nice eyelid tremor from all the caffeine. It was like my eye was waving at you, very, very quickly.
Then, while leading a thirty-day online course to help people work on their goals, I learned something surprising: The most effective exercises were not those that pushed people to work harder. The ones that got people to the finish line did just the oppositeโ they took the pressure off.
Why? Because the sneakiest obstacle to meeting your goals is not laziness, but perfectionism. Weโre our own worst critics, and if it looks like weโre not going to do something right, we prefer not to do it at all. Thatโs why weโre most likely to quit on day two, โthe day after perfectโโwhen our results almost always underperยญform our aspirations.
The strategies in this book are counterintuitive and might feel like cheating. But theyโre based on studies conducted by a university researcher with hundreds of participants. You might not guess that having more fun, eliminating your secret rules, and choosing something to bomb intentionally works. But the data says otherwise. People who have fun are 43 percent more successful! Imagine if your diet, guitar playing, or small business was 43 percent more sucยญcessful just by following a few simple principles.
If youโre tired of being a chronic starter and want to become a consistent finisher, you have two options: You can continue to beat yourself up and try harder, since this time that will work. Or you can give yourself the gift of done.