Right now, at the start of a new decade, my motivation, discipline and willpower are at record near-highs, as I suspect yours probably are. How could they not be, at the start of a whole new decade? I’ve set myself ambitious goals for selling and writing, crafted plans to achieve them, disciplined my time, and resolved to use my willpower to do what it takes, even when I don’t feel like it.
Motivated, disciplined and resolute: if only these feelings would last, it will be a fantastic year!
But of course, they almost certainly won’t last, at least not at current levels. In fact, I’m actively working to ensure that they won’t. My principal goal for 2020 is to reduce the importance of motivation, discipline and willpower in my life.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not opposed to being motivated, disciplined and strong-willed. They are hugely important qualities. But they are also uncertain, costly and risky. They’re uncertain because as we all know, high points are often followed by low points, and things happen that discourage or distract us from our goals and worthy behaviors. They’re costly in the sense that we have to think about them and make a conscious effort to apply them during those low points, precisely when we’re least equipped to deploy those mental and psychological resources. They’re risky because when we inevitably fall short of our own high expectations we tend to think there’s something wrong with us.
So, what’s the alternative? Wouldn’t it be great to have a silent partner who could increase the certainty and reduce the cost by shouldering the load during those times, and quietly and efficiently do the job for us when we don’t feel like it? Believe it or not, there actually is. We all have such a silent partner and it does much more for us than we’re probably aware of. It’s called habit, and according to Wendy Wood in her book, Good Habits, Bad Habits, it already works in approximately 43% of everything we do daily.
For example, were you motivated to brush your teeth this morning? Probably not, for the simple reason that you didn’t even have to think about it. You just did it automatically. If you had to think about it, that would have been one more small drain on your mental energy, and those things add up during the day.
Let’s take something more substantial: working out. Maybe you don’t work out regularly and you’ve made a resolution to do more of it this year. Assuming you haven’t procrastinated, a full week into the new year, you probably don’t have the same enthusiasm that you had on the first (or second) day of the new year, and it takes a big effort to get it done. I, on the other hand, have worked out every day this year, but that’s no great accomplishment because I worked out every single day for over four years. Working out daily has become so automatic with me that it would take a huge effort to break my streak. What some people find difficult is effortless to me.
But lest that sounds like bragging, let me also confess how difficult it has been for me to actually “motivate” myself to sit and actually write down these thoughts in my head. I seriously had to motivate myself to do it, and it’s taking a lot out of me. I have the best intentions to become much more regular in my writing for 2020, but my honest prediction is that my odds of success are less than fifty-fifty.
Habit runs so much of our lives, for better or worse, that it behooves us to make use of it. The good news is that with some intelligent application of motivation discipline and willpower in the short term, we can reduce the need for them in the long term. Instilling a beneficial habit is like buying a car for cash rather than leasing it. It may cost a lot up front, but then you have it for as long as it lasts without payments. (And unlike a car, it appreciates in value over time.)
“Intelligent application” is the key. Establishing a good habit or breaking a bad habit is possible if you try hard enough, but it’s so much easier if you understand the underlying dynamics of habit formation and use them to apply an effective process for doing so.
I know the process works because I waited a whole year before writing this article. A little over a year ago, I read James Clear’s Atomic Habits and resolved to work on some habits for 2019. One was daily journaling, and I actually managed to do so every single day of the year except one. Another was daily meditation, which I’ve tried and failed to pick up for years, until I finally made it a regular habit this year[1].
I will write more about the processes for habit formation in upcoming articles, as I apply them to two activities this year: prospecting and writing. I know they’re hugely important; I’m motivated to do both—and I always manage find innovative excuses to avoid them. I trust my learnings will be helpful, but if you don’t want to wait, I strongly suggest that you buy and study the two books I’ve mentioned in this article, and start crafting your own processes to instill productive habits.
Motivation, discipline and willpower: these are my flashy but fickle friends. I do plan to rely on them this year, but mostly to help me rely on my more faithful friend, habit!
[1] I highly recommend both books I’ve mentioned so far. Atomic Habits is engaging and hands-on, and the Good Habits, Bad Habits carries the scientific weight of one of the most accomplished researchers in the field.
One of the funniest writers I’ve read is Tim Dorsey, who writes novels about the only-in-Florida escapades of a lovable serial killer named Serge Storms. Yeah, you read that right; it takes a special ability to be able write something hilarious about murder and violence and depravity, but Dorsey does it beautifully, and has kept it up for 21 Serge books so far.
I mention Dorsey to make the point about creativity, and the amazing ability that some people seem to have to consistently produce high quality work. I once attended a book-signing he did here in town, and I told him that I only showed up to find out what kind of person thinks of these things.
I didn’t get an answer to my question that day, and I still wonder about it, but I also know that my question was a bit misguided. It was misguided because it assumed that creativity is a trait, one that you’re either born with, or not. By the same token, humor seems to be a trait, or the ability to deliver an inspirational speech, or so many other activities that the really good people seem to be able to magically produce. Or are they actually skills?
I don’t pretend to know the exact answer, and despite all the studies psychologists have done, I’m not sure anyone knows. It’s a little bit of the old nature v nurture or talent v deliberate practice debate. But I do believe that each of these creative activities depends on some mixture of both, and skill is no small proportion. So, no matter how much of the good stuff you’re blessed with at birth, it also depends on a lot of repetitions to produce good quality stuff.
But don’t just take my word for it. In his book, Hook ‘Em with Humor, Ricky Olson says that you have to produce a lot of jokes to find a few that are any good. Double-Nobelist Linus Pauling said: “The best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas.” Lincoln and Churchill and King delivered thousands of speeches for many years before they produced the works we remember them for. As Kurt Vonnegut said, writing is “a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. All it takes is time.” They all knew that quantity is the path to quality.
Let’s come down a few notches to ordinary individuals like you and me. In my own work, I’ve learned that you have to churn out a lot of stuff—a lot of it bad, at least at first—before you start getting better at anything. Like when I started podcasting earlier this year; I thought it would be so easy. After all, I know the material, I know how to talk, so how tough can it be? Well, my dozens of false starts and re-starts quickly showed me that wasn’t the case. I’m a lot better now…but not nearly as good as I know I can get.
But be smart about it
There’s no way to get around doing the work, but that does not mean you can’t be smart about it. Here are some suggestions:
Block off enough time. You need to go deep into your own mind to find the good stuff. When you first approach a topic, you’re going to produce the usual stale connections. That’s because “neurons that fire together wire together”, as Donald Hebb said, so you have to break through that stale crust to find new connections within your own brain, and there’s no quick way past it. For myself, I find that it takes at least a half hour of undistracted work to get into that zone.
Carry a journal. When you think deeply about something and then leave it to do something else, your subconscious still keeps working on it, so new ideas will pop up at the most random times. If you don’t write it down, it will sink back to the bottom of your mind, possibly never to be thought of again. Or if a story or quote or factoid catches your attention and you can’t think of how to use it at the time, wrap it carefully in the written word and store it away in your mental basket; it will be there when you need it.
Get feedback. If you can afford a good coach, that’s the best, because a coach has been over that territory before and can suggest shortcuts on the path to quality. But even if you don’t have a coach, the best way to get feedback is to try out your ideas with others. Find every opportunity you can to speak; or share your thoughts in a blog; or talk about your ideas with your peers. Don’t wait until it’s perfect, or it may never come out.
Remind yourself that it gets easier with time. The great thing about creativity is that it’s a self-reinforcing phenomenon. The more ideas you generate, the faster the new ideas come. Just in the mere act of writing this post, for example, I’ve already jotted down two new ideas for subsequent articles.
But you DO have to get started. If the path to quality is quantity, the sooner you get on the path, the better. The best way to be “creative” is to just start creating, and keep going.
This post pulls together several separate threads that I’ve experienced over the past few days. First, I’ve been working on a new speech about healthy sales cultures for a new client, and I’ve found that what seemed to be a straightforward and routine undertaking has gotten much deeper than I expected. Second, I listened in on a podcast by Tim Hurson on The Sales Experts Channel, in which he introduced me to the concept of the “third third”. Finally, in a conversation with a new client this weekend, he told me that he had begun working on his first book, but abandoned the project when he got negative feedback on his first chapter.
These three separate incidents helped me to spot—or maybe just clarify—a pattern that seems to apply when you take on a difficult project that requires both deep understanding and creativity. I examined similar situations that I’ve been in before, including writing three books, creating new courses, and—of course—major speeches. I can’t say for sure whether it applies to anyone besides me, but I’m not that different from you, so you might find it helpful.
I noticed that these undertakings seem to go through three phases if they are to succeed:
- Ambition
- Concern/Crap
- Excitement
Ambition: The project has to be ambitious, with just a slight whiff of “fake it ‘til you make it”, for the next two stages to kick in. If the project is comfortably within your current capabilities, the good news is that you won’t go through the concern/crap stage, but the bad news is that you won’t produce anything to get excited about either. On the other hand, it has to be close enough within reach that you have to have some sense of confidence that you can rise to the occasion. For example, for my project I knew that my experience and wide reading have given me a good grasp of the topic, although I’ve never put it together into a coherent package.
It has to be big enough and worthwhile enough to stimulate your interest and sustain it during the inevitable next stage. Even better, make a commitment so you don’t have the option of backing out when the going gets tough, because it will.
Concern/crap: This is by far the hardest but the most productive phase of the entire project. As you get deeper into the topic, you generate concern and inevitably produce crap. The concern arises because as you dig into the nuance and detail of the points you’re trying to make, you realize that you have to learn far more than you thought—and the more you learn, the more you figure out how much more there is still left to know. You discover that others have more expertise than you do, so you begin to doubt your own abilities, maybe even your right to talk about it.
The crap comes out as you start regurgitating everything you know onto the paper or your slide deck, because your concern causes you to overcompensate, and you haven’t thought through the patterns and linkages carefully enough. The less you understand something, the more words you use trying to show otherwise.
But there’s value in just getting stuff on paper, regardless of how bad it is. It builds momentum and helps you think out loud. Plus, as long as you allow yourself enough time, you’ll find that your mind is somehow working on the problem in the background. In my own case, I inevitably wake up in the middle of the night with new insights or a clearer idea of how everything fits together.
The most important thing is to keep going. As Tim Hurson says, we stop thinking before the good stuff comes. So, when my friend quit writing his book because he found out it wasn’t as good as he thought it was, he forfeited his chances of working through to the good stuff. During the concern and crap stage, remember to keep pounding the rock, because frustration can mask the real progress that’s going on underneath.
The crap stage can easily frustrate and discourage you, but here’s where your ambition comes to the rescue. If you’ve committed in some way, you can’t get out of it, so there is no way out but to keep plowing forward to produce something that won’t embarrass you and will truly add value to your audience. With a customer it’s one thing, but if it’s a personal project such as writing a book you might need to go for some type of public commitment to raise the cost of failure.
Excitement: When you break through the concern and crap stage, the glittering prize at the end is the incredible excitement you will feel knowing you’ve produced something fresh and worthwhile. As your key ideas crystallize in your mind, you start cutting out the crap and clutter—chipping off the rough edges and additional polishing makes the hard diamond sparkle through, and you can’t help but be charged up to deliver it.
You know you’re going to deliver something that others will value, and you’re going to look good in the process. You get to the point where your only thought is, like Jack Welch: “I can’t wait to get out there and do this!”
What if you get through the first two stages and you’re still not excited? Repeat steps 1 and 2.
Forty miles from Johannesburg SA is a vast gold mine called Mponeng, and it’s the deepest manmade hole on earth, according to a fascinating article in last month’s WSJ. It is so deep that one elevator does not reach to the bottom, because the steel suspension cable gets heavier with every foot descended. It is so deep that the cold winter temperature at the surface increases to 140 degrees at the bottom. The entire three mile journey to the bottom takes an hour. But it’s the only way to get to where the gold is.
I’ve learned that with some tasks, it takes about that long to get deep enough to where the gold is. In my case, it’s usually writing an article or working on my book, but it also applies to solving problems, strategizing, or just about any task that requires quality thinking. It’s why I’ve learned to schedule my writing in time blocks of 90 minutes; it takes that long to get deep enough to where the good thoughts come.
I often begin an article with an idea that I want to flesh out, and frequently the first outline comes quickly enough. Filling in the words and choosing the right metaphors and stories takes a little longer. But all told, I can often churn out an average article in 30-45 minutes.
Yep, average.
But who wants to be that? The rich veins of gold lie much deeper. It’s easy to skim the surface of the trite and true in the first couple of passes through an idea, but it takes time to go deeper. Deeper is where the new ideas come from. Deeper is where your mind starts freeing up some half-buried memories that suddenly seem to be exactly the right analogy you’re looking for. Deeper is where just the right word or turn of phrase presents itself, like an old friend who turns up unannounced at your door. Deeper is where the hidden connections between seemingly unrelated ideas reveal themselves. Deeper is where insight lurks.
In fact, as I’ve thought deeper about it for this article, I’ve realized that there are generally four layers to a deep session:
- The first layer is the Distraction Zone, where you still haven’t cleared your head of other thoughts or your previous tasks. Plenty of research[1] has shown that there is a cost involved in switching between tasks because our minds have trouble quickly locking in to a task after an interruption.
- The second layer is the Cliché Zone, where all the easy thoughts are found. Some ideas come quickly to mind, but they come up first precisely because they are the most common, so you haven’t really created anything new or worthwhile.
- The third layer is the Struggle Zone, and it’s where most of the real work gets done. When you realize that the clichés are not good enough, you struggle to think of better ideas. You may stare at the screen for minutes on end trying to come up with just the right word, spend time re-writing sentences or rearranging paragraphs, or deleting entire blocks of text—sometimes you delete the whole thing and start over. It’s hard, frustrating, very discouraging, and absolutely necessary, because this is where you stretch. You’re not just dredging up old ideas, you’re creating new ones.
- The fourth layer is the Flow Zone, where you break through to the gold beneath, and the ideas start coming fast enough that you’re not always sure you can keep up, and you eventually look up and realize that an hour has gone by and you’ve actually produced something you’re not entirely embarrassed to show to the world.
- Actually, there’s an unofficial fifth layer, and it’s a free added bonus. After your deep session, your subconscious mind keeps working, and new ideas or refinements will pop into your mind at the oddest times.
(Of course, this is totally unscientific, being based on a sample size of one and recorded by a biased observer. But Cal Newport, who has studied this more deeply than I have, tells us that that notable creative people spent an average of 5.25 hours per day in deep work.)
Going deep is not easy, but I suppose that’s precisely the point, isn’t it? Here are some suggestions to get more deep work done:
- Cultivate a ritual. Rituals are a great way to prime your mind and get through the Distraction Zone.
- Set time blocks. Make an appointment with yourself and keep it. Just make sure you have buffer times set up between blocks to deal with all the unplanned stuff that will come up. I find that 90 minutes works for me, although I’m planning on increasing that.
- Use the nothing alternative. If you don’t feel like it, you don’t have to write, or plan or think about your problem during your time block, but you’re not allowed to do anything else during that time.
- Record your sessions and time. It will keep you honest, and especially works well if you’re competitive with yourself.
One final note of encouragement: like training for a marathon, it gets easier over time. But you have to start.
[1] Worker, Interrupted: The Cost of Task Switching, Kermit Pattison, Fast Company
No Task Left Behind? Examining the Nature of Fragmented Work, Gloria Mark, Victor M. Gonzalez, Justin Harris
