You Are (Probably) Wrong About You

If you want to be more successful — at anything — than you are right now, you need to know yourself and your skills. And when you fall short of your goals, you need to know why. This should be no problem; after all, who knows you better than you do?

And yet your own ratings of your personality traits — for instance, how open-minded, conscientious, or impulsive you are — correlate with the impressions of other people (who know you well) at around .40. In other words, how you see yourself and how other people see you are only very modestly correlated.

Who's right? Who knows you best? Well, the research suggests that they do — other people's assessment of your personality predicts your behavior, on average, better than your assessment does. The truth is, we don't know ourselves nearly as well as we think we do. When it comes to performance, our surprising self-ignorance makes understanding where we went right and where we went wrong difficult, to say the least.

At the root of the problem is the human brain itself. There's a lot going on in there, but just because it's your brain doesn't mean you know what it's doing.

In his fascinating book Strangers to Ourselves, psychologist Timothy Wilson summarizes decades of research on what he calls our adaptive unconscious, showing us just how much of what we do during every moment of every day — what we think, how we feel, the goals we pursue and the actions we take — is happening below our conscious awareness. Some of it we can notice if we engage in a little self-reflection, but much of it we simply cannot — it's not directly accessible to us at all.

Why would our brains work this way? For the most part, the answer seems to be because it's wildly efficient. I've often made the analogy that if our nonconscious mind's processing power is like that of a NASA super-computer, then by comparison, our conscious mind can handle roughly the contents of a Post-it note. It's limited and slow, and when too much is asked of it, it starts dropping things. If we had to do everything we do consciously, then we'd be so busy remembering to breathe and not fall over that we couldn't get much else accomplished. By handing operations over to the nonconscious mind — including high-level, complex operations like pursuing goals — we make productivity possible.

The downside, of course, is that when things go wrong we have an understandably difficult time figuring out why, given that we weren't completely conscious of what we were doing in the first place. It's like an old-fashioned murder mystery — there's a dead body on the floor, and it's the detective's job to figure out what happened, even though he was miles away when the murder occurred. He rounds up the suspects and weighs the evidence, and thereby discovers who's to blame.

When you fail to reach a goal — say, for instance, you give an important presentation and it doesn't go well — you become the detective (once again, largely unconsciously). You gather up the usual suspects to see who is responsible for your failure: lack of innate ability, lack of effort, poor preparation, using the wrong strategy, bad luck, etc. Of all of these possible culprits, it's lack of innate ability we most frequently hold responsible, like the much-maligned butler in an Agatha Christie novel. In Western countries — and nowhere more so than in the U.S. — innate ability is the go-to explanation for all of our successes and our failures.

The problem is that the evidence — the kind gathered by scientists over the last thirty years of study of motivation and achievement — suggests that innate ability is rarely to blame for either succeeding or falling short. (If you've blamed your poor performances in the past on a lack of ability, don't feel bad. We've all done it. The butler seems guilty. Just please don't do it anymore.)

If we are going to ever improve performance, we need to place blame where it belongs. We need solid evidence about where we went wrong. Unfortunately, that's the kind of evidence that usually doesn't make it to our consciousness on its own, making self-diagnosis practically impossible. We need help getting the right answers.

The good news is that this is basically what research psychologists (particularly those working in social, cognitive, and consumer psychology) do for a living — we figure out what questions we can ask you to get at what's really going on underneath the surface. Because if we ask you flat out why you didn't get that promotion, or why you can't get along with your coworkers, or why you can't seem to lose that last 15 pounds, you'll probably say something like "I just don't have what it takes," and we already know that's wrong.

But what if you're not working with a psychologist, or doing a 360 review, or getting enough feedback from your boss or your coworkers? Then what do you do?

I wrote a blog post (that became a Harvard Business Press e-book) called Nine Things Successful People Do Differently. In the time since it was first published, I've received more than a few emails from readers asking how they can know if they are doing enough of each thing. How do I know if I am really a realistic optimist? Am I being specific enough? Have I built up enough willpower? Good questions. And once again, very difficult to self-diagnose — and improvement is impossible without good answers. This is why I recently created the Nine Things Diagnostic. It's a set of questions you can answer online and get immediate feedback (for free) that tells you which of the Nine Things you need to work on, and which ones you have already mastered.

You certainly don't need to take my diagnostic to figure out how where your weaknesses lie. The point is that you will absolutely need feedback — the kind you can trust — because trying to figure it all out on your own is close to impossible. Relying on our intuitions alone for self-knowledge is dangerous, because thanks to the nature of the adaptive unconscious, they are often no more accurate than a shot in the dark.

Excerpt from SUCCEED: Building the Self-Control Muscle

2003 was not a good year for me.  It was the year that I turned 30, separated from my first husband, and lived in near-constant dread of not finding a job before my postdoctoral funding ran out.  I coped badly with the end of my marriage and the uncertainty of my career.  I ate whatever I wanted, gave up completely on exercising, and rapidly packed on the pounds.  I went out most nights to bars with friends and drank a bit too much.  Some days I slept until noon.  My apartment was a mess.  My work suffered.  I spent money impulsively, thinking new clothes and dinner at fancy restaurants would make me feel better, and blew right through my savings.  It was the lowest point in my life, and I was miserable.

Eventually, having hit bottom, I began the slow crawl back up again.  Oddly enough, that change began when I brought home a 10-week old puppy.  Lucy is a Miniature Schnauzer, and anyone familiar with the breed, or with terriers in general, knows that the little buggers are verydemanding dogs.   Lucy required a lot of me – regular walks, house-breaking, grooming, feeding, playing, and eternal vigilance to prevent the destruction of yet another of my prized possessions when I wasn’t looking (Lucy is a chewer – my shoes, books, and coffee table were her favorites).  Since I was living in an apartment in New York City, she had to be walked several times a day in order to do her doggie business.  This typically started at around 5am – quite a change from my usual habit of trying to get up before lunch. 

The long and short of it is, I was exercising a lot of self-control in order to care for this dog.  It took effort, it took planning, and it took a whole lot of patience.  The first few weeks were incredibly difficult, mostly because I had grown so unaccustomed to being responsible for anything.  But as time passed, it started getting easier.  I got used to my new routines, and after a while getting up at 5am didn’t seem nearly so hard.  The funny thing is, other aspects of my life started improving as well.  I stopped going out so much, started eating better, and rejoined the gym.  My apartment was looking cleaner (despite Lucy’s best efforts to redecorate), my laundry pile was shrinking, and my bank statements grew less terrifying.  I clipped coupons, I looked for sales.  My work improved – I was publishing papers again, generating new ideas, speaking at conferences.  I interviewed for and was offered a professorship at Lehigh University.  And shortly after my 31^st birthday, I met my future husband (ok, that one I can’t really take credit for, other than for recognizing a good thing when I see it.)

I’m telling you all this because I think that year in my life nicely illustrates something about the nature of self-control.  In the beginning of this book, I introduced you to the idea of the self-control muscle.   Just like the muscles in your body, your capacity for self-control dwindles when you don’t exercise it.   When I turned 30 and my marriage fell apart, I basically put my self-control on bed rest, and  it atrophied.  When the time came and I needed to rely on my self-control again to care for a new puppy, it was much like returning to the gym after a years-long absence - it hurt like hell and I was easily winded.  Then, as I exercised my self-control each day, by sticking to my new routines, it started getting stronger.  With that new strength, I found I could start tackling my other challenges and get my life back on track.  

I am not, for the record, recommending that if you’re having trouble reaching your goals, you run out and buy a dog.  There are lots of ways to strengthen your self-control muscle, and I’ll share with you some of the ones psychologists have tested in this chapter.   It’s also important to remember that, like your bicep or tricep, your self-control muscle can get tired-out from exercise, leaving you vulnerable immediately after you’ve given it a workout.  So you’ll need to know how you can help your self-control to bounce back after you’ve done something really taxing.  You may also benefit from learning a few other strategies you can use to compensate in those moments when you’ve used up all your strength and can’t afford to wait for your second wind.    

Want to learn more?  Check out the paperback or e-book versions of Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals.

How Firstborns and Secondborns Compare

People have long been fascinated with birth order and how it shapes our lives.  If Abel weren’t the younger brother, would Cain still have jealously murdered him?  Is Alec the most successful Baldwin because he is the eldest?  What role did birth order play in the destinies of the Kennedys, the Bushes, or the brothers Clinton?

There are countless books on the subject, though the claims they make are not always based on objective evidence.  But thanks to recent research conducted in Belgium and the Netherlands, we now know that first- and secondborns do indeed see the world differently in ways that impact their motivation and likelihood of career and personal success.

We all approach the goals we pursue with one of two mindsets: what I call the Be-Good mindset, where the focus is on proving that you have a lot of ability and that you already know what you’re doing, and the Get-Bettermindset, where the focus is on developingyour ability and learning new skills.  You can think of it as the difference between wanting to show that you are smart versus wanting to get smarter.

When we have a Be-Good mindset, we are constantly comparing our performance to other people, to see how we “size up.”  A Get-Better mindset, on the other hand, leads instead to self-comparison and a concern with making progress– how well am I doing today, compared with how I did yesterday, last month, or last year?

In a study of over three hundred undergraduates (sets of siblings), the researchers found that firstborn siblings were significantly more likely to have Get-Better goals and use self-referenced standards, than secondborns.  Secondborns, in contrast, were more likely to pursue Be-Good goals and compare their own performance to that of others.  (Incidentally, these differences emerged whether the siblings were describing themselves, or one another other.)

Why do first- and secondborns end up with different mindsets?  At least in part, it’s because when they are young, firstborns generally don’t have anyone to compare themselves to – and neither do their parents.   When little Alec starts crawling, speaking, and walking, he hears things like “Wow, two weeks ago he could only sit up and now look at him go!”  “Last month he seemed to only say a few words and now he never stops talking!”  The focus of attention is on individual progress, with only your own past behavior as a reference – this naturally leads to more Get-Better thinking.

Younger siblings, on the other hand, have someone to compare themselves to from the very beginning.  So little Daniel is more likely to hear “He spoke sooner than Alec did,” or “He’s not crawling as quickly as Alec, is he?”  It’s quite natural for parents (and children) to make these comparisons, but their unintended consequence is the potential for much more Be-Good thinking.

The problem with Be-Goodgoals is while they are very motivating, they tend to backfire when things get hard.  We quickly start to doubt our ability (“Oh no, maybe I’m notgood at this!”), and this creates a lot of anxiety.  Ironically, worrying about your ability makes you much more likely to ultimately fail.  And if you think you don’t have what it takes to succeed, you give up on yourself way too soon and never reach your full potential.

Get-Better goals, on the other hand, are practically bullet-proof.  When we think about what we are doing in terms of learning and improving, accepting that we may make some mistakes along the way, we stay motivated despite the setbacks that might occur. 

Now, of course there will be plenty of firstborns with a Be-Good mindset who feel they need to be better than everyone else (think Cain), and plenty of secondborns with a Get-Better mindset who aren’t obsessed with comparison (Prince Harry seems to be more of a march-to-your-own-drummer type).  But if you are a secondborn who suspects you’ve been a victim of too much Be-Goodthinking, don’t despair!  You can retrain your brain and shift your mindset with patience and practice.

How can you reframe your goals in terms of Getting Better? Here are the three steps:

Step 1:  Start by embracing the fact that when something is difficult and unfamiliar, you will need some time to really get a handle on it.  You may make some mistakes, and that’s ok.

Step 2:  Remember to ask for help when you run into trouble.  Needing help doesn’t mean you aren’t capable – in fact, the opposite is true.  Only the very foolish believe they can do everything on their own.

Step 3: Try not to compare yourself to other people – instead, deliberately compare your performance today to your performance yesterday.  Focusing on getting better means always thinking in terms of progress, not perfection.

The Success Myth

This post appeared originally on WSJ.com (At Work)

Quick: Think of a successful person.  Someone who is really good at what they do.

Now, in a word or phrase, tell me why that person has been so successful. What makes them so good?

Obviously, I can’t hear your answer.  But I’d be willing to wager that it had something to do with innate ability. 

“He’s so brilliant.” 

“She’s a genius.”

“He’s a natural leader.” 

These are the kinds of answers people -- particularly Americans -- tend to give when you ask them why certain individuals have enjoyed so much success.

Pro athletes, tech whizzes, bold entrepreneurs, accomplished musicians, gifted writers: We marvel at their extraordinary aptitude, assuming they must have won the DNA lottery to be so good at what they do.

Deep down, many of us believe that the key ingredient to success is innate ability. So, naturally, we try to stick to doing the things that come easily to us, while avoiding wasting time and energy on the things that don’t.  (How many times have you heard someone say “I’m just not a math person”?  How many times have you said it?) 

This would all be fine, if success really was all about innate ability. 

But it isn’t. It isn’t even mostly about innate ability.

When you study achievement for a living, as I do, one of the first things you learn is that measures of “ability” (like IQ) do a shockingly poor job of predicting future success.  Intelligence, creativity, willpower, social skill aptitudes like these are not only profoundly malleable (i.e., they grow with experience and effort), but they are just one small piece of the achievement puzzle.

So, what does predict success? Research tells us it’s using the right strategies that leads to accomplishment and achievement. Sounds simple, but strategies like being committed, recognizing temptations, planning ahead, monitoring your progress, persisting when the going gets tough, making an effort, and perhaps most important believing you can improve, can make all the difference between success and failure.

The problem with thinking that success is all about ability, is that it can lead to crippling self-doubt.  When something doesn’t come easily, we assume that we “just don’t have what it takes,” and we stop trying. We close doors, robbing ourselves of opportunities to realize our full potential.

By contrast, studies show that people who believe that their skills and abilities can grow not only succeed more, but they also enjoy their work more, cope more effectively with challenges, and experience less anxiety and depression.

So the next time you find yourself thinking, “I’m just not good at this,” remember, you’re just not good at it yet.

Try the (free) Nine Things Diagnostics and Pinpoint Your Goal Saboteurs!

Many readers of Nine Things Successful People Do Differently have written to me, asking for a way to figure out how well they are doing with respect to each Thing.  Am I being specific enough?  Am I a realistic optimist?  Do I have enough grit?  


Now, you have a tool you can use to assess your goal strengths and weaknesses, and determine which areas you should concentrate on to maximize your success.  It's called the Nine Things Diagnostics, and it's free!   Answer the questions online, and at the end you can print out a summary of your results to use as a guide.

Or, ask your employees to complete the Diagnostics, to help them get a better handle on where they should focus while reading the Nine Things e-book.  I also offer webinars and on-site seminars for more in-depth Nine Things training.

Good luck with your goals!

Heidi Grant Halvorson


CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE NINE THINGS DIAGNOSTICS

Nine Things Successful LEADERS Do Differently

Very few people can say that they are a truly great leader in every sense of the word.  Chances are good that you are a terrific leader in some respects, and could use a little help in others, and you aren’t really sure why you can’t seem to master the whole package. The intuitive answer – that you are born blessed with certain leadership skills and talents, and born lacking in others – turns out to be, from a scientific standpoint, utterly wrong.

Decades of research on achievement paint a very clear picture: Successful people (including successful leaders) reach their goals not because of what they are, but because of what they do.  You can learn to give feedback that motivates, create work environments that bring out the best in your team, and more effectively reach your own goals while teaching your employees how to reach theirs – but only if you have the right information to help you get the job done.   Here are nine simple and scientifically-proven strategies you can use improve your game.

#1   Successful Leaders Get Specific.  Very Specific. 

Whether you are setting yourself a goal, or assigning a goal to a member of your team, try to be as specific as possible.  “Increase sales by 10% in 2012” is a better goal than “increase sales,” because it gives you a clear idea of what success looks like.  Knowing exactly what you want to achieve keeps you motivated until you get there.  

Specificity is also important when it comes to giving feedback. Make sure you provide clarity not only about what needs improvement, but also what exactly can be done to improve.  When you are a leader, helping your employee figure out how to do it right is just as important as letting them know what they are doing wrong.

#2   Successful Leaders Seize the Moment to Act on Their Goals.  Given how busy most of us are, it’s not surprising that we routinely miss opportunities to act on our goals.  Did you really have no time to check in with your team today?  No chance at any point to return that email requesting guidance?  Achieving your leadership goals means grabbing hold of these opportunities to be a great leader before they slip through your fingers.

To seize the moment, decide when and where you will take each action you want to take, in advance.  Again, be as specific as possible (e.g., “If it’s Friday, then I will check in with each member of my team before lunch.”) Studies show that this kind of planning will help your brain to detect and seize the opportunity when it arises, increasing your chances of success by roughly 300%.   Whenever possible, encourage your employees to use this same technique to execute their own projects as well.

#3  Successful Leaders Know Exactly How Far They Have Left To Go.  Achieving any goal also requires honest and regular monitoring of your progress.  You need it, and your team needs it.  If you don’t know how well you are doing, you can’t adjust your behavior or your strategies accordingly.  And research shows that we lose steam when we don’t have a clear sense of how far we are from the finish line. Check your progress (and theirs) frequently – weekly, or even daily, depending on the goal.  Encourage the members of your team to monitor their own progress, too.

#4  Successful Leaders Are RealisticOptimists. When you are setting a goal for yourself or your team, by all means engage in lots of positive thinking and talking about how likely you are to achieve it.  Believing in our ability to succeed is enormously helpful for creating and sustaining motivation.  But whatever you do, don’t underestimate or play down how difficult it will be to reach the goal.  Most goals worth achieving require time, planning, effort, and persistence.  Studies show that thinking things will come easily and effortlessly leaves you and your employees ill-prepared for the journey ahead, and significantly increases the odds of failure. 

#5  Successful Leaders Focus Their Team on Getting Better, Rather than Being Good.  Believing you have the ability to reach your goals is important, but even more important is believing you can get the ability.   Many people believe that their intelligence and other aptitudes (e.g., social skill, creativity) are fixed – that no matter what they do, they won’t really ever improve.  As a result, they focus too much on proving themselves, rather than developing and acquiring new skills. 

Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong – abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. Encourage your employees to see that they can change, and that it takes effort and experience to reach your fullest potential.  (This means allowing them to make mistakes when trying something new or particularly difficult. Improvement takes time.) People whose goals are about getting better, rather than being good, take difficulty in stride, enjoy their work more, and turn in the most impressive performances.

#6 Successful Leaders Have Built Their Willpower Muscle

As you’ve probably already noticed, successful leaders need a lot of self-control.  (Incidentally, research shows that employees are also more likely to trust a leader who seems to have a lot of self-control.)  Your self-control “muscle” is just like the other muscles in your body - when you give it regular workouts by putting it to good use, it will grow stronger and stronger.

To build willpower, take on a challenge that requires you to do something you’d honestly rather not do.  Give up high-fat snacks, or stand up straight when you catch yourself slouching.  As your strength grows, you can take on more challenges and step-up your self-control workout.

#7 Successful Leaders Don’t Tempt Fate

No matter how strong your willpower muscle becomes, it’s important to always respect the fact that it is limited, and if you over-tax it you will temporarily run out of steam.  So don’t put yourself in harm’s way if you can help it.  If, for instance, you are already exhausted from a long day of putting out fires, don’t respond to the irritating email from your most difficult employee – you will probably say things you will wish you hadn’t. Many people are overly-confident in their ability to resist temptation – like the temptation to call your employee an incompetent doofus - and as a result they put themselves in situations where temptations abound.  

#8  Successful Leaders Focus on What They Will Do, Not What They Won’t Do

Do you want to improve your team’s communication, increase productivity, or put a lid on your bad temper? Then plan how you will replace bad habits with good ones, rather than focusing only on the bad habits themselves.  If you want change the way you or your team does something, ask yourself, What will I (we) do instead?

For example, if you are trying to gain control of your temper, you might make a plan like “If I am starting to feel angry, then I will take three deep breaths to calm down.”  Or if you want to improve communication, don’t just say “We can’t continue to keep key information to ourselves” – figure out exactly how you will all get the information where it needs to go.  By coming up with replacement behaviors, bad habits get worn away over time until they disappear completely.

#9 Successful Leaders Have Grit

Grit is a passion for, and commitment to, long-term goals – something leaders certainly in abundance.  Studies show that gritty people obtain more education in their lifetime, and earn higher college GPAs.  Grit predicts which cadets will stick out their first grueling year at West Point.  In fact, grit even predicts which round contestants will make it to at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

The good news is, if you aren’t particularly gritty now, there is something you can do about it.  People who lack grit, more often than not, believe that they just don’t have the innate abilities successful people have.  If that describes your own thinking …. well, there’s no way to put this nicely: you are wrong.   As I mentioned earlier, effort, planning, persistence, and good strategies are what it really takes to succeed.  Embracing this knowledge will not only help you see yourself and your goals more accurately, but also do wonders for your grit.

This article appeared in the May edition of Leadership Excellence, and was adapted from The Nine Things Successful People Do Differently, HBR’s most-read blog post of all time.

Quit. Do It Now.

This article appeared originally in the Wall Street Journal Online (www.wsj.com)

A few years ago I was - like some of you reading this - overextended, overworked, and deeply unhappy about it. I was a young psychology professor desperately seeking tenure, with two toddlers at home and a husband whose work kept him away for days at a time. I exercised once a week on a good week, rarely saw my friends or extended family, and couldn't remember the last time I'd read a book that wasn't about statistics.

It was just too much. Something had to give. And it did. I left my job, not knowing exactly what I was going to do next. It was the toughest decision I've ever made, but it was also one of the best.

As a psychologist who studies motivation, I spend a lot of time trying to figure out why people give up too soon when trying to reach a goal. But the truth is, a lot of us suffer from the opposite problem: not knowing when, or how, to quit. We take on too many projects and commitments, and end up turning in 10 mediocre jobs instead of one or two stellar performances.

To be sure, quitting a job may not be an option for many, but most of us surround ourselves with plenty of unofficial projects that may not be worth pursuing.

So, why is it so hard to throw in the towel, even when on some level you know you should? For one thing, it's embarrassing to admit to others that you've bitten off more than you can chew, or that you've made an error of judgment. No one likes to be thought of as a "quitter." For another, quitting means contemplating the sunk costs - all the time and energy that you've already put into reaching your goal that you can never get back.

Of course, once you realize that you probably won't succeed, or that success isn't worth the unhappiness your project is causing you, it shouldn't matter what the sunk costs are. If your job, your advanced degree, or your unfinished novel has taken up some of the best years of your life, it doesn't make sense to give them even more years. That will only make you miserable.

But that doesn't make walking away any easier. So here's a simple game plan for cutting your losses.

At the outset:

- Figure out which goal has to go. It might be obvious, but most of the time it won't be, so you'll need to really give some serious thought to your priorities. What matters most to you? And, just as important, what makes you feel effective and fulfilled? Anything that doesn't, might need to get the boot.

- Be confident. You'll want to know that you are giving up your goal for the right reasons, so ask yourself these two questions:

(a) What do I need to reach this goal, and can I get what I need? Look at the whole picture. If successfully reaching this goal means more time and effort than you can spare without sacrificing other important goals, you may need to walk away. (Maybe you can't work 50 hours a week, spend time with your kids, and write that screenplay, and that's OK.)

(b)Will reaching this goal cost me too much? Will it make me unhappy? Sometimes the problem isn't limited time and energy, it's that you really don't like what you're doing as much as you thought you would. You find the process of reaching the goal boring, frustrating, or unrewarding. Circumstances change, and it's OK for your goals to change too.

Once you've made up your mind that quitting is right move:

- Stop dwelling on the past. When regrets about sunk costs creep into your thinking, have a replacement thought ready, one that focuses on everything you gain from walking away and moving on. (Example: If I feel guilty about giving up on my unfinished novel, then I'll remember how good it feels to have more time on the weekends with my kids.)

-       Replace the goal with one that does work for you. To keep yourself moving forward and feeling satisfied with your choice, give some thought to what you will do instead. If you just don't have the time to write a 600-page novel, is there some other way you could express your thoughts and creativity that you do have time for, like blogging?

-        

Learning to know when to fold 'em is essential for your well-being, and ultimately for your personal and professional success, too. When you can give up on a goal that isn't working, you'll be freeing up the valuable resources you need to make the most of the goals you do pursue - the ones really worth pursuing.