Speaker 1: Pushkin. So the problem with unrealistic goals is that we
Speaker 1: get discouraged. If we perceive that the goal is completely unrealistic,
Speaker 1: then we give up and we walk much less than
Speaker 1: if we set a more realistic but motivating goal. So
Speaker 1: the whisky is that will just say, ah, that's never
Speaker 1: going to happen, and therefore I should do absolutely nothing
Speaker 1: about it. Doctor Yellette Fishbach is a professor of behavioral
Speaker 1: science at the University of Chicago and it's the author
Speaker 1: of the best selling book Get It Done. Surprising Lessons
Speaker 1: from the Science of Motivation. She spent decades studying how
Speaker 1: we can get better at not only setting the right
Speaker 1: goals for our selves, but also sticking with them. One
Speaker 1: of her strategies is to think carefully about what we
Speaker 1: reward ourselves for when we're trying to reach a goal.
Speaker 1: Often we reward what is easy to measure. Okay, so
Speaker 1: we might reward ourselves for how many hours we set
Speaker 1: in front of our computer, but not really on whether
Speaker 1: we were productive, whether we did work that gets us somewhere.
Speaker 1: Maybe we were just answering emails and kind of killing time,
Speaker 1: but we did work for many hours. But really we
Speaker 1: should care more about the quality. On today's show, we
Speaker 1: learned about the science of motivation so that we can
Speaker 1: set smarter goals and actually reach them. I'm Maya Shankar
Speaker 1: and this is a slight change of plans, a show
Speaker 1: about who we are and who we become in the
Speaker 1: face of a big change. I've known Ielt since I
Speaker 1: was a post doc studying the science of decision making,
Speaker 1: and her research has had a big personal impact on me.
Speaker 1: I was eager to have her on the show because
Speaker 1: motivation is a key ingredient in successfully changing our lives,
Speaker 1: and her science based strategies can help us think differently
Speaker 1: about how we set goals and how we ought to
Speaker 1: pursue them. So let's start with the basics. How should
Speaker 1: we define our goals? You talk about traps that we
Speaker 1: can fall into when it comes to setting our goals,
Speaker 1: and one of those is when we unintentionally define our
Speaker 1: goals to feel more like chores than like aspirations. Yes it,
Speaker 1: chores are the things that we need to do so
Speaker 1: that we can achieve our goals, and often we define
Speaker 1: the goal in terms of the shore. So we might,
Speaker 1: for example, define our goal in terms of applying for
Speaker 1: a job instead of getting a job stead of having
Speaker 1: a career. Applying for a job for most people is
Speaker 1: no fun. Going on a date it gave for many people,
Speaker 1: that's not really fun. That's a joke, okay. The goal
Speaker 1: is to find someone. The goal is to start a relationship,
Speaker 1: and so defining that the goal on the level that
Speaker 1: is exciting, that identifies what you want to achieve, is important.
Speaker 1: Don't make it too obstruct A goal that doesn't have
Speaker 1: any action that is connected to it gave. If someone
Speaker 1: says my goal is to be happy and they cannot
Speaker 1: name the actions that will make them happy, then this
Speaker 1: is not useful either. But there is this like sweet
Speaker 1: spot between something that is exciting that defines where you
Speaker 1: want to be, not necessarily what you need to do
Speaker 1: in order to get there, but it's nevertheless connected to
Speaker 1: these actions. And whereas that sweet spot exactly, it depends
Speaker 1: on many factors. But there are two different types of
Speaker 1: questions you can ask yourself that will pull you in
Speaker 1: different directions and help you find that balance why questions
Speaker 1: and how questions. So to get yourself to think more
Speaker 1: abstractly about your goals, you need to ask many why questions,
Speaker 1: like I want to sign up for JIM membership. Why Okay,
Speaker 1: because I want to start running? Why because I want
Speaker 1: to be healthier? And so on, And every why question
Speaker 1: makes you a bit more abstruct. Now stop with the
Speaker 1: why on the level where it's no longer really connected
Speaker 1: to action. Okay. So when you ask people why and
Speaker 1: why and why, eventually they give you something very because
Speaker 1: I exist, Yeah, exactly, exactly, because I must still the
Speaker 1: time that I have on this earth. Yes, and that's
Speaker 1: not useful at this point. Okay. And if you feel
Speaker 1: that you are already up there in the sky and
Speaker 1: this is not really useful, then you ask the how questions.
Speaker 1: You know, I want to be happy, like how, okay,
Speaker 1: well you know I want to have a relationship, Well
Speaker 1: you know how, Well I'm going to start meeting more people. Well,
Speaker 1: how I'm going to call my friend who knows many
Speaker 1: people and so on. A Yelle's research shows that the
Speaker 1: way we frame our goals can have a big impact
Speaker 1: on motivation. There are what she calls approach goals or
Speaker 1: do goals. For example, I want to eat healthier foods
Speaker 1: or I want to excel at my job, which are
Speaker 1: all about striving towards a good outcome, And then there
Speaker 1: are avoidance goals or do not goals like I do
Speaker 1: not want to get sick or I want to avoid
Speaker 1: getting fired, which are all about trying to avoid a
Speaker 1: bad outcome, and I yell. It says that whether reframe
Speaker 1: things in one way versus the other can some times
Speaker 1: just depend on the kind of person we are. Is
Speaker 1: there a question we can ask ourselves to figure out
Speaker 1: if we are more approach versus avoidance oriented. You can
Speaker 1: ask what drives you in life? Are you the kind
Speaker 1: of person that is worried about doing the wrong thing? Okay,
Speaker 1: that is a concern about trying out something that doesn't work.
Speaker 1: Are you concern about messing up? I'm going back to
Speaker 1: dating because I think this is actually illustrates this really well.
Speaker 1: Like when you think about finding someone in your life,
Speaker 1: are you thinking about approaching relationship or are you thinking
Speaker 1: about avoiding being lonely? How what feels right to you
Speaker 1: in your mind when you think about this goal. By
Speaker 1: the way, there is really a nice research joint that
Speaker 1: when people feel that they have power, the same goal
Speaker 1: will come to their mind more in terms of approaching
Speaker 1: than avoiding. Can you give me an example of what
Speaker 1: what you mean by having power, think about the work
Speaker 1: when you're meeting with your employee versus your boss, Okay,
Speaker 1: And often that changes in a manner of just you know,
Speaker 1: a few minutes. In one meeting, you are the person
Speaker 1: in power. You are the big boss, and I don't know, maya,
Speaker 1: maybe you're always the big boss, but I'm not, so
Speaker 1: I'm not either, Okay. So then you go to another
Speaker 1: meeting and you are, you know, the person that sits
Speaker 1: there quietly, and everybody else has more power. And in
Speaker 1: the first situation, when you are the boss, you are
Speaker 1: more likely to think about your work in terms of opportunities,
Speaker 1: and in the second setting, you're more likely to think
Speaker 1: about your job in terms of maybe opportunities to mess up.
Speaker 1: How do I not say the wrong thing? As opposed
Speaker 1: to what can I say that might be a useful
Speaker 1: it might move this forward. So so you've said that
Speaker 1: we just to summarize, you've said that that there can
Speaker 1: be these different environments that invoke our do goals and
Speaker 1: then other environments that invoke our do not goals. And
Speaker 1: then in addition to that, there are individual differences that
Speaker 1: can lead us towards one direction or the other. What
Speaker 1: would you recommend that we go with as as a
Speaker 1: default option as we're as we're going about our daily lives,
Speaker 1: and I'm you know, I've just read your book, I've
Speaker 1: just listened to this podcast, and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: I might have these proclivities, but maybe I should be
Speaker 1: reframing my goal in a certain way. Approach goals. Do
Speaker 1: goals are better than do not. The reason is because
Speaker 1: avoidance goals tend to be chores, and approach goals tend
Speaker 1: to be fun and exciting and often more intrinsically motivating.
Speaker 1: And so unless you really you need to protect your life,
Speaker 1: you need to do something to just making sure that
Speaker 1: you are safe in the short term. I mean, in
Speaker 1: which case avoidance framing fits use approach, Yeah, exactly. I
Speaker 1: think it's also important to note that our emotional responses
Speaker 1: to failure can be different when we framed our goals
Speaker 1: in terms of approach versus avoidant. Right, So when we
Speaker 1: achieve something that we're approaching, we can be filled with
Speaker 1: feelings of pride and accomplishment and fulfillment when we when
Speaker 1: we achieve a do not goal, right, um or I
Speaker 1: don't even know it's if you can call it achieving
Speaker 1: a do not goal. It kind of sounds a little
Speaker 1: bit odd. But when we when we um we don't
Speaker 1: have the thing happened to us, right, we feel feelings
Speaker 1: of relief and calm and relaxation like oh, you know,
Speaker 1: the swiping of the forehead, right, like the few thank
Speaker 1: god that didn't happen. When you are trying to avoid
Speaker 1: something and you successfully avoiding it, then you are in
Speaker 1: a way satisfied that you don't have the negative experience
Speaker 1: that you would have if you could not avoid it. Okay,
Speaker 1: So it's the absence of negative. Basically, in posuitive avoidance goals,
Speaker 1: often there is either negative if you fail, or the
Speaker 1: absence of negative, which is if you are successful with
Speaker 1: a bit of you know this relief that laculia, I'm
Speaker 1: not feeling horrible, right, Yeah. And it's also striking me
Speaker 1: right now that it's really hard to measure the absence
Speaker 1: of an activity and absence of an action, right. So
Speaker 1: a lot of times when you frame something in terms
Speaker 1: of avoidance, are you really keeping track of every time
Speaker 1: you avoided the chocolate cake, every time you avoided you know,
Speaker 1: the tempting option. That's just hard to measure, right, And
Speaker 1: so it can feel less motivating because you just have
Speaker 1: less signal about how much progress you're making. There's less
Speaker 1: to hold onto. That's why, for example, I'm such a
Speaker 1: that I've always I'm always telling everyone in my life
Speaker 1: you could probably cleanness about me. But I'm a superaction
Speaker 1: oriented person and so when the action item is to
Speaker 1: like wait or abstain from things, I really struggle. That's
Speaker 1: that's my weak point. You're not the only one, okay.
Speaker 1: When you're trying to avoid something, you're constantly checking whether
Speaker 1: you're avoiding it and by that bringing it back to mind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when it comes to setting our goals, one topic that
Speaker 1: I loved reading about in your book was about the
Speaker 1: importance of who is setting the goal. And the reason
Speaker 1: that's particularly consonant with this show a slight change of
Speaker 1: plans is that we're often talking about the role of
Speaker 1: agency right in making choices and projecting things about the
Speaker 1: future and reflecting back on how our changes have affected us.
Speaker 1: And you say that when we own our own targets right,
Speaker 1: we're way better at executing on them and we're more
Speaker 1: likely to stay motivated. And I just, I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess I just love the research on agency in general
Speaker 1: because it just reinforces how much we love being the
Speaker 1: driver's seat, you know, metaphorically, and then when we own
Speaker 1: that process, we're more likely to stay the course. Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and we know that for many years that people really
Speaker 1: need to have control over their lives and need to
Speaker 1: feel that they are in control when negative outcomes happen,
Speaker 1: and we all have negative outcomes. When you feel that
Speaker 1: it's outside of your control, that the world is cruel
Speaker 1: and it's nothing to do with how you behave this
Speaker 1: is much more problematic than when you experience that you
Speaker 1: do have control and nevertheless had the same and negative outcomes.
Speaker 1: On top of it, when other people set the goal
Speaker 1: for you, that brings react and stand. You know, you
Speaker 1: feel like they are controlling you. You want to argue
Speaker 1: with them, you resent them for demanding certain things from you,
Speaker 1: and and owning your goals is not just good for
Speaker 1: you psychologically, it also helps achieving these goals. You're less
Speaker 1: likely to have these two minds. Yeah, I will do
Speaker 1: this maya because you ask me, But I also resent
Speaker 1: the fact that you ask me, and so I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do my best. Yeah, and I like that,
Speaker 1: do you know? Obviously a lot of us don't get
Speaker 1: to control all of the goals that are set for us. Right,
Speaker 1: we have jobs, we have responsibilities. As you mentioned your book,
Speaker 1: we might be working with a coach of some sort,
Speaker 1: but what you've recommended is that at a minimum, that
Speaker 1: person might be able to give us a set of
Speaker 1: options from which to choose. Right. So, if you're working
Speaker 1: with a personal trainer, let's say they can give you Okay,
Speaker 1: you can do you know, the StairMaster or the elliptical,
Speaker 1: or we can lift weights. Right, and it's just the
Speaker 1: idea of Okay, here's the option set that I know
Speaker 1: will help you thrive. But you can still choose, choose
Speaker 1: among those options. Yes, yeah, ask for options, ask for
Speaker 1: alternative ways to pursue your goals so that you you
Speaker 1: do get some sense of control. Yeah, it's making me
Speaker 1: think that I should tell my husband, Jimmy in the future. Okay, Jimmy,
Speaker 1: here's the option set. Unloading the dishwasher, loading the dishwasher,
Speaker 1: taking out the trash, your choice, buddy, But one of
Speaker 1: these is going to be accompanied with more motivation. I
Speaker 1: love it. See you're helping on motivation. You're helping, you know,
Speaker 1: marital relationships. This is fantastic. Yeah, you know, we didn't
Speaker 1: even get to relationship. Ye. Yeah, we haven't gone there yet. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I want to wrap up this part of the
Speaker 1: conversation where we're talking about how to better set goals
Speaker 1: with my favorite recommendation from you, which is to make
Speaker 1: sure that we're setting our goals when we're in a
Speaker 1: similar psychological and physiological state as the one will will
Speaker 1: be in ultimately when we are actually striving for that goal.
Speaker 1: And I mean, this is just this is such smart
Speaker 1: advice because of course our aspirational selves can can race
Speaker 1: away from us and say, oh yeah, I can totally
Speaker 1: imagine eating salad for every single meal, or you know,
Speaker 1: in work, adopting a totally new set of habits. But
Speaker 1: what you said is no, Actually to have a little
Speaker 1: bit of a temperature check and to ground your goals
Speaker 1: in reality. Make sure that you're actually at work when
Speaker 1: you're setting those goals, or if you're thinking about healthier eating,
Speaker 1: make the goals when you are totally fal and it's
Speaker 1: easy to say that you're always going to be able
Speaker 1: to eat the healthier option versus you know, the unhealthy one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well you summarize it beautifully, so one reason for this
Speaker 1: is the empathy gap is our tendency not to be
Speaker 1: very empathetic to our future selves. And so you know,
Speaker 1: when we plan our career transition, we think that this
Speaker 1: future person that we are going to be is going
Speaker 1: to wake up at six am, start walking at seven am, right,
Speaker 1: and walk until they get dinner and go to sleep,
Speaker 1: and so that person is going to accomplish a lot.
Speaker 1: The problem is that that person is going to be us,
Speaker 1: and so that person will be baled or tired and
Speaker 1: everything else, and the empathy gap, it's just very how
Speaker 1: to overcome. If you set your goals when you're in
Speaker 1: a similar state, that helps you being more empathy addicted
Speaker 1: to this person that will have to follow through with
Speaker 1: the goals and the danger lives and if you don't
Speaker 1: do this and setting unreasonable goals and then basically jumping
Speaker 1: ship when you when you find that it's it's not
Speaker 1: even within the realm of of you know, practical life
Speaker 1: to be able to do those things right. It's so
Speaker 1: the problem with unrealistic goals is that we get discouraged.
Speaker 1: Usually we don't really care about the specific target that
Speaker 1: we set. We care about setting a goal so that
Speaker 1: we are motivated right so that we want to walk hard.
Speaker 1: But if we perceive that the goal is completely unrealistic,
Speaker 1: then we give up and we walk much less than
Speaker 1: if we set a more realistic but motivating goals. So
Speaker 1: the risk is that will just say, ah, that's never
Speaker 1: going to happen, and therefore I should do absolutely nothing
Speaker 1: about it. After the break, I will share how we
Speaker 1: can use science based strategies to sustain our motivation as
Speaker 1: we make progress towards our goals. We'll be right back
Speaker 1: with a slight change of plans. So you've taught us
Speaker 1: a lot about how we can better set our goals,
Speaker 1: and now I'd love to talk about how we can
Speaker 1: sustain our motivation to make progress on those goals. And
Speaker 1: the first step in doing this is just to get
Speaker 1: your foot in the door period right to begin the activity.
Speaker 1: And you've talked about how important that first step is
Speaker 1: because it can lead to almost a disproportionate impact on
Speaker 1: motivation in the longer term. Do you mind sharing more
Speaker 1: about that. The difference between CEO and one steps is huge,
Speaker 1: and that means that people are usually very enthusiastic when
Speaker 1: they start something, and we can help ourselves maintain this
Speaker 1: commitment or you know, I help others and stay committed
Speaker 1: by looking back by notice that we already took the
Speaker 1: first step. Okay, so taking that first step can give
Speaker 1: us the boost we need to stay in the game.
Speaker 1: It signals to our brains that we care about the
Speaker 1: goal and that we've taken at least one step towards
Speaker 1: achieving it. But there's an additional challenge that lies ahead.
Speaker 1: Research shows we often have trouble sustaining this motivation as
Speaker 1: we pursue our goals. Our motivation often flags as we
Speaker 1: approach the halfway point, what eyel It calls the middle problem.
Speaker 1: You have high motivation at the beginning and high motivation
Speaker 1: at the end, but then there is the middle, and
Speaker 1: the middle is when your motivation is usually lower, both
Speaker 1: in terms of doing the thing and also in terms
Speaker 1: of doing it right. Okay, so we see that people
Speaker 1: are less likely to engage, but they're also going to
Speaker 1: relax their performance standards. People are not going to do
Speaker 1: such a good job. Okay. We did the study in
Speaker 1: which we gave people a bunch of shapes on the
Speaker 1: a piece of paper and they had to cut them
Speaker 1: with just a pair of scissors. And like the first
Speaker 1: shape they cut, well, the last shape they cut whale
Speaker 1: in the middle, they were literally cutting corners. I love that.
Speaker 1: So they were literally relaxing their performance standards. You know,
Speaker 1: studies on cheating they found that, you know, if people
Speaker 1: ever cheat, they are not going to do this on
Speaker 1: the first time. Okay, they're going to do it more
Speaker 1: towards the middle, and so we walk less hard in
Speaker 1: the middle. We also don't do such a great job.
Speaker 1: So what can we do to address this dreaded middle problem?
Speaker 1: You can actually get rid of middles yet exist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no middles. No, Well, we need to have middles, but
Speaker 1: we can keep them short. Either. An annual goal might
Speaker 1: be a monthly goal. So instead of saving money this year,
Speaker 1: I think about saving money this month. An exercising goal
Speaker 1: could be a weekly exercising goal. And if you if
Speaker 1: you might have a weekly exercising goal, I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: that you will have another weekly exercising goal next week. Right,
Speaker 1: you're not going to really get to the end of
Speaker 1: this goal. But by defining it more nearly, by setting
Speaker 1: sub goals, we can fight these middles. We can also
Speaker 1: remind ourselves that our identity is Let's take a more identity,
Speaker 1: remind us thinking that whatever we do reflect on who
Speaker 1: we are as a person is helping us do a
Speaker 1: good job. Is there an example a lot of you,
Speaker 1: you know, shortening the middle or refraining things in your
Speaker 1: life to try to get around the middle problem. Well,
Speaker 1: I do try not to think about the full time
Speaker 1: in which I will see you a goal. So every
Speaker 1: research project it takes years, but I really try to
Speaker 1: think about what I'm going to do this quarter. So
Speaker 1: the middle is really short. And every quarter we start
Speaker 1: in my lab by just telling each other what are
Speaker 1: the goals that we are going to pursue for this
Speaker 1: period of time and what needs to be completed. Okay,
Speaker 1: So when it comes to when it comes to sustaining
Speaker 1: our motivation, and obvious natural place for us to dive
Speaker 1: in is to talk about one driver or motivation, which
Speaker 1: is incentives. Right. Yes, I think about incentives as mini goals. Okay.
Speaker 1: What we find is that it's really critical to incentivize
Speaker 1: the white thing. Okay, so not a proxy, not something
Speaker 1: that is just easy to measure. But do you mind
Speaker 1: getting us an example of what it means to reward
Speaker 1: the quote right thing? Yes, what does it mean to
Speaker 1: reward the right thing. Often we reward what is easy
Speaker 1: to measure. Okay, so we might reward ourselves for how
Speaker 1: many hours we set in front of our computer, but
Speaker 1: not really on whether we were productive, whether we did
Speaker 1: work that gets us somewhere. Maybe we were just answering
Speaker 1: emails and kind of killing time, but we did work
Speaker 1: for many hours. When we incentivize others, we sometimes incentivize
Speaker 1: them for doing things very quickly, but really we should
Speaker 1: care more about the quality. Another piece of advice eile
Speaker 1: It has when it comes to staying motivated is sometimes
Speaker 1: turn to ourselves for advice. In a study eile It ran,
Speaker 1: she identified people who were struggling to achieve a specific goal.
Speaker 1: They were then asked to share their own advice for
Speaker 1: how to reach that goal, or they were given advice
Speaker 1: from an expert, and then researchers measured had these two
Speaker 1: different sources of advice affected motivation levels, and what they
Speaker 1: found was really surprising. So we asked unemployed people to
Speaker 1: give advice on how to get a job. We ask
Speaker 1: people who said that they are struggling with being angry
Speaker 1: to give advice on how to control you anger. People
Speaker 1: were more motivated by their own advice than by the
Speaker 1: advice that we have given them, which with though was
Speaker 1: really interesting because it suggested when when you just increase
Speaker 1: your confidence, So when you just remind yourself of how
Speaker 1: much you know, okay, like you remind yourself that you're
Speaker 1: the expert and get confident as a result, then you
Speaker 1: are motivated to do something about it. Yeah, can we
Speaker 1: can we take in a little bit more into the
Speaker 1: mechanism that's at play here. I was in particular interested
Speaker 1: in people who are struggling. So the people who when
Speaker 1: I asked them to give advice, they've started by saying,
Speaker 1: why would you ask me? Like what do I know?
Speaker 1: Obviously I'm like, I don't know what they said? Why
Speaker 1: would you ask me about dieting? And you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't have a conversation with most of them. But the
Speaker 1: people that I didn't have a conversation with, I was saying,
Speaker 1: you are you kidding me? Like you know more than
Speaker 1: other people because you were struggling with this, Okay, like
Speaker 1: you've learned. You've been doing it now for a while.
Speaker 1: You try things and maybe they didn't work, and so
Speaker 1: you learn, Okay, some things did work for you. You
Speaker 1: learn from those too. And it turned out that when
Speaker 1: people are willing to go beyond this first reaction of
Speaker 1: what do I know? Okay, obviously I'm not doing it
Speaker 1: very well, they realize that they have a lot of knowledge.
Speaker 1: This memory search brings to mind the things that they
Speaker 1: do know. Often it brings to mind the lessons that
Speaker 1: they learn from failures. But there is such an amazing
Speaker 1: knowledge that comes from trying something and realizing that it
Speaker 1: doesn't work. However, you need to think hard and identify
Speaker 1: these lessons. So they find these lessons. And then the
Speaker 1: last thing that it does is just that build a
Speaker 1: confidence because hey, I ask you for advice, so I
Speaker 1: think that you are the expert you know, and when
Speaker 1: someone tells you that you are the expert, you feel
Speaker 1: like you know a lot. Yeah. So, so one antagonist
Speaker 1: for sustaining motivation, UM, as we're trying to pursue our
Speaker 1: goals is failure. Right are the setbacks that we face?
Speaker 1: And how can we think differently about about failure or
Speaker 1: learn from failure so that we can we can stay
Speaker 1: the course. I'm so glad that you ask, because I
Speaker 1: think that we both our passion is in learning from
Speaker 1: a failure. Might try Son told media the day that
Speaker 1: I'm the expert on failure, and I love that. Hey
Speaker 1: that's a great that's a good cop, I thought. So
Speaker 1: it's then when you realize that his mother knows something
Speaker 1: about failing. So yeah, so it's really hard to learn
Speaker 1: from failure. It's unintuitive, and it's just how do to
Speaker 1: learn what to do from what not to do? It's actually,
Speaker 1: it turns out that it's easier to learn from other
Speaker 1: people's failures. So in our task where we just have
Speaker 1: like the really usually just two options, there is a
Speaker 1: correct answer and there though it's an incorrect answer, And
Speaker 1: if you look at someone else choosing the incorrect answer,
Speaker 1: you do learn the correct answer more than if you
Speaker 1: yourself guess the incorrect answer. Is that because emotion and
Speaker 1: ego aren't clouding the situation exactly, okay, exactly because if
Speaker 1: you chose the wrong answer or you're upset, yeah, just
Speaker 1: busy with managing your emotions. When you look at me
Speaker 1: choosing the wrong answer, you're not upset, You're just learning. Okay.
Speaker 1: Of course, the problem is that we don't tend to
Speaker 1: share our failure with other people, so you might not
Speaker 1: know about all the ways in which I failed because
Speaker 1: I'm not telling you about it. Yeah, that's your chance
Speaker 1: mail it, have the whole platform. I'm just kidding. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna make you an unfailure lane. No, but I
Speaker 1: love that, And it also shows that you know, when
Speaker 1: we when we are when we structure our lives around
Speaker 1: trying to achieve goals with others, it does create an
Speaker 1: open space for us to share failures and successes because
Speaker 1: you're getting exposure to other people's journeys day in and
Speaker 1: day out. Right. I mean, if I have a running
Speaker 1: buddy in the very theoretical world in which I ran
Speaker 1: aail it um, you know, I might see the days
Speaker 1: that they don't show up for running because they're having
Speaker 1: low motivation, or you know, you pull back the curtain
Speaker 1: and you get the unglamorous look into how other people
Speaker 1: are working to perceive their goals. I agree, and I
Speaker 1: would say that people do not share their failures, so
Speaker 1: it's not easy to get it from them, like we
Speaker 1: we looked at it in many studies. To give you
Speaker 1: an example, we asked teachers to tell us one success
Speaker 1: doe in one fellow story and then anonymously share with
Speaker 1: another teacher the one of these stories Okay, so the
Speaker 1: story that you think has a better lesson. Okay, almost
Speaker 1: everyone share the success story. Yeah, wouldn't it be so
Speaker 1: great if the last three lines of your CV were
Speaker 1: all the things that you tried and sucked at or
Speaker 1: failed at. Right, So it's like, ah, here's the highlights reel.
Speaker 1: But Baya never became the Bollywood dancer that she wanted
Speaker 1: to become when she was in high school. She never
Speaker 1: became the singer songwriter that she wanted to become when
Speaker 1: she was in college, right, because she had no aptitude
Speaker 1: for singing. And so it would be really wonderful to
Speaker 1: hear a slightly more unfiltered story from people about the
Speaker 1: broad range of things they've tried in their life and
Speaker 1: then have not succeeded at. Cannot agree more. You know
Speaker 1: how everybody got accepted to their amazing college. I know,
Speaker 1: it's remarkable. We're at one hundred percent hit rate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that all these colleges tell us that
Speaker 1: they reject most candidates. You know, no one was ever
Speaker 1: rejected that I know. I've never heard of someone rejected
Speaker 1: from college. Absolutely, not myself included. Because people are so
Speaker 1: hesitant to share their failures with one another, and because
Speaker 1: I let knows there's so much we can learn from
Speaker 1: doing so, she's been on a mission to help encourage
Speaker 1: this behavior. As we wrapped up our conversation, she shared
Speaker 1: that someone reached out to her about an event where
Speaker 1: failure takes center stage. People are encouraged to shout from
Speaker 1: the rooftops about all the times they didn't get it right.
Speaker 1: People are talking about projects that they tried and failed,
Speaker 1: or just personal failures, just like I'm going on a
Speaker 1: stage in front of people and talking about what went
Speaker 1: wrong and trying to understand what the lesson in the
Speaker 1: person started this try and for which me and I
Speaker 1: told me that my research was part of the inspiration
Speaker 1: for these nights, and I felt very good about that. Hey,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening. On next week's episode, our season finale,
Speaker 1: we hear the story of a Theronos whistleblower, Erica Chung.
Speaker 1: Erica knew something was very wrong at the company, and
Speaker 1: even though she had a lot to lose by speaking out,
Speaker 1: she saw no other option. Honestly, the idea of knowing
Speaker 1: what I knew and having not done anything, and knowing
Speaker 1: that there was something that I could have done about it,
Speaker 1: and I didn't do anything like that's the real prison.
Speaker 1: That's the real purgatory. A Slight Change of Plans is
Speaker 1: created written an executive produce by me Maya Shunker. The
Speaker 1: Slight Change Family includes Tyler Green our senior producer, Emily Rostak,
Speaker 1: our producer and fact checker, Jan Guera, our senior editor,
Speaker 1: Ben Tolliday, our sound engineer, and Mia LaBelle our executive producer.
Speaker 1: Louis Skara wrote our theme song, and Ginger Smith helped
Speaker 1: arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of Plans is a
Speaker 1: production of Pushkin Industries. So big thanks to everyone there,
Speaker 1: including Nicolemrano, Maggie Taylor, Eric Sandler, Heather Fame and Carly Nigliori,
Speaker 1: and of course of very special thanks to Jimmy Lee.
Speaker 1: You can follow A Slight Change of Plans on Instagram
Speaker 1: at doctor Maya Schunker. How I became the expert of failure.
Speaker 1: So my son was struggling with his video game like
Speaker 1: he had like tears in his eyes. He was super frustrated.
Speaker 1: He felt like the challenge that he will never be
Speaker 1: able to to do. And then he asked that I
Speaker 1: will come and sit next to him, and my daughter
Speaker 1: was saying Wow, but I sit next to you, I
Speaker 1: actually know something about video games, like mom doesn't know anything.
Speaker 1: And he said that despite the fact that I am
Speaker 1: not very useful in terms of the knowledge that I
Speaker 1: have about video games, I'm the expert on failure and
Speaker 1: he really prefers to fail next to me because I
Speaker 1: will make him feel good.