Why You Never Finish Anything

There's a room in your home where everything you started and never finished ends up: the guitar, the gym card, the book you were writing, the language app, the running shoes still in the box. In this animated video, five of them tell you the exact day you left them, and why. It was never laziness. Each one died of something different. It covers the gap between your taste and your skill, the what-the-hell effect, why polishing chapter one is the safest work there is, how a streak can push out the reason you started, and why telling people about a goal can make you less likely to do it. At the end you take one thing back out of the room, with a plan small enough to keep. CHAPTERS 0:00 The room 0:52 1: The guitar (the gap) 2:15 2: The gym card (the perfect plan) 3:40 3: The book (the first page) 5:10 4: The Spanish (the streak) 6:28 5: The running shoes (the announcement) 7:43 Taking one back TAKE ONE BACK 1. Pick the one you still think about, not the biggest. 2. Leave it out where you can see it, not in its case. 3. Two minutes a day. Play, write or run badly on purpose. 4. Miss a day if you must. Never miss two. 5. Don't announce it. Show people later. 6. In a month, compare with day one. Studies mentioned: Polivy & Herman on dieting and the "what-the-hell" effect (1985). Lepper, Greene & Nisbett, "Undermining children's intrinsic interest with extrinsic reward", 1973. Gollwitzer, Sheeran, Michalski & Seifert, "When intentions go public", Psychological Science, 2009. The pottery class story is from Bayles & Orland, "Art & Fear". #selfimprovement #motivation #psychology