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This article contains excerpts from Kyle’s best-selling book Escalate: The Practical Guide to Get Yourself Unstuck and Build Lifelong Momentum
In 2005, psychologist Dan Ariely found one of the simplest ways to increase productivity. You might be wondering why you’re just now hearing about it. Unless you’ve read Ariely’s book or some drab psychology studies, you likely haven’t come across it.
In the study, Ariely paid students to build Lego models (Kamenica, Ariely, & Prelec, 2005 Man’s Search for Meaning: The Case of Legos. PsycEXTRA Dataset. Doi: 10.1037/e640112011-016). Each model was composed of forty pieces and accompanied by instructions. In one group, each completed model was placed on the desk in front of the students. Then the students would receive another box and start assembling the next model.
In another group, the students received two boxes. Every time they completed a model, it was immediately dismantled and placed back in the box, so the students could start assembling the second box, and over and over.
In both groups, all of the models were identical. However, the first group outperformed the second group eleven to seven. The difference? The first group could see their progress. The mere fact that their progress was visible inspired them to work harder and faster. As a result, they continued to build enthusiastically, despite being paid less for each later model.
These numbers may not seem remarkable but take on new meaning when you realize that the group whose progress was visible outperformed their counterparts whose progress was not, by over 57% (despite being paid less for each consecutive model completed). How many organizations and individuals do you know who would pay phenomenal amounts to gain 57% more productivity? What could you accomplish if you could get 57% more productivity out of yourself?
This principle not only affects productivity but also HOW you do your work. To illustrate this, let’s look at an all-too-familiar example of mowing the lawn. You’re rarely excited or inspired to mow the lawn. As you grab your mowing shoes, you remind yourself of this and again as you grudgingly get behind the machine.
However, as you start cutting, almost immediately, there is a satisfaction that takes control of you as you see the mess that you call a lawn go into the mower, and clean leveled grass come out. Even more, when you make turn 4 or 5, you start to take pride in seeing multiple rows of clean-cut grass.
What happens next? Well, instead of trudging behind the push mower, you quicken your step. Instead of degrading the chore and yourself, you’re filled with satisfaction. “Look how good that looks!” you tell yourself.
When you make progress visible, it spurs you forward. It encourages you to keep going and makes even the most demanding of tasks more enjoyable.
The biggest barrier to this though, is a failure to celebrate small wins.
Take the example of Carrie, a well-educated and experienced client of mine, who was tasked with helping her growing organization in food production, implement a leadership development program. Not long into the engagement, Carrie expressed frustration about not making any progress.
“What would make you feel better about the situation?” I asked.
“Having the program in place and running,” she replied.
We then walked through all the progress she had made.
“Carrie, you began this project about six months ago,” I told her. “When you started, how much did you know about leadership development?”
“Nothing,” she replied.
“What do you have in place right now that you didn’t have in place six months ago?” I asked.
“Nothing! That’s the problem.”, Carrie said dejectedly.
“You really believe you don’t have anything new in place?” I responded. Followed by, “What would you need in place right now to feel like you’ve made progress?”
“We would be offering training quarterly, have leadership development built into our performance management process, and have a suite of tools and resources for the organization to use.” She replied.
I considered her reply for a moment, “I see. Well I know for sure you have done some things. Forget what you believe you should have in place and tell me what you do have in place.”
“Well, we have three ongoing lecture series,” she said. “And we’re starting to include leadership suggestions in our newsletter and have revised some job descriptions.”
Carrie paused before reeling off several other initiatives that were also in action. I questioned her about all the steps she had taken to accomplish each achievement. There were many, including diligent efforts to find good presenters for the lecture series.
“And who did all of that?” I asked.
“I did,” she replied.
“How do you feel about your progress now, considering none of it existed just six months ago?”
I questioned.
She was humbled, but also excited. “You’re right,” she agreed. “We have made progress. Imagine how much progress we’ll make in the next six months!”
With this fresh perspective, she recognized that the organization had made tremendous advances in the six months she had worked with them. Seeing her progress began by recognizing her small efforts for what they were, small wins.
As I did with Carrie, you can recognize and reward your own progress by unpacking what you’ve done into the tasks it took to do it. When you focus on creating an entire leadership development program, researching presenters may not seem like a small win, but it certainly is.
It has to be done, and once it is, you are one step closer to your desired results. Identify and then celebrate these things as the wins they are. Reward yourself!
“Remember, the journey of a thousand steps starts with one, but it only continues if that first step is seen as a victory.”
Too often you stop yourself from taking action because you know you won’t achieve your long-term goal right away. You fail to recognize that the culminating effects of small steps are what lead to extraordinary achievement.
One of the most significant issues I have run into in my work is that individuals have a tough time recognizing small wins. They focus so much on the goal, on a few large milestones, that they fail to acknowledge the progress they are making in simple ways every day.
When you fail to recognize these wins, you miss out on a huge opportunity to gain desire and accelerate your progress.
It is one thing to tell yourself that you’ve worked hard at the end of the day; it is another to identify what you actually did. For action and progress to be visible and inspiring, you must engage in honest observation and reflection. If you think about and track your efforts in ambiguous terms, it will not do much for you and won’t help to increase your desire. Many people work hard every day of their lives, and yet they still lose desire.
If you want your actions to increase your desire, you need to remove the ambiguity and get specific about what you did and how it led to (or will lead to) your desired results. It is more inspiring to reflect on each of your efforts and observe how they are moving you forward than to tell yourself that you worked hard.
How do you find the power to take action, and gain desire from the effort you’ve taken? Spend time reflecting on your efforts, make your progress visible, and reward yourself for that progress.
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