The Goldilocks Rule To Stay Motivated
How do you stick to your dreams and maintain your motivation? James Clear, an American businessman, offers a simple, science-backed answer to this question. All you have to do is simply follow one rule: the Goldilocks rule, also known as the Goldilocks Rule.
Clear explains that while there is still a lot to learn, one of the most consistent findings is that perhaps the best way to stay motivated is to work on “manageable difficulty” tasks.
If you face a very simple challenge, you will get bored; if you face a big challenge, you will be discouraged. You need a challenge that goes a little beyond what you’ve achieved so far, enough to not get bored and not get discouraged. This phenomenon is what James Clear calls The Goldilocks Rule, the Goldilocks Rule.
Finding this point of difficulty will not only keep you motivated, it will also make you happier. Clear cites psychologist Gilbert Brim to support this point. “One of the important sources of human happiness is to work on tasks with an adequate level of difficulty, not too difficult and not too easy.”
How to Stay Motivated Using the Goldilocks Rule
Clear uses the example of playing tennis against someone who is just like you. As the game progresses, you gain some points and lose others. If you work hard, you have a chance to win the game. At this point, your focus is reduced, distractions disappear, and you are fully engaged in your task.
The challenge you face is “simply manageable”. While victory is not guaranteed, it is possible. Clear explains that these types of tasks will keep us most motivated in the long run, according to science.
Clear says working on tasks that fit the Goldilocks rule is one of the keys to maintaining long-term motivation. Finding a way to push your tasks to the limits of your abilities, to the point where you feel challenged but at the same time able to do it, is the key to staying motivated.
Achieve maximum motivation: measure your progress
The combination of happiness and peak performance is called flow, says Clear. Flow, as a state of maximum motivation, is the state of mind you experience when you’re so focused on the task you need to do that the rest of the world disappears, he explains.
Researchers have found that one factor related to flow states is whether or not they are following Goldilocks’ rule, explains Clear. If you are working on challenges of suitable difficulty, then you will not only be motivated, but you will also experience a happiness boost.
However, to reach this state of peak performance, you not only need to work through challenges of the correct degree of difficulty, but also assess your immediate progress. As psychologist Jonathan Haidt explains, one of the keys to achieving a state of flow is getting immediate information about how you’re doing at each step. In this sense, says Clear, evaluation is a key factor in motivation.
Conclusion
Finally, a curiosity: the Goldilocks rule was named after the children’s story ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’. In the story, she enters the house of the three bears and tastes everything that interests her, until she finds out what she likes: she doesn’t make an effort to eat the soup too hot, or stay in the very small armchair, or lie down on a very low bed. Although the end of the story has little application in the Goldilocks rule, as inspiration it is undoubtedly interesting.
