Heidi Grant Halvorson

I listened to this audiobook to start 2024 on a new note. I've read plenty of books about goals and related topics. Happily, there were new insights for me in this book thanks to the author's research driven approach.

There are several concepts form the book that were particularly helpful:

-Habit Change: making a plan for specifically when and where to perform the habit (e.g. exercise at 6am at the neighbourhood gym) is proven to significantly increase performance at the habit.

-Using show more different motivational statements: it is helpful to use both why statements (e.g., why do I care about achieving this goal?) and what statements (i.e., what are specific actions I need to do to achieve this goal)

-Visualization. I've heard about visualization before, and this book presented the idea in a new way. Research has found that visualizing the end result (e.g. winning a race) is less effective than visualizing the process involved to achieve the goal (e.g. picturing yourself putting in multiple training sessions over time).

While I found the book quite insightful overall, there were two aspects that I found disappointing. First, the book is best at personal scale habit change (e.g. weight loss, fitness, quit smoking). There was far less discussion of larger scope goals with longer duration (e.g. a 12 month or longer duration goal). I also found it disappointing that many (if not the majority) of the research studies involved college students and children. I gather that using college students in psychological research studies is very common since they are available and relatively easy to access. Still, the book could be improved by including examples of working adults (e.g. a study of 1000 accountants during 'busy season' for example). show less

The more you learn about communication, the more you realize it's significantly about the perceiver and their outlook, experiences and filters. Halvorson's book is all about helping us understand those filters and what we can do to influence through them. She breaks down the traits and biases so we can fully realize what's happening. This book is smart and deep and yet a user-friendly read. Each chapter concludes with a summary that can be used for a quick refresher. One of my favorite show more take-aways is to think about whether the recipient is more an opportunity seeker or a risk avoider. show less

Pretty good and succinct.

A good reminder of how to stay on track with goals, goal setting, and just getting things done. This is especially true since I am reading this at the very beginning of the year and hope to continue with my new year's resolutions.