What is the key to success? It's hard to know—especially when so much success advice is contradictory: Should you be kind, or is being nice for losers? Should you spend every waking hour at work or focus on work-life balance? In Barking Up the Wrong Tree, peak performance expert Eric Barker examines the research on every option—and shares what he believes are the secrets to success.
In this guide, you'll first learn why context is king—why the rules for success depend on who you are. Then, we'll examine interpersonal relationships, reviewing the importance of kindness, networks, and your attitude towards success. Finally, we'll present Barker's views on persistence and hard work, namely why you need to stick to some things and quit others and how you can achieve the ideal balance of work and play. Along the way, we'll examine how Barker’s ideas compare with those of other thought leaders and introduce even more ways to implement his suggestions.
Why are there so many different rules regarding success? Barker suggests this is because often, the key is not whether the path is right but whether it’s right for you. Therefore, an essential key to success is to know yourself and act accordingly.
Barker explains that most of the time, things aren't inherently good or bad: They just work differently for different people. Such is the case with rules for success: Some people can succeed by following a prescribed path, while others succeed by doing the exact opposite. Specifically, people can be divided into two types: the rule-followers who succeed in predictable ways—like by steadily climbing the career ladder—and the individualists, who follow unorthodox paths and have qualities that might be problematic but work in the right context. For example, Winston Churchill’s paranoia was dangerous in peacetime but led him to rightly view Adolf Hitler as a threat—and thus successfully lead Britain through World War II.
How Accepting Your Tendencies—No Matter What They Are—Can Help
Other experts point out that you may be neither a rule-follower nor an individualist but a rule-bender—someone who follows rules in most instances but occasionally deviates from them without breaking them entirely. Moreover, they suggest that your behavior may differ depending on the situation. For example, you might steadily climb the career ladder but then make drastic organizational changes once you reach the top.
But whether you’re a rule-follower, bender, or breaker, history does suggest that accepting your tendencies—including potential weaknesses—and taking advantage of them can help lead to greatness. For example, modern experts believe that Churchill had bipolar disorder. Paranoia is a symptom of bipolar disorder, as are bouts of mania. But rather than try to change this part of himself, Churchill made good use of these intense floods of energy, publishing 43 books while serving as prime minister.
Barker explains that since different types of people succeed in different ways, you must first understand yourself. To do so, you must figure out two main things about yourself—whether you’re a rule-follower or an individualist, and what you’re good at. When you know how you generally work and what you’re naturally suited for, you can focus on picking the jobs that will work with your strengths and that you're thus more likely to succeed at.
(Shortform note: Barker doesn’t specify how to tell whether you’re a rule-follower or an individualist. Instead, he suggests that you should already know based on your life experience. But what if you don’t? Consider taking the DiSC personality test, which suggests that people with a high C personality type are likely to follow the rules, while low C types are individualists.)
Not sure what your strengths are? Start by analyzing your projects: Before you start one, write down your expectations. Then, once you've finished, see how reality compares to those expectations. Over time, you’ll start to see patterns in your behavior that will reveal your strengths. For example, if you consistently exceed expectations when managing technical projects, managing technical projects may be your strength.
(Shortform note: One expert warns that basing your career on your strengths can backfire if you define a strength as something you’re already good at. This is because by doing so, you ignore the things you could be good at but in which you’d need to improve your skills over time. Therefore, when determining a career based on your strengths, consider not just your current skills but also skills in which you might have exceptional potential—and could thus improve significantly with practice.)
Once you know your working style and strengths, Barker suggests that you select an environment that lets them flourish instead of one in which they’ll wither. For example, an individualist would be miserable at a hierarchical corporation, just as a rule-follower might hate a start-up with few clear guidelines and an anything-goes attitude. Instead of actively sabotaging yourself by selecting companies and positions you're unsuited for, play to your strengths. Doing so will give you the greatest chance of success.
(Shortform note: How do you select a position and company suited to both your strengths and your work style? Experts recommend that you read job postings carefully and ask detailed questions during your interviews to determine what kind of position you’re signing up for. For example, if you work best alone, consider avoiding job postings that emphasize collaboration. And if you hate playing by the rules? Ask about manager-employee relationships. An answer that emphasizes communication and flexibility will likely suit your work style.)
Another area in which conventional advice regarding success contradicts itself is its recommendations surrounding kindness. Some people argue that being nice is for chumps, while others argue that being nice will get you far. So who’s right? According to Barker, they all are. You can be both kind and successful—but you have to be smart about it.
Why does being kind pay off? Barker explains that when you’re kind to someone without expecting anything in return, people grow to like you—and people who like you want to help you. Some people who like you will offer you small courtesies, like proofreading an important email you need to send. Others will watch over you and help if someone tries to take advantage of you. Therefore, when you meet someone, get them to like you by doing something small for them before they do anything for you. For example, you might treat them to coffee.
(Shortform note: Barker’s advice is contradictory. He argues that being kind means you don’t expect others to do things for you. However, doing someone a favor in order to get them to like you does involve an expectation: You expect that they’ll “like you” because you did something for them. As one blogger points out, expectations like this can be harmful: For example, you might feel cheated if the person you were nice to later doesn’t like you. To avoid this, practice doing favors for others without expecting anything back before you do a favor for someone at work. For example, give a stranger a friendly smile.)
While being kind is important, Barker argues that it only leads to success if you’re smart about it—and he presents three ways of doing so.
To be smart, Barker first recommends that you surround yourself with ethical people at work. If you’re surrounded only by people who want to take advantage of you, nobody will return your kindness—and being kind without getting anything in return leads to unhappiness. Moreover, studies show that the behaviors of the people you’re closest to rub off on you. So if you’re surrounded by kind people at work, you’ll become kinder. If you’re surrounded by unkind people, you’ll become unkind.
(Shortform note: Barker focuses on the importance of having ethical coworkers—but in The Success Principles, motivational speaker Jack Canfield urges you to surround yourself with good people in general: He contends that spending time with positive, supportive, successful people will increase your chances of success. Specifically, he recommends minimizing the time you spend with negative people in your life and finding more positive people to spend time with by volunteering or joining professional societies in your field.)
A second way to be both smart and kind is to highlight your achievements. Barker explains that unkind people are naturally good at self-promotion. So as a kind person, be deliberate about highlighting your achievements to make your boss aware of your good work. Try promoting yourself to your boss by sending her a weekly email highlighting your achievements over the past week. You’ll thus create a record of accomplishments that you and your boss can refer to when it’s time for your annual review.
(Shortform note: While Barker highlights the importance of promoting yourself to your boss, one marketing expert recommends that you promote yourself to your colleagues, too, so you can demonstrate to them the specific ways in which your expertise can help them. Worried about seeming like a show-off? Focusing on objective truths, like by saying, “I got an award for X” instead of “I’m great at X,” will make you seem less egotistical and invite less pushback.)
Third, Barker recommends that you fight back when people try to abuse your kindness. Being kind might get you far, but if you’re too kind and always absolve someone who exploits you, they’ll continue to exploit you forever. This doesn’t mean you should physically fight back. Instead, tell others about what this person did. If they learn that exploiting you will damage their reputation, they’ll be less likely to exploit you (and possibly others) in the future.
(Shortform note: Barker doesn’t consider that gossiping about your coworkers may damage your reputation—even if your complaints are justified. So what’s a good way to stop people from exploiting you without risking your own career? Try setting clear boundaries: Tell them what you are and aren’t willing to do, and use the word “no” liberally.)
However, Barker doesn’t recommend fighting back every time people are unkind. Rather, his fourth and final recommendation for being both kind and smart is to occasionally forgive people when they’re unkind to you. Everybody messes up sometimes, so it’s important to understand this reality and let people off the hook occasionally. By doing so, you give them the opportunity and the incentive to behave better next time—and as we’ve seen, the kinder the people around you are, the kinder you will continue to be.
(Shortform note: While forgiving coworkers who’ve wronged you may encourage them to be kinder in the future, forgiveness benefits you in a more immediate way, too: Research suggests forgiveness is correlated both with greater productivity and health, perhaps because forgiving your coworkers reduces your stress levels. But how do you forgive people? Experts recommend the REACH model: Recall the wrong, Empathize with the person who wronged you, Altruistically forgive them, Commit to the forgiveness by writing a note, and Hold on to that note to remind yourself that you’ve forgiven them.)
You’ve now learned that it’s smart to be nice, but what if socializing doesn’t come naturally to you? Is success really about who—not what—you know? Not necessarily, according to Barker—but your relationships are essential, so you must nurture your network.
Barker explains that socializing doesn’t guarantee success because people comfortable with different levels of socialization are good at different things. For example, extroverts (people who are energized by socializing with others) tend to make more money, introverts (who are energized by being alone) are more likely to become experts in their fields, and ambiverts (who fall somewhere between extroverts and introverts) tend to make great salespeople. So as long as you know your own level of extroversion or introversion and choose positions that work with it, you can succeed in your chosen field.
How to Implement Barker’s Suggestions at Any Stage of Your Career
It’s easy to pick a position suited to your level of extroversion or introversion if you know what it is and you’re at the beginning of your career. But what if you’re not sure or you’re already committed to a career path? If you’re unsure of your level of extroversion or introversion, taking this quiz developed by organizational psychologist Adam Grant will help you find out.
Then, if you can’t change your career, consider ways in which you can adjust aspects of your work to suit your socialization style. For example, in Quiet, Susan Cain suggests that flexible work environments help both introverts and extroverts be productive by providing both social spaces for connection and quiet spaces for working alone. Similarly, in a hybrid work environment, an introvert might try to work more remote hours so that they can focus on building expertise, and an extrovert might work primarily in person so they can demonstrate their leadership skills and get a promotion. And an ambivert might adjust their workplace based on their energy levels and tasks—like by working alone to perfect their sales pitch but meeting a client in person.
However, Barker argues that for most of us, our network does matter. This is because most people aren’t introverts willing to spend most of their lives alone toiling in their chosen field. Rather, most people want to work in fields that require both intense solo work and maintaining good relationships—in other words, a good network. (Shortform note: Most people may not be so introverted that they’re willing to forgo relationships for their work, but introverts do make up a significant portion of humanity: Research suggests that 40% of the population are introverts, 40% are extroverts, and 20% of ambiverts.)
Good relationships are often essential to progress, Barker contends. To illustrate this, he describes how during World War II, Harvard University (which was working on jamming radar signals) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (which was working on improving radar) developed advanced radar technology that helped the United States win the war because they were willing to work together. (Shortform note: Long after World War II, Harvard and MIT have continued to collaborate in ways that have benefited others: In 2012, the two institutions launched edX, a platform on which they shared their courses for free online.)
So if your network does matter, how can you nurture it? The first step, according to Barker, is to reframe the term “networking” and focus on building friendships. We sometimes struggle to network because it feels insincere: This is because our brains didn’t evolve to create solely business relationships, so we don’t like doing it. However, we did evolve to make friends—and being friends with people is helpful because, as we’ve seen, the more people like you, the more they want to help you. So when you meet people, try to become their friend. A simple way to do this is to look for things you have in common: Research demonstrates that we like people who are like us.
Why Building Friendships Is Still Hard
If you try to build friendships in order to expand your network, you may still feel like you’re being insincere or manipulative. Researchers suggest that networking makes us feel this way because we’re uncomfortable making connections to reach professional goals. However, we don’t mind making friends because we approach it with seemingly more noble aspirations, like finding support.
Moreover, even if you get past this ideological hurdle and meet someone with whom you share interests, it’s hard to make good friends as you get older. Anecdotal evidence suggests that this is due to several factors, such as difficulty finding time to meet and financial disparities that limit what you can do together. You’re also more likely to have a long-term partner, which often makes socializing even harder. Even if you have a lot in common with someone, if your spouse can’t relate to their spouse, it’s harder to hang out together.
The second step to nurturing your network is to mentor and be mentored. Citing research that indicates that nearly all top performers have mentors, Barker suggests that if you want to be a top performer, you must get a mentor, too. To find one, research the top performers in your field, occasionally reaching out with a well-thought-out question. Then, after implementing their advice, tell them how they’ve helped you and thank them. Finally, once you’ve progressed in your field, mentor your juniors. Being helpful to others ultimately comes back around: When the people you know become happier, you become happier too.
Why Women Struggle to Find Mentors—And How to Solve the Problem
In Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg argues that women have particular trouble finding mentors. Sandberg posits that part of the reason for this is that women know that they need good mentors to succeed and so are more likely to try to force a mentor connection in uncomfortable ways, for instance by asking questions like, “Will you be my mentor?”
Sandberg’s advice to these women is similar to Barker’s: Ask insightful questions, maintain the relationship, and mentor others so that you pay it forward. However, there are some differences: Notably, she warns against getting stuck on the “mentor” label, explaining that it’s the relationship that’s important, not the formality of the setup. She also contends that mentors don’t have to be experts in your field: Career guidance can come from your subordinates and peers, too.
Finally, Barker recommends regularly thanking the people in your life. As we’ve discussed previously, you become like the people you spend time with—so it pays to have good people in your life. Research indicates that regularly thanking people is a cornerstone of maintaining the friendships you build with good people. If you can, visit the people who’ve affected your life positively and thank them in person. But if you can’t, sending them a message of thanks will still boost both your and their happiness and improve your relationships.
Why You Shouldn’t Expect Gratitude in Return
Don’t start expecting others to be thankful for your presence in their lives just because you’ve gone out of your way to express gratitude to them. In How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie explains that ingratitude is part of human nature, so expecting gratitude from others will only lead to your frequent disappointment. Rather, Carnegie recommends that you focus on the joy of giving without expecting anything in return.
That said, Carnegie also posits that by consistently and earnestly expressing gratitude, you’ll naturally cultivate a stronger sense of gratitude in others and show them how to meaningfully express it—so you may still eventually receive the gratitude you desire, which would boost your happiness and likely deepen your relationship.
You’ve learned why being kind to others can help you succeed, but how should you act towards yourself? Conventional wisdom dictates that being confident is key to success—and that if you aren’t confident, you should act as if you were. However, Barker argues that confidence is overrated. In this section, we’ll discuss why projecting confidence isn’t always the best idea—and what you should do instead.
Barker admits that confidence has many benefits: Notably, confident people often become successful because they’re willing to take advantage of potentially risky but ultimately rewarding opportunities. (Shortform note: Barker argues that confidence leads people to take risks, but one expert suggests that the reverse is also true: Taking risks increases your self-confidence by proving to you that even if you fail, you can still get through that failure.)
However, Barker contends that we focus too much on the benefits of confidence and not enough on its negative consequences: the reality that just because we’re confident (or pretend to be confident) in our ability to do something doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re able to do that thing. As a result, being confident can lead us to believe that we can do things we can’t and thus make poor decisions.
To illustrate, Barker tells the story of martial arts expert Yanagi Ryuken. Ryuken was confident that he could defeat his opponents without engaging in physical contact with them and agreed to test this ability in a fight—which he promptly lost, along with his credibility.
Why Ryuken Didn’t Have Self-Esteem
Barker never explicitly defines confidence or its related terms. The closest he gets is when he equates confidence with self-esteem and implies that being “overconfident” involves a surplus of self-esteem that leads us to overestimate our abilities and thus make bad decisions. However, in The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, psychotherapist Nathaniel Branden emphasizes that self-esteem consists partly of trust in your own capability—a trust you develop by repeatedly proving that you’re capable.
By Branden’s definition, Ryuken—and others like him—didn’t suffer from an overabundance of self-esteem (as Barker argues) but rather a lack of it. Branden contends that understanding your reality and responding appropriately to it is essential to your self-esteem. Moreover, he implies that by repeatedly making good decisions that take reality into account, you repeatedly prove yourself capable and thus improve your self-esteem. Since Ryuken was unable to accept the reality that his fighting abilities were not as magical as he wanted to believe, he didn’t have high self-esteem in the way Branden describes.
So how can you avoid the negative consequences of confidence? According to Barker, the best way is to ignore confidence entirely. Instead, try to become more self-compassionate—in other words, be kinder to yourself when you fail. Self-compassion improves your performance and boosts your mood—just as self-confidence does. However, self-compassion has one major advantage over self-confidence: When you’re self-compassionate, you don’t overestimate your abilities. Rather, research indicates that being self-compassionate encourages appropriate judgments so you see your true self—flaws included.
Understanding Self-Compassion
In The Confidence Code, journalists Katty Kay and Claire Shipman elaborate further on the benefits of self-compassion, which they define more explicitly than Barker as judging yourself by the standards that you judge your friends by. They explain that self-compassion allows you to accept failure because it reminds you that you’re human and that humans aren’t perfect.
Kay and Shipman add that self-compassion encourages you to take positive action by reminding you that it’s OK if a risky action doesn’t work out. This may explain why self-compassion improves your performance and boosts your mood: As we’ve seen, risk-taking often leads to success, and research suggests that risk-takers are happier.
But what if you’re not willing to prioritize self-compassion over self-confidence? In that case, Barker says you can avoid the worst consequences of confidence by never pretending to be good at things you can’t do: When people discover that you’ve lied to them, they’ll stop trusting you. Instead, work on improving your skills: Doing so will increase your confidence, but this is deserved confidence that reflects reality—and so doesn’t lead you to make poor decisions.
The Relationship Between Vulnerability and Lying
It seems obvious that someone who learns you’ve lied to them would stop trusting you—so why lie in the first place? One possibility is that you lie because you feel vulnerable. In Dare to Lead, researcher Brené Brown explains that when people feel vulnerable, they automatically resort to defensive behaviors that protect them from negative emotions. Similarly, if you’re put on the spot and feel vulnerable about admitting you can’t do something, you might lie to protect yourself from embarrassment.
To avoid resorting to defensive behaviors in moments of vulnerability, Brown explains that people depend on “grounded confidence,” confidence based on a proven ability to face your vulnerability rather than a belief that you probably should. So if you struggle to improve the skill you’re tempted to lie about, try improving your levels of grounded confidence instead. One way to do so is to approach your work with curiosity: By taking the time to examine problems instead of panicking, you’ll recognize and take advantage of valuable learning opportunities.
Of course, improving your skills takes time. So what if you haven’t yet improved your skills but are in a situation where you have to get someone to admire you—like in a job interview? Barker suggests you don’t lie, but rather be the “best version of yourself” so you present yourself in a positive but accurate light.
(Shortform note: How can you present the best version of yourself in a particular situation? Experts contend that, in addition to actually having the skills you claim to have, you must also determine what version of yourself the situation requires and be driven to act like that version of yourself. For example, in a job interview, you must determine what the interviewer wants, want to be that ideal, and present a version of yourself that’s close to the ideal but remains true to you.)
Now that you’ve learned about how your attitudes towards others and yourself affect your success, let’s talk about the work itself—and more specifically, about the grit it requires. Conventional advice around grit—our ability to persevere through setbacks and continue working towards long-term goals over years or even decades—often contradicts itself. As Barker notes, we tend to believe that grit is essential to success; however, we also warn each other about clinging to our dreams for too long—like the man who’s convinced he can become a pro basketballer long after his joints have started to wear away. So which is it?
(Shortform note: Experts differ on what grit actually is. Some psychologists contend that grit is the same as conscientiousness, the tendency to be responsible, organized, persistent, goal-oriented, and self-controlled. However, psychologist Angela Duckworth, who popularized the term “grit,” argues that it differs from conscientiousness because it also incorporates passion—the adherence to high-level, long-term goals—rather than a short-term commitment to goals.)
Barker argues that this isn’t an either/or question. Rather, he contends that if you want to succeed, you have to work hard at the right things—which means you have to stick to some things but quit others. In general, grit is essential to success: It’s associated with greater optimism and happiness. But you can only find the time you need to consistently work on your long-term goals—in other words, to display grit—if you prioritize the endeavors that matter. And to do that, you must stop—or quit—the endeavors that don’t.
How Your Ego Stops You From Quitting Things
In Ego Is the Enemy, philosopher Ryan Holiday posits that we often struggle to quit the wrong things in our careers due to the sunk cost fallacy: We’ve invested time, energy, and money into a project (sunk costs), so instead of admitting that those costs are irretrievable, we continue to throw good money after bad trying to make those costs mean something. Holiday contends that we fall victim to this fallacy because our egos see career failures as personal failures and want to fight these failures at all costs.
However, to display grit in the right endeavors and achieve happiness, you must be willing to admit your losses and move past them. To do so, Holiday recommends that you face each failure, determine honestly whether your errors are redeemable, and ask yourself whether it’s worth continuing or if you should move on to fight another battle.
So you now know that you have to stick to the endeavors that matter—but how do you discover what those are? What are the long-term goals that you want to fight for? If you have no idea, Barker recommends performing small experiments: Test out things you’re interested in to see if you want to pursue them in the long term. For example, if you dream of opening a café, get a part-time job at one to see if it’s right for you.
(Shortform note: In Designing Your Life, Stanford professors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans also recommend testing out things you’re interested in to see if you want to pursue them in the long term. Like Barker, they recommend performing small experiments. But they add that you should conduct interviews with people who already do the thing you want to do. You can thus learn the pros and cons of their choices in detail and evaluate whether their path is for you.)
Once something piques your interest, try the WOOP method: Define your wish, envision the ideal outcome, review what obstacles you might encounter, and plan how you’ll overcome them. Research indicates that if your wish is achievable, doing this mental exercise will inspire you—so you should focus your efforts on whatever wish inspires you the most.
(Shortform note: Barker focuses on how using the WOOP method can help you determine what to work on. But other experts explain that using the WOOP method can re-inspire you to work on goals you’ve already decided on but are having trouble actually doing. This is because the method combines two proven goal-setting techniques: mental contrasting, in which you visualize both your desired future and your current reality, and setting implementation intentions, which you do by clearly stating, “If X happens, I’ll do Y.”)
Once you’ve decided what to work on, how can you ensure that you persevere through setbacks? Barker argues that one key is to tell yourself a good story. By nature, your brain tells stories about the random events in your life—doing so gives you a sense of control. These stories are often objectively untrue, as they lead you to ignore information that doesn’t fit into the narrative you’ve created.
However, Barker contends that when it comes to grit, ignoring facts is a good thing: A good story provides you with a sense of meaning that motivates you to surmount obstacles. If you didn’t have this story and focused instead on the facts, you probably would realize you were unlikely to surmount these obstacles—so you wouldn’t even try.
When Telling Stories Is Harmful
Barker focuses on how inaccurate stories about the obstacles you’re facing can help you—but inaccurate stories can harm you, too. In Crucial Conversations, the authors agree that stories are how we explain the world. However, they add that as we develop these stories, our body responds with strong emotions—so once these stories are told, they control us and dictate how we feel and act. Since the same set of facts can be used to spin infinite stories, telling a bad story could demotivate you and cause harm—like if you convince yourself you’ll never survive an easily survivable obstacle.
Telling the wrong story doesn’t just cause emotional harm: In The Psychology of Money, financial writer Morgan Housel explains that it can also cause us to make poor financial decisions. Like Barker, Housel posits that we tell stories about the random events in our lives to help us feel more in control—but since finance is subject to the whims of human emotions, we don’t have as much control over our money as we tell ourselves. When we overestimate how much control we have, we’re more likely to ignore factors such as chance or others’ decisions and may make poor financial decisions as a result.
Specifically, Barker recommends that you tell yourself two stories. First, write your own eulogy: Creating a story about how you want people to remember you when you’re dead will motivate you to strive towards that legacy when you’re alive.
(Shortform note: Writing your own eulogy may help you in your professional life—but to be romantically successful, one psychologist suggests imagining your future partner’s eulogy instead. He explains that people seeking a partner focus on that person’s achievements—like their wealth. However, you’re more likely to find a happy relationship with someone who has traits that one might praise in their eulogy—like kindness.)
Second, Barker recommends turning your journey into a game—which is a type of story because it involves reframing reality. Gamifying your journey makes it more enjoyable and thus motivates you to push through setbacks and stick to your plan even when you get bored.
(Shortform note: Why does gamifying your journey make it more fun? In A Theory of Fun for Game Design, game designer Raph Kosta contends that learning in games is fun because games have no real consequences and let players exist in unpredictable environments without causing anxiety. But gamifying something you do in real life does have real consequences—so why is it still fun? As Barker states, the key may lie in the story you tell yourself: By acting as if something serious is a game, you reduce your anxiety around it and thus increase your enjoyment—which in turn motivates you to stick to the right things.)
You’ve now learned the importance of gamifying your journey—but how do you actually do it? Barker contends that you must include four features to stay motivated and stick to your goals:
For example, say you’d like to develop your piano skills. First, your realistic end goal might be to win a local piano competition instead of to become the next Mozart. Second, you might regularly increase the difficulty by choosing progressively harder pieces to play. Third, you might clarify your lower-level goals by deciding to master a specific section of a piece so that you can boost your chances of winning the competition. Fourth, you might incorporate regular feedback by performing for a piano teacher. By incorporating all four features, you’ll be able to enjoy the learning process and stick with it even when you hit a slump.
How the Gamification Model Relates to Habit Formation Models
Barker recommends that you gamify your journey so you stay motivated even when you hit setbacks. But interestingly, the steps that he recommends for doing so are also essential to creating habits—which, once developed, drive you to automatically perform specific behaviors without requiring any motivation.
So how do you create habits? In Tiny Habits, behavioral expert BJ Fogg recommends the following process: Pinpoint your exact aspiration, brainstorm several behaviors that would achieve that outcome, repeat the tiniest version of one of those behaviors, celebrate when you succeed, then progressively upgrade that behavior. Each of these steps reflects a feature of gamifying your journey that Barker emphasizes.
For example, say you wanted to be less tired during the day—but after further reflection, you realize you actually want to get better sleep. This is a more specific and thus more realistic goal. During the brainstorming process, you discover that taking a lavender-scented bath before bed would help you reach your end goal—you now have a clear lower-level goal. You decide that the tiniest version of that behavior is taking out the lavender oil and unscrewing the cap. Each time you do this, you celebrate your success by, for example, pumping your fist—this is a form of feedback: You make yourself feel happy by succeeding. Once you habitually take out the lavender oil, you then upgrade the behavior by unscrewing the lavender oil and running hot water. In this way, you’re progressively increasing the difficulty on your way to developing a nighttime bath habit.
You've learned that it's essential to work hard—to be persistent and stick to your goals so you can achieve them. But most modern experts also tout work-life balance...so which is it? Barker agrees that working hard is essential, but he also approves of balance. In other words, you should work hard—but work smart.
Barker explains that if you want to succeed, you have to spend several hours on your goals—ideally, at least 10,000 hours to become an expert. In fact, research suggests that as long as you're relatively smart, greatness is determined by how long you work intensely at something.
Why 10,000 Hours Might Not Be Enough
Working 10,000 hours doesn’t guarantee that you’ll become an expert—you have to spend those hours on “deliberate practice,” a term Barker never explicitly defines. In Peak, psychologist Anders Ericsson explains that deliberate practice has five main features: It’s competitive, requires maximal effort, involves repeating time-tested skills, is performed under the tutelage of coaches, and can be measured objectively.
But, as Malcolm Gladwell points out in Outliers, spending 10,000 hours on deliberate practice is often a luxury afforded only to the privileged because having money can buy you that time. For example, someone who can afford to hire a cleaning service can spend more time practicing a skill than someone who has to clean their home themselves.
Despite this, Barker argues that work-life balance is also essential because spending all your time working comes with trade-offs. Notably, people who spend all their time working often struggle to maintain good relationships—which, as we saw in our section on networking, are essential. Moreover, working too much often leads to exhaustion—which reduces your health and creativity and can lead to burnout.
(Shortform note: Work-life balance is especially important for women: In Invisible Women, Caroline Criado Perez explains that long work hours are particularly damaging to women’s health because women probably also do most of the unpaid care work at home. So, as Sandberg points out in Lean In, if you’re a woman who wants a good work-life balance (including a husband and family), you should pick a good partner: someone who doesn’t spend all his time working and is willing to share equally in home and childcare responsibilities.)
The problem? Barker explains that it's difficult to achieve work-life balance today in ways that it wasn't in the past. Thanks to technology, we can now work anytime we want—and we feel pressured to do so because if we don't, someone else might. When we always have the option to work—and we’re worried that if we don’t work, we’ll fail because someone else worked harder than we did—we tend to work. Unfortunately, however, this often leads us to neglect other important areas of our life—like our relationships.
(Shortform note: In The Psychology of Money, Housel also contends that we struggle to achieve work-life balance today—but not because we always have the option to work. Rather, Housel believes that the nature of work now forces us to work constantly: Most of us perform knowledge work that intrudes upon our thoughts long after we leave the workplace. This makes us feel like we’re always working and that we don’t have control over our time—and this lack of control has reduced our happiness and, as Barker notes, impaired our relationships.)
So what should you do? Barker argues that the most important thing is to decide what your successful life looks like. By doing this, you'll be able to ignore the world's unrealistic demands and feel less guilty focusing on working when you need to and playing when you need to. Research suggests that a successful life should have four main elements: pursuing joy, reaching your goals, connecting with others, and making an impact.
Then, Barker recommends ensuring that you're spending time on all four of those elements. Don't try to be perfect; just figure out what's adequate in each category. To do so, first determine what your current schedule looks like—how much time are you spending on each element, and how much time are you wasting? Then, jot down how many hours you'd like to spend on each element, and adjust your schedule accordingly.
How to Build a Schedule That Reflects Your Values
Like Barker, productivity expert Nir Eyal recommends building a schedule that reflects your priorities in life and adjusting it as necessary. However, in Indistractable, Eyal recommends a different method for doing so.
First, instead of focusing on activities that build joy, goals, connections, and your legacy, Eyal recommends that you focus your schedule on the three responsibilities that take up all of your time—you, your relationships, and your work—and your values in each. These values represent what’s important to you and who you want to be. For example, your value in your relationship may be to spend quality time together, so you might schedule a date night.
Then, Eyal recommends that you timebox: dedicate specific blocks of time to specific activities, ensuring that you schedule enough time for yourself, your relationships, and your work. Every minute of your day should be timeboxed because it’s the only way to accurately gauge how often you do what you planned. Live by this schedule as much as possible, but keep a distraction tracker: Each time you deviate from the schedule, note why and how you got distracted.
Finally, Eyal recommends that you spend 20 minutes each week with your schedule and distraction tracker to reflect on two questions: When did you stick to or deviate from your schedule and what schedule changes might help you avoid distractions? By frequently reflecting on your schedule, you’ll become more aware of when you get distracted—and can slowly adjust your schedule so that it meets all your values and works with your life.
Worried that you can't spend your time in your desired way because you might not be able to get all your work done? Barker proposes two solutions. First, speak with your supervisor if you need to. Ask her what she wants you to prioritize, then present a plan that makes you both happier. Say she wants you to check your email every hour, but you find doing so unproductive. When you discuss her priorities, you might learn that she simply wants to remain in the loop. You might then suggest scheduling a daily five-minute phone call with her so you can update her more efficiently without spending hours on email.
Second, Barker recommends that you schedule your workday: Pick the time you want to stop working, then decide exactly when you'll do which projects, scheduling the ones that require the most focus early in the day. Setting aside dedicated time to do the most important work ensures that it gets done—and still allows you the time you need to enjoy other aspects of your life.
How to Schedule Your Workday Effectively
In Indistractable, Eyal makes more detailed recommendations on both how to schedule your workday and talk to your manager so you can get your most important work done and maintain work-life balance.
Eyal recommends first that you create a schedule that includes both your plan for your work and any non-negotiable work commitments. Then, regularly share this schedule with your manager. When your manager has a clear idea of how your time is being spent, she gains greater context on potential issues (like a productivity slump), can suggest areas where you can reprioritize tasks as necessary, and can discern when it’s appropriate to ask you to do more work.
Now that you’ve learned how essential the people you know are to your life, plan how to thank someone who matters.
Consider your current life circumstances, and write down three things you’re happy about.
Review the answer above and name one person you could thank for each of those blessings in your life. For example, if you’re grateful for your spouse, you might name the person who introduced you.
Review the above list. Who do you want to thank the most and why? For example, you may want to thank the friend who introduced you to your spouse because you’ve had an especially hard time recently, and your spouse has been so helpful to you.
Plan one action you can take to thank this person within the next week. For example, if they live close by, you might schedule a coffee date. Alternatively, if they’re far away, you might look into flights or simply schedule a call.