The Goldilocks Rule
The human brain loves a challenge, but only if it is within an optimal zone of
difficulty. If you love tennis and try to play a serious match against a four-
year-old, you will quickly become bored. It’s too easy. You’ll win every
point. In contrast, if you play a professional tennis player like Roger Federer
or Serena Williams, you will quickly lose motivation because the match is
too difficult.
Now consider playing tennis against someone who is your equal. As the
game progresses, you win a few points and you lose a few. You have a good
chance of winning, but only if you really try. Your focus narrows,
distractions fade away, and you find yourself fully invested in the task at
hand. This is a challenge of just manageable difficulty and it is a prime
example of the Goldilocks Rule.
The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when
working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. Not too
hard. Not too easy. Just right.
Martin’s comedy career is an excellent example of the Goldilocks Rule in
practice. Each year, he expanded his comedy routine—but only by a minute
or two. He was always adding new material, but he also kept a few jokes that
were guaranteed to get laughs. There were just enough victories to keep him
motivated and just enough mistakes to keep him working hard.
Measure Your Progress
If you want to learn how to stay motivated to reach your goals, then there is a
second piece of the motivation puzzle that is crucial to understand. It has to
do with achieving that perfect blend of hard work and happiness.
Working on challenges of an optimal level of difficulty has been found to not
only be motivating, but also to be a major source of happiness. As
psychologist Gilbert Brim put it, “One of the important sources of human
happiness is working on tasks at a suitable level of difficulty, neither too hard
nor too easy.”
This blend of happiness and peak performance is sometimes referred to as
flow, which is what athletes and performers experience when they are “in the
zone.” Flow is the mental state you experience when you are so focused on
the task at hand that the rest of the world fades away.
In order to reach this state of peak performance, however, you not only need
to work on challenges at the right degree of difficulty, but also measure your
immediate progress. As psychologist Jonathan Haidt explains, one of the
keys to reaching a flow state is that “you get immediate feedback about how
you are doing at each step.”
Seeing yourself make progress in the moment is incredibly motivating. Steve
Martin would tell a joke and immediately know if it worked based on the
laughter of the crowd. Imagine how addicting it would be to create a roar of
laughter. The rush of positive feedback Martin experienced from one great
joke would probably be enough to overpower his fears and inspire him to
work for weeks.
In other areas of life, measurement looks different but is just as critical for
achieving a blend of motivation and happiness. In tennis, you get immediate
feedback based on whether or not you win the point. Regardless of how it is
measured, the human brain needs some way to visualize our progress if we
are to maintain motivation. We need to be able to see our wins.
Two Steps to Motivation
If we want to break down the mystery of how to stay motivated for the long-
term, we could simply say:
1. Stick to The Goldilocks Rule and work on tasks of just manageable
difficulty.
2. Measure your progress and receive immediate feedback whenever
possible.
Wanting to improve your life is easy. Sticking with it is a different story. If
you want to stay motivated for good, then start with a challenge that is just
manageable, measure your progress, and repeat the process.
