Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.

Good morning.

This is Laura.

Welcome to the Before Breakfast Podcast.

Today's tip is about one strategy that can help you persist toward a goal

when you are tempted to give up.

Get rid of your reasons to quit.

In his book, Peak, Secrets from the New Science of Expertise, Anders Erikson explains that when we quit something we initially

wanted to do, it's because our reasons to continue no longer outweigh our reasons to quit.

That makes sense. The math also suggests that we can change

this equation in two ways. We can increase the reasons to continue or we could decrease the reasons to continue, or we could decrease the reasons to give up.

Now I imagine you already have a sense of why you wanted to learn Spanish or clean

out your attic or increase your muscle mass, whatever your goal is. You know your motivations for continuing.

So I want to focus on decreasing reasons to quit.

These reasons tend to be much less specific to the person

or goal. They're often just mundane barriers. Stuff we can address with a little attention.

One common barrier, believing we don't have the time.

Maybe it's true, but probably not.

Track your time.

See what you're devoting time to that you don't really care about.

See if this time can be redeployed.

Maybe you could get up a little earlier.

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