In Get It Done: Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation, Ayelet Fishbach summarises her rich knowledge of motivation and how it works. More specifically, she discusses in great depth how to set, monitor and achieve your goals.

Fishbach focuses on four steps. The first is in setting goals that are specific and measurable, and relying on intrinsic motivation to keep yourself going. The second is to sustain your motivation by monitoring and visualizing your progress and making feedback positive and not negative.

Next comes the challenge of juggling multiple goals and using trade-offs, compromises and self-control to ensure that some goals don’t defeat other goals. The final advice is to leverage social support both in making goals public and also in socializing goals by creating support groups and working with others who have the same goals.

This is an insightful book on how to think about motivation with some good advice and interesting case studies (especially those with surprising results).