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How to Use the Two-Week Rule to Become Remarkably Successful (and Optimize Your Bucket List)

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How to Use the Two-Week Rule to Become Remarkably Successful (and Optimize Your Bucket List)

Two weeks is all it takes to find out what a goal means to you. And what you're willing to do to achieve it.

Inc.,

5 min read
4 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

An intense two-week commitment could help kick-start your efforts to reach a major goal.

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Editorial Rating

7

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Recommendation

How often have you set yourself a lofty goal only to abandon it after a lukewarm approach or weak commitment makes success seem overwhelming and unattainable? Achieving a big goal is hard, and emotional fatigue can get the better of you. Jeff Haden, author of The Motivation Myth, offers a simple life hack to increase your chances of success: Commit to your goal for just a fortnight. After two weeks of dedicated work, you’ll start to see the fruits of your labor emerge, and you can then decide whether your goal is worth pursuing.

Summary

Setting goals is easy, but achieving goals is arduous.

When writer Jeff Haden approached a professional mountain biker to develop a three-month training program to prepare him for a 100-mile race, the trainer scoffed and instead created an ultimately successful two-week plan.

While most people aspire to at least one lofty goal, few achieve their big dreams. Why? Humans are acutely aware of their own limitations. Yet most of those limits are self-imposed. Cognizant of this idiosyncrasy, the Navy SEALs hold fast a 40% rule: When you think you’re at your limit of exhaustion, you actually have 60% of your energy reserves left.

A slow start toward a big goal can sabotage your success.

Embarking on a new challenge is draining. Dipping a toe into...

About the Author

Jeff Haden is a contributing editor to Inc. and author of The Motivation Myth: How High Achievers Really Set Themselves Up to Win.

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