#1 Wall Street Journal bestseller! Jon Acuff New York Times best-selling author of Do Over
Quitter and Start offers strategies for anyone who's ever wondered "Why can't I finish what
I started?" According to studies 92 percent of New Year's resolutions fail. You've
practically got a better shot at getting into Juilliard to become a ballerina than you do at
finishing your goals. For years I thought my problem was that I didn't try hard enough. So I
started getting up earlier. I drank enough energy drinks to kill a horse. I hired a life coach
and ate more superfoods. Nothing worked although I did develop a pretty nice eyelid tremor
from all the caffeine. It was like my eye was waving at you very very quickly. Then while
leading a thirty-day online course to help people work on their goals I learned something
surprising: The most effective exercises were not those that pushed people to work harder. The
ones that got people to the finish line did just the opposite- they took the pressure off.
Why? Because the sneakiest obstacle to meeting your goals is not laziness but perfectionism.
We're our own worst critics and if it looks like we're not going to do something right we
prefer not to do it at all. That's why we're most likely to quit on day two "the day after
perfect"-when our results almost always underperform our aspirations. The strategies in
this book are counterintuitive and might feel like cheating. But they're based on studies
conducted by a university researcher with hundreds of participants. You might not guess that
having more fun eliminating your secret rules and choosing something to bomb intentionally
works. But the data says otherwise. People who have fun are 43 percent more successful! Imagine
if your diet guitar playing or small business was 43 percent more successful just by
following a few simple principles. If you're tired of being a chronic starter and want to
become a consistent finisher you have two options: You can continue to beat yourself up and
try harder since this time that will work. Or you can give yourself the gift of done.
