PDF Summary:Think Big, by Grace Lordan

What’s the key to transforming your life?

In Think Big, behavioral science expert Grace Lordan argues that most of us fail to transform our lives because we try to change too much too quickly. Instead, we must set a big goal, acknowledge that achieving it will take a few years, and then take the regular, small steps necessary to achieve it. Moreover, we must understand how to overcome the cognitive biases—the mental shortcuts that all humans take—that hinder us from achieving our goals.

In this guide, we’ll first define what cognitive biases are and how your own (and others’) affect your life. Then, we’ll share Lordan’s advice on changing your life by identifying who you want to become, and how to recognize and work around both your cognitive biases and external obstacles. Along the way, we’ll share other experts’ tips on working around your cognitive biases so you can transform your life.

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Reframe Your Fears

If you struggle to chase your goals because you’re worried about how failing might feel or how others will react to a potential failure, you’re acting out of fear. But what if your awareness of these cognitive biases or of the reality that people aren’t paying as much attention to you as you think doesn’t help reduce your fear or motivate you to act?

In Everything Is Figureoutable, Marie Forleo recommends reframing your fear as a good thing. As she points out, if you’re afraid to do something, it’s often a sign that you care deeply about it—and so you should do it. To determine exactly what your fear is telling you, Forleo recommends the following exercise: First, relax your body by taking several deep breaths. Then, ask yourself whether doing the thing that scares you makes you feel open or closed off—and pay attention to how your body reacts. If you feel enthusiastic and like a weight has been lifted, that’s a good sign. If your muscles tense and you feel nauseated, consider holding off.

Manage Your Time Well

No matter how confident you are, you won’t successfully implement your plan unless you manage your time well. To do so, Lordan recommends that you plan for more time than you think you need. This is because we’re subject to the planning fallacy: a chronic tendency to underestimate how long it will take to do something. To reduce its effect on your schedule, start by multiplying how much time you think something will take by 1.5, and schedule your tasks accordingly. Then, keep a record that compares how much time you thought you’d spend on a task with how much time you actually spent. Eventually, you’ll notice patterns that will indicate just how much you underestimate the time certain tasks will take and so be able to plan better.

(Shortform note: Some experts argue that it’s impossible to avoid the planning fallacy. In The Art of Thinking Clearly, Rolf Dobelli says that people never get better at planning realistically because of their ego: They want to feel good about themselves, so they exaggerate their abilities. That said, Dobelli does suggest that you can mitigate the planning fallacy by avoiding the impulse to plan in detail. Narrowing your focus on details makes you more likely to be surprised by unexpected events, exacerbating the fallacy.)

That said, Lordan recommends that if you’re planning to focus on a single task, you should generally plan to work on it for about 90 minutes at a time. You’re most productive and learn best when you achieve flow, which is when you’re so absorbed in a task that you stop paying attention to anything else and even forget about the passage of time. While you may struggle to reach flow at first, eventually, you’ll be able to work with flow for 90 minutes. That 90-minute limit also ensures that you remain productive; flow exhausts you, so even if you schedule more than 90 minutes, you probably won’t be able to work for more than 90 minutes.

(Shortform note: Some experts agree that you should work in 90-minute blocks because doing so helps you achieve flow. However, they specify that you should alternate between working for 90 minutes and then resting for 20 minutes. This schedule both helps you achieve flow and follows the natural rhythm of your body’s energy levels, which fluctuate throughout the day: You work for 90 minutes, when you’re productive, rest for 20 minutes when you’re tired, and then resume working as your energy levels start to rise again.)

Managing your time well doesn’t just involve scheduling time to work on your goals; it also requires that you actually work on your goals when you say you will. Lordan recommends two strategies for doing so. First, implement short-term rewards for performing your desired behavior and short-term negative consequences for not doing so. Humans tend to avoid doing things that are beneficial long-term if they’re immediately unpleasant; making the beneficial behavior pleasant in the short term circumvents this tendency. For example, you could allow yourself to watch an episode of your favorite TV show after spending one hour on a difficult task.

(Shortform note: In Atomic Habits, Clear also advocates rewarding yourself immediately after performing a desired behavior. He explains that we remember the end of a behavior more than any other part. So doing something immediately satisfying at the end of the behavior will keep you motivated in a way that delayed rewards won’t. One technique Clear recommends is to create a visual representation of your progress—like marking an X on a calendar each day you perform your desired behavior. When you can visually see your accomplishments, you’ll be motivated to continue acting.)

Second, instead of judging your output by how well you complete one task—like “create a presentation”—decide in advance how much you’d get done on a very productive, moderately productive, or slightly productive day. Then, when the day comes, tailor how much work you’ll do based on your energy levels. Even if you're low in energy on a particular day, you’ll likely often choose the moderately productive option due to the compromise effect—our propensity to shy away from extremes. Scientists have seen this propensity when evaluating people’s purchasing decisions, but Lordan speculates that we may also prefer the middle-of-the-road option in other areas—like when choosing how much work to do.

(Shortform note: When choosing what counts as very, moderately, or slightly productive, you may be tempted to put in extreme options to nudge yourself toward a particular choice. For example, you might say that very productive is 10 hours and slightly productive is two hours in an effort to encourage yourself to work the moderately productive five hours (which is what you really want to do). If so, you would be taking advantage of the decoy effect—a psychological phenomenon similar to the compromise effect that many businesses use to sway customer choices. Businesses often sell a product (a decoy) that is generally not particularly attractive to customers but serves the purpose of making a different option more attractive to the customer.)

Reflect on Your Progress

Another key element of successfully implementing your plan is to regularly reflect on your progress. Lordan suggests two methods of doing so.

First, Lordan suggests that you regularly reflect on your ideal self. As we learned earlier, the more salient something is, the more we pay attention to it. So the more often you envision your ideal self, the more motivated you’ll be to continue working to become that person—despite any boredom you may feel.

(Shortform note: Regularly envisioning your ideal self may also help you become that person by harnessing the Law of Attraction. In The Secret, Rhonda Byrne suggests that thinking positive thoughts will attract success. So if you ask for what you want and strongly believe that you’ll get it—such as by envisioning your ideal self—the universe will conspire to bring that belief to life.)

Second, Lordan suggests that you regularly reflect on your successes and failures. After each major success or failure, reflect on the most impactful decisions you made that led to that outcome. If this success or failure involved another person’s evaluation, try to see if you can learn why they made that evaluation. Then, decide how much of the outcome depended on things that you did and how much depended on factors outside of your control—like others’ budgets or unforeseeable emergencies. By doing so, you’ll gain a better understanding of what you’re doing well and what you might need to change. This reflection will also help you avoid self-serving bias: the tendency to attribute wins to your internal qualities and losses to external factors.

(Shortform note: In Think Like a Rocket Scientist, Ozan Varol also recommends analyzing how much of an outcome depended on factors that were within your control and how much depended on factors outside of your control. But he says that it’s even better if you perform a similar analysis before making big decisions. To do so, imagine that you’ve made a particular decision that went horribly wrong. Then, try to explain why it went wrong, estimate a rough probability for each issue, and come up with ways to avoid those pitfalls. By doing so, you’ll reduce the chances that you’ll attribute wins to your own internal qualities and grow complacent about success instead of proactively dealing with things that could go wrong.)

Bounce Back

Regularly reflecting on your failures may help you decide what you need to do differently, but whether you persist through setbacks depends on your resilience—your ability to withstand, adapt to, and recover from adversity.

Lordan suggests several strategies you can use to bounce back better from adverse events. First, create a list of things to distract you when you’ve had a bad day. Then, do something from this list—whether that’s taking a bubble bath or partaking in a favorite hobby—whenever you face a setback. Distracting yourself from the initial pain of the failure will help diminish that pain so you’re better able to deal with it. Calming yourself down will also prevent you from making rash decisions in the heat of the moment—a tendency caused by the affect heuristic, our tendency to make decisions based on how we’re feeling instead of logical reasoning.

(Shortform note: Some experts agree that distracting yourself when you’ve had a bad day can help. In particular, they recommend physically removing yourself from the situation; shifting your surroundings can prompt your brain that it’s OK to switch your mood. But what if you’re not able to take a break? Some experts suggest that you can circumvent the affect heuristic by speaking to yourself in the third person. For example, instead of saying, “I’m so angry,” say, “[Your Name] is so angry.” This strategy helps you distance yourself from your emotions, which helps you gain control over your emotions and prevent them from driving your decisions.)

Second, Lordan recommends that you regularly practice gratitude. Humans pay more attention to losses than we do to gains, which can make us feel worse about our lives and reduce our ability to bounce back. By regularly practicing gratitude, you remind yourself of all the good things in your life. As a result, you’re better able to handle failures because you’re able to counterweight their impact with the acknowledgment of the positive.

(Shortform note: In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown adds that practicing gratitude improves your self-esteem by boosting your sense of worthiness—your conviction that you’re good enough as you are. When you ignore the good things going on in your life, you see yourself and your actions as “not enough.” Focusing your energies instead on the positive aspects of your life makes you more likely to feel like you’re “enough.”)

You can also bounce back better from potentially adverse events by redefining what counts as an adverse event. To do so, Lordan suggests that you stop comparing yourself to others. No matter how well you do, you won’t achieve satisfaction if you compare your own success to that of others—because someone else will always be doing better than you. Instead, compare yourself to yourself: In other words, judge your growth by comparing your current self to your past self. If you stop using others’ accomplishments to evaluate your own success, you’ll stop being upset by their accomplishments.

(Shortform note: Constantly comparing yourself to others is a form of what The Gap and The Gain authors call “gap-thinking.” The authors agree with Lordan that gap-thinking is problematic: If you’re trying to measure up to an idealized version of yourself based on others’ standards, you don’t have control over what success means to you—and so might feel helpless and unmotivated. Instead, the authors agree with Lordan that you should compare your current self to your past self—which they call “gain-thinking.” When you measure your progress against your past self instead of others’ successes, you have a consistent standard upon which to improve.)

Recognize and Address External Obstacles

Now, we’ll discuss how to work around external obstacles to achieving your big goals. In this section, we’ll first describe how you can best set up your environment for maximum productivity. Then, we’ll share how to work around others’ cognitive biases, which impact your path to becoming your ideal self. Finally, we’ll discuss how to solicit and respond productively to feedback.

Adjust Your Environment

Lordan suggests that the most important thing you can do to adjust your environment to maximize your productivity is to minimize digital distractions. As we discussed previously, we all do our best work in flow. But if you’re distracted by a digital disruption (like an Instagram notification), you’re knocked out of flow and have to get back into it—which takes up a lot of time. To minimize these disruptions, figure out what distracts you the most when you’re trying to work. Then, eliminate that distraction by only ever accessing it on one gadget and hiding that gadget when you’re working.

(Shortform note: In Hyperfocus, Chris Bailey elaborates on why a digital disruption knocks you out of flow. He explains that multitasking on complex tasks is biologically impossible: Your working memory—the part of your brain that holds the information your mind is actively processing—is only large enough to fit a single complex task. So even if you think you’re multitasking (like by responding to Instagram DMs as you work), you’re actually just switching your attention rapidly between the two tasks. Bailey suggests reducing digital distractions by rethinking what digital devices you own. If two devices perform essentially the same tasks, you likely only need one—and having fewer devices should theoretically cause fewer distractions.)

Lordan names several other changes you can make to your environment that studies suggest will improve your work. Dedicate a particular space for work that you want to get into flow with; by doing so, you’ll habituate your brain to reaching flow in that environment and so get into flow more quickly. Airflow and natural light are both linked to increased performance, so adjust the ventilation and light in this workspace or regularly go outside. Improve productivity by keeping your workspace quiet, adding greenery to your office, and keeping the temperature between 16 and 24 degrees C (60 to 75 degrees F). Finally, adjust your artificial lighting based on what you want to do; brighter lights improve your focus while less intense lights increase creativity.

Other Experts’ Recommendations for Adjusting Your Environment

Other experts make similar suggestions for improving your work environment. In Steal Like an Artist, Austin Kleon recommends devoting separate desks to digital versus analog work to habituate your brain to the types of work you need to do. And in Why We Sleep, Matthew Walker recommends adjusting the settings on your devices to reduce blue light, which disrupts your sleep rhythm. Reducing your exposure to blue light improves your sleep and thus your productivity.

You can also make similar changes if you’re running a business and want to improve your employees’ productivity. If you want your employees to have increased airflow, natural light, and greenery, but you can’t switch offices, try implementing a policy where you hold meetings outside. Consider rethinking your office thermostat levels, especially if you employ women, who tend to work best in temperatures that are 3°C warmer than what men like. If you can switch offices, consider avoiding open office plans; not only are they loud and distracting, but they can also stress out your introverted employees, as Susan Cain explains in Quiet.

Handle Other People

Lordan points out that as you work toward your ideal self, you’ll meet several people you’ll need to impress. To handle them well, start by making clear that you fit their expectations. Lordan explains that we all use a representativeness heuristic when making decisions: If A is like the members of Group B, we assume that A is a member of Group B. This heuristic is problematic when used to limit others. For example, someone who thinks that all glasses-wearers are smart might hire the glasses-wearer over the contacts-wearer, despite evidence that the contacts-wearer is smarter.

However, Lordan explains that you can take advantage of this heuristic. To do so, find out how you might indicate that you’re a member of the group you want to join. Then, figure out how to obtain those indications. For example, if everybody at the company you want to join is a member of a particular country club, join that country club.

(Shortform note: You can achieve your dreams not just by altering yourself to fit others’ expectations, as Lordan suggests, but also by altering your own expectations. You likely follow several representativeness heuristics when making decisions that don’t just limit others but limit yourself. For example, if you’re a startup CEO, you may initially focus on impressing investors who wear designer shoes because you think they have the most money—only to later realize that the richest investors often dress most casually. Use trial and error to figure out what mistaken heuristics you follow, then adjust your behavior accordingly to make better decisions.)

The second key to handling other people is to get in with the popular kids. If there’s some social group that could help you on your way to becoming your ideal self, Lordan urges you to become part of it. By doing so, you’ll benefit from intergroup bias—our tendency to prefer people who are in our “in-group,” or circle—and so may receive, for example, protection during hard times. You’ll also benefit from the halo effect: the tendency to form an overall positive impression of a person based on a single positive trait or characteristic (in this case, being a member of the group).

(Shortform note: You can only benefit from intergroup bias and the halo effect if you’re part of a closely knit group—but how do you actually get them to like you? In How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie explains that all people crave feeling important, so you can get people to like you by subtly indicating to them that you think they’re important. Try genuinely complimenting them when you don’t want anything in return, publicly praising their work, and encouraging them to talk about themselves.)

Third, Lordan suggests that you learn how to redirect meetings so that they’re more likely to provide you with an outcome that could help you on your path to becoming your ideal self. Meetings often devolve into informational cascades: One person says something, then everybody else repeats variations on that thing without proposing anything new. This happens because, in a group, we want the others to like us—and so we tend to go with what the group says instead of risking controversy.

If you want to say something new in a meeting where everybody is repeating the same thing, Lordan recommends a three-step process. Begin by reiterating something the group has already said, in accordance with the group’s proven tendency to echo the previous participant. Then, share your distinct viewpoint concisely. Finally, name someone else in the room whom you want to speak next; having more than one person speak on the same point will cause others in the room to pay more attention to it.

Other Ways to Avoid an Informational Cascade

If you’re running the meeting and want to stop an informational cascade before it happens, try switching the order by which people make decisions. In The Legal Analyst, Ward Farnsworth explains that military courts sometimes vote on tribunal decisions in reverse ranking order: The lowest-ranking soldier votes first, while the highest-ranking soldier votes last. Farnsworth proposes that this system helps avoid informational cascades; the lowest-ranking soldier feels more comfortable voting how she actually thinks because she doesn’t feel pressured to agree with the higher-ranking soldier. Similarly, asking lower-ranking people to provide input first may provide you with their more honest perspective.

Alternatively, if you’re participating in the meeting and suspect that your opinion may not jibe with that of everybody else in the room, try sharing your opinion first. This way, you might be able to sway the informational cascade your way—and avoid having to redirect it once it’s already started.

Solicit and Respond Well to Feedback

Implementing your plan well requires that you solicit useful feedback and respond to it. Lordan recommends that you start by deciding what you won’t accept feedback on. This will ensure that you don’t change anything that’s central to your identity; for example, Lordan refused to alter her Irish accent despite advice to the contrary.

(Shortform note: In addition to deciding what aspects of your identity you won’t accept feedback on—like how you speak—consider limiting when you’ll accept feedback. One expert argues that while you should generally accept feedback when someone asks, “Can I give you feedback?” there are circumstances when you should say no—for instance, if you’re at a stage in a project when receiving feedback will slow you down. In that case, thank them for the offer, politely refuse by explaining why you’re not open to feedback at this time, then ask to hear some later if the situation calls for it.)

Once you’ve decided what you won’t accept feedback on, you can solicit feedback on other areas. Lordan suggests that you identify a few people in your life who will truthfully but supportively provide you with feedback. Then, ask them for their advice, focusing mostly on what areas you can improve. Writing down what they say will help you avoid attentional bias: This is the tendency to selectively remember information that’s relevant to what you’re thinking about when you initially hear it, and it can lead you to pay more attention to feedback that confirms your own perception of how well you’re doing in any given area.

(Shortform note: Other experts support Lordan’s recommendations for soliciting feedback. In Ultralearning, Young agrees that you should prioritize learning about areas in which you can improve, warning that praise is harmful to the learning process because it’s often a commentary on you as a person rather than constructive advice that you can apply to the learning process. Others also recommend writing down the feedback you receive, but this isn’t to help you avoid attentional bias as Lordan suggests; rather, keeping a record of the feedback you receive lets you evaluate whether you’re receiving the same type of feedback over time. If you are, you may need to change how you’re trying to improve, as what you’re doing isn’t working.)

What should you do if you receive negative feedback? If the feedback seems reasonable, Lordan urges you to respond to it. You have two cognitive biases that may tempt you to ignore it: the ostrich effect, a tendency to pretend that unpleasant information doesn’t exist, and the sunk cost fallacy, the tendency to make decisions based on the number of resources you’ve already and irrecoverably invested in an endeavor rather than considering the current and future costs and benefits objectively. But ignoring negative feedback won’t help you. Instead, take this feedback to heart and modify your actions accordingly.

(Shortform note: The authors of Thanks for the Feedback warn that you may respond poorly to negative feedback not because of the ostrich effect or the sunk cost fallacy but because of your relationship with the feedback-giver. For example, you might refuse the feedback based not on the merit of the feedback itself but because you don’t think the feedback-giver has the authority to tell you what to do. You might even switchtrack, which involves responding to a piece of feedback with a reciprocal piece of feedback that’s aimed at the feedback-giver rather than the feedback they’re providing. Just knowing that you have this tendency and watching out for it can help you avoid switchtracking so you take negative feedback to heart—no matter who’s providing it.)

But what if this negative feedback doesn’t seem reasonable? In that case, Lordan recommends that you ask others whether the feedback rings true. Ideally, select three people who are all strangers to one another so that they can’t influence each other. If all three agree, the feedback is likely accurate, so you should pay attention to it. But if not, ignore it; it’s likely that the initial feedback-giver wasn’t objective and rather influenced by their own cognitive biases. If the same issue occurs repeatedly with the same feedback-giver, stop asking them for advice. Their feedback may be a symptom of tall poppy syndrome: a phenomenon in which high-achieving people are resented or criticized.

What Others Say About Ignoring Negative Feedback

Other experts also recommend ignoring negative feedback that comes from only one person or from people you don’t respect. Often, such feedback has nothing to do with you and reflects more on the feedback-giver—maybe they’re having a bad day or just enjoy cutting others down. Additionally, ignore negative feedback that’s too unclear to be actionable or that reflects something you wanted; for example, if you wanted to write the world’s saddest song and receive criticism that it’s too sad, ignore that person because you got exactly what you were hoping for.

That said, ignoring negative feedback is often easier said than done: Those experiencing tall poppy syndrome can experience mental health problems such as anxiety. So if you’re seriously struggling, talk to a professional.)