Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things

by Adam M. Grant

In one study, when people had spent engaging evenings on their side hustles, they performed better the next day in their regular jobs. The progress they made at night put an extra spring in their step the following morning. The motivation benefits outweighed any distraction costs.

Hobbies have similar benefits. In another study, when people took on serious hobbies at home, their confidence climbed at work—but only if the hobbies were in a different area from their jobs.

Of all the factors that have been studied, the strongest known force in daily motivation is a sense of progress. You can’t always find motivation by staring harder at the thing that isn’t working. Sometimes you can build momentum by taking a detour to a new destination.

A detour is a route off your main road that you take to refuel. You’re not taking a break; you’re not sitting still, idling. You’re temporarily veering off course, but you’re still in motion. You’re advancing toward a different goal.

Psychologists find that achieving a sense of progress doesn’t require huge gains. Fuel can come from small wins. When you make headway, even if you’ve turned off the main road, it reminds you that forward movement is possible. Instead of feeling d...

Feeling small relieved the pressure to perform and refueled him to do bigger things.

What looks like a big breakthrough is usually the accumulation of small wins.

When you get stuck on your way up a mountain, it’s better to shift into reverse than to stand still. As you take U-turns and detours, you’ll feel as if you’re going in circles. In the short run, a straight line brings faster progress. But in the long run, loops lead to the highest peaks. Progress is rarely noticeable at a snapshot in time—it unfolds over extended periods of time. If you focus your attention on a specific difficult moment, it’s easy to feel stuck. It’s only when you look at your trajectory over the course of weeks, months, or years that you appreciate the distance you’ve traveled.

it’s actually in turning outward to harness resources with and for others that we discover—and develop—our hidden potential. When the odds are against us, focusing beyond ourselves is what launches us off the ground.

When we’re facing a daunting task, we need both competence and confidence. Our ability to elevate our skills and our expectations depends first on how we interpret the obstacles in front of us. Extensive evidence shows that when we view hurdles as threats, we tend to back down and give up. When we treat barriers as challenges to conquer, we rise to the occasion.

Considerable evidence shows that studying with knowledgeable colleagues is good for growth. In U.S. intelligence agencies, if you want to predict which teams will produce the best work, the most important factor to consider is how often colleagues teach and coach one another. In medical schools, students learn as much when they’re taught by peers as by faculty.

the best way to learn something is to teach it. You remember it better after you recall it—and you understand it better after you explain it. All it takes is embracing the discomfort of putting yourself in the instructor’s seat before you’ve reached mastery.

Even just being told you’re going to teach something is enough to boost your learning.