Set interim goals. To maintain motivation, and perhaps reignite it, break large projects into smaller steps. In one study that looked at losing weight, running a race, and accumulating enough frequent-flier miles for a free ticket, researchers found that people’s motivation was strong at the beginning and end of the pursuit—but at the halfway mark became “stuck in the middle.”1 For instance, in the quest to amass 25,000 miles, people were more willing to work hard to accumulate miles when they had 4,000 or 21,000. When
