Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength

by Roy F. Baumeister

Online games became essentially the largest experiment ever conducted into motivational strategies. By getting instant feedback from millions of online players, the game designers learned precisely which incentives work: a mix of frequent small prizes with occasional big ones. Even when players lose battles or make mistakes or die, they remain motivated because of the emphasis on rewards rather than punishment. Instead of feeling as if they’ve failed, the players think that they just haven’t succeeded yet. That’s the feeling we should aim for in the real world, and we can do it by steadily rewarding ourselves for successes along the way. Achieving a big goal, like quitting smoking for a year, deserves a big reward—at the very least, use the money you would have spent on cigarettes for some extraordinary indulgence, like a meal at a hideously expensive restaurant.