Using Forward Momentum to Improve All Aspects of Life
The Progress Principle was first discussed and researched by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer in their book, “The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work.” Through rigorous analysis of diary entries from 238 employees of seven different companies, they were able to show that making forward progress in meaningful work led to the best inner work lives of the employees.
“The Progress Principle”, a Harvard Business School publication, talks about ways for management to enhance their employees work life, leading to greater company results, and happier employees. What it doesn’t focus on, is the many ways the principle can be used to improve all aspects of life.
“Forward momentum in meaningful work” is a key point that gets reiterated often. Realizing that work can be anything, not necessarily traditional 9-5 work, opens the door to the idea that progress in any area of your life can lead to this momentum. It could be going to the gym, or improving your diet, or putting more effort into staying in touch with friends. The point is that you are making progress in something meaningful to you. The forward momentum generated by the meaningful progress in one aspect of your life, can be applied to many others, and often is, without any conscious effort.
Four years ago, I was doing a lot of hiking, in steep, rocky terrain. My knees were taking a beating. I had constant pain doing non-strenuous activities like sitting at my desk or walking around at work. It was starting to cause problems in everyday life and definitely wasn’t normal for a healthy college student. It turns out I had tendonitis, or “jumpers knee”, in both knees. After seeing an orthopedic surgeon, and getting the offer to go under the knife, I started to take the pain more seriously. I asked my friend, who was a physical therapy student, what he thought. With his opinion and online research, I started stretching my quads and calves on a regular basis. After three months of daily stretching, the pain was gone. It still flared up from time to time, especially when hiking or jumping, but I no longer felt it all day long. Fixing my knees was great, but I received other benefits from daily stretching I didn’t even realize.
Originally, I started by just stretching the necessary muscles, then eventually started doing full body stretches, leading to daily morning yoga. Paired with my on again, off again relationship with mediation, I found myself getting into a productive morning routine. I would wake up, shower, do twenty minutes of yoga and ten minutes of meditation, every day. This snowballed into clearer thoughts, and the ability to pay attention at greater length with more vigor, leading to a better performance in University. The Principle of Progress allowed me to continue the momentum from stretching to better grades. I found forward progress in meaningful work, which was fixing my knee pain. I’ve even noticed small improvements in other parts of my life after starting this blog and writing more often.
It turns out that the work towards a goal is actually more enjoyable than achieving the goal itself. Social scientist Dr. Arthur Brooks is one of the leading experts on happiness. Through his work at Harvard University, Dr. Brooks has shown ways to improve happiness in many different areas of your life. One of his latest posts talks about choosing enjoyment over pleasure – but what’s the difference? Brooks wrote, “Pleasure happens to you; enjoyment is something that you create through your own effort.” In our case, meaningful work brings enjoyment, not pleasure. Often, doing the work may not be pleasurable, but the results or momentum we get from the work is enjoyable. The work towards the goal is enjoyable. Going to the gym week after week and seeing your strength increase or watching your business grow to double the revenue. Achieving the goal doesn’t always bring the satisfaction we desire. The satisfaction it does bring may only last a short while, then we will be looking for the next goal. This is not to say that having goals is bad, it is the exact opposite. Goals give us a target, allowing us to focus in on the next step to reach it. Without the framework of a set goal, we would be stumbling in the dark for the light switch. You’ll probably make some progress towards what you are looking for, but without knowing what you are looking for, you wouldn’t know forward progress from the reverse.
The progress principle tells us that meaningful work will improve our lives, but in order to do meaningful work, we must first have meaningful goals. My goals are oriented in a way that provide benefits such as physical health, mental well being, increased cognitive function, and personal challenge. Some of them are: reading a book a week, increasing my strength in the gym, and improving my chess rating, among many others. A good goal has certain requirements. It must be specific. A bad goal is get filthy rich, a good goal is have a million dollars in the bank. Additionally, there needs to be a way to measure it, reading a book a week is easily measured, however, increasing strength can be complex. I won’t be stronger every day due to factors such as sleep, diet, and general energy for that day, but it can be measured over a long enough time period. Instead of looking day to day or even week to week, I will look at periods of a month. If during the month I was able to add a few pounds to my lifts, then I gained strength, even if it was only one day that month. Lastly, the goal must have a set end date. My goal of reading a book a week has an easily identifiable end date, I need to finish the book within a week. A bad goal would be go to the moon, a good goal would be stand on the moon before I am 50.
Having these goals in mind, I am able to make meaningful forward progress towards them. Compounding on each other, achieving each goal will make it easier to reach the next, also while improving other parts of my life not directly impacted. This likely has to do with shifting what you thought was possible, giving you confidence you can achieve things that were once thought to be out of reach.
What are some of your goals and how will you measure them? How can the meaningful progress you make towards them improve other parts of your life?
Thanks for reading 🙂
