CM 158: Emily Balcetis On How To Achieve Success

What if knowing how successful people see the world could help us achieve our goals?

When we see people achieving their goals, we may be tempted to give up. We tell ourselves they have advantages we lack, like more time, and maybe even traits we lack, like a better work ethic. While both may be true, what if there's a different reason they succeed, one that has to do with how they see their goals?

That's what Emily Balcetis, Associate Professor of Psychology at New York University and author of the book, Clearer, Closer, Better: How Successful People See the World, set out to discover. For example, in an innovative study of visualizing goals in order to choose which ones to pursue, she asked women to shop in a different kind of store. She explains that, "On the shelves, they saw paper bags with labels...hours for a work week...[number of] kids...compensation packages...all different facets of life that they had thought about in that survey were now made concrete."

Emily learned that making deliberate and strategic choices about how we visualize our goals can dramatically improve our chance of achieving them. Her findings reveal four visual tactics we can use to do just that.

One of these, "narrow your focus," is something elite runners do. In a study on exercise, Emily taught participants this skill and the results were fascinating. Emily shares that, "People who were taught to narrow their focus of attention...took more steps when they went out for each...walk, they moved faster in the same of time, and they went out more often for walks or runs in the week that followed."

Emily's work has been featured in The Atlantic, Scientific American, NPR, and Forbes. She's received awards from organizations like, the International Society for Self and Identity and the Foundation for Personality and Social Psychology.

The Host

You can learn more about Curious Minds Host and Creator, Gayle Allen, and Producer and Editor, Rob Mancabelli, here.

Episode Links

Anish Kapoor

Hal Hershfield

Procrastination, Deadlines, and Performance: Self-Control by Pre-Commitment by Dan Ariely

Dear Data by Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec

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If you liked this interview, you might also enjoy:

Laura Huang on Finding Your Edge

Wendy Wood on the Science of Habits

John Zeratsky on Creating Time for Work that Matters

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