Telling someone, or yourself, to just “do your best” is believed to be a great motivator. It isn’t. Theoretically, it encourages without putting on too much pressure.  In reality, and rather ironically, it is more-or-less permission to be mediocre.  

Edwin Locke and Gary Latham, two renown organizational psychologists, have spent several decades studying the difference between “do your best” goals and their antithesis: specific and difficult goals.  Evidence from more than 1,000 studies conducted by researchers across the globe shows that goals that not only spell out exactly what needs to be accomplished, but that also set the bar for achievement high, result in far superior performance than simply trying to “do your best.”  That’s because more difficult goals cause you to, often unconsciously, increase your effort, focus and commitment to the goal, persist longer, and make better use of the most effective strategies.  

Advocates of “positive thinking” are particularly fond of this piece of advice. But visualizing success, particularly effortless success, is not just unhelpful – it’s a great way to set yourself up for failure.

Few motivational gurus understand that there’s an awfully big difference between believing you will succeed, and believing you will succeed easily.   Realistic optimists believe they will succeed, but also believe they have to make success happen – through things like effort, careful planning, persistence, and choosing the right strategies.  They don’t shy away from thinking “negative” thoughts, like what obstacles will I face?  and  how will I deal with them? 

Unrealistic optimists, on the other hand, believe that success will happen to them, if they do lots and lots of visualizing.  Recent research shows that this actually (and once again, ironically) serves to drain the very energy we need to reach our goals.  People who spend too much time fantasizing about the wonderful future that awaits them don’t have enough gas left in the tank to actually get there.

You can cultivate a more realistically optimistic outlook by combining confidence in  your ability to succeed with an honest assessment of the challenges that await you.  Don’t visualize success – visualize the steps you will take in order to make success happen.

Given the choice, would you prefer to make an iron-clad, no-turning-back decision, or one you could back out of if you needed to?   Does that seem like a stupid question?  I understand why it might, but bear with me – because it isn’t.

People overwhelmingly prefer reversible decisions to irreversible ones.  They believe it’s better to “keep your options open,” whenever possible.  They wait years before declaring a major, date someone for years before getting married, favor stores with a guaranteed return policy (think Zappos), and hire employees on a temporary basis (or use probationary periods), all in order to avoid commitments that can be difficult, or nearly impossible, to un-do. 

People believe that this is the best way to ensure their own happiness and success.  But people, as it turns out, are wrong. 

Let’s start with the happiness part.  Research by Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, shows that reversible, keep-your-options-open decisions reliably lead to lower levels of satisfaction than irreversible ones.  In other words, we are significantly less happy with our choices when we can back out of them.

(For example, in one of Gilbert’s studies, people were asked to choose an art poster that they could keep.  Those who were told that they could change their mind and return it for a different poster in the next 30 days reported being less happy with their poster than those who had to pick a poster and stick with it.)

Why does keeping our options open make us less happy?  Because once we make a final, no-turning-back decision, the psychological immune system kicks in.  This is how psychologists like Gilbert refer to the mind’s uncanny ability to make us feel good about our decisions.  Once we’ve committed to a course of action, we stop thinking about alternatives.  Or, if we do bother to think about them, we think about how lousy they are compared to our clearly superior and awesome choice. 

Most of us have had to make a choice between two colleges, or job offers, or apartments.  You may have had to choose which candidate to hire for a job, or which vendor your company would engage for a project.  When you were making your decision, it was probably a tough one – every option had significant pros and cons.  But after you made that decision, did you ever wonder how you could have even considered the now obviously inferior alternative?  “Wow, I can’t believe I even thought about going to Yale, when Harvard is better in every way.”  (That’s just an example – I am neutral when it comes to Harvard vs. Yale.  I went to Penn, which incidentally was way better than those schools, but I digress…)

Human beings are particularly good at rearranging and restructuring our thoughts to create the most positive experience possible in any situation.  The psychological immune system protects us, to some extent, from the negative consequences of our choices – because after all, almost every choice has a downside.  The key to happiness is to dwell as little as possible on that downside.

When you keep your options open, however, you can’t stop thinking about the downside – because you’re still trying to figure out if you made the right choice.   The psychological immune system doesn’t kick in, and you’re left feeling less happy about whatever choice you end up making.

This brings us to the other problem with reversible decisions – new research shows that they don’t just rob you of happiness, they also lead to poorer performance.

Once again, it’s because thoughts related to making the right decision stay active in your mind when your options are open.    This places a rather hefty burden on your working memory, and it’s distracting.  When you’re still deciding what you should do, you don’t have the cognitive resources to devote yourself fully to what you’re actually doing.  Your attention wanders.  And as a result, your performance suffers.  (For instance, in one study, people who made a reversible decision were able to recall fewer correct answers on a subsequent task then those who made a choice they had to stick with.)

So keeping your options open leads to less happiness and success, not more.  Ironically, people don’t actually change their minds and revise decisions very often.  We just prefer having the option to do so, and that preference is costing us.

I’m not, for the record, saying reversible decisions are never beneficial. Obviously if you have no real basis for making a good choice in the first place and you’re just guessing, or if the consequences of your choice might end up killing someone, the option of a do-over is probably a good thing.

But assuming that your choice is carefully considered and you’ve weighed your options, you will be both happier and more successful if you make a decision, and don’t look back.

Why aren’t companies hiring?  Why aren’t homes selling, despite bargain pricing? Why is growth and innovation in some industries so sluggish?

Which character traits do you need to have if you want to work effectively and get ahead?  The answer depends, to some extent, on the kind of work you do – but there’s one trait that everyone needs to have if they want to succeed, and that’s trustworthiness.  Technically, it’s not so much being trustworthy, but being perceived as trustworthy, that matters.  You can be as honest, fair, and reliable as the day is long, but if nobody else sees you that way, it won’t help you.

When your boss doesn’t trust you, you don’t get key assignments, promotions, or the latitude to do things your own way and take risks.   When your employees don’t trust you, you don’t get their best effort, or all the information you need from them to make good decisions.

If you want other people to believe that you are trustworthy, you should be aware that you may be seriously undermining that belief if you appear to lack self-control.   New research shows that people just won’t trust you when you seem like you might have a willpower problem.  If you think about it, this makes a lot of intuitive sense.  We trust people because we know that when things get hard, or when it might be tempting for them to put their own interests first, they’ll resist temptation and do what’s right.

Studies show that when you engage in behaviors that are indicative of low self-control, your trustworthiness is diminished.  In other words, all those things you know you shouldn’t do – smoking, overeating, impulsive spending, being lazy, late, disorganized, excessively emotional, or having a quick temper – may be even worse for you than you ever realized, because of the collateral damage they are doing to your reputation.

So if you want to be trusted, you’re going to have to conquer these trust saboteurs.  To do that, you’ll need to understand how willpower really works, and how you can get your hands on some more of it.

Even everyday actions like decision-making or trying to make a good impression can sap this valuable resource.  So can coping with the stresses of your career and family.  When you tax it too much at once, or for too long, the well of self-control strength runs dry, no matter who you are.   It is in these moments that the doughnut (or the cigarette, or your hot temper) wins.

So if you are serious about resisting your unwanted impulses, start by making peace with the fact that your willpower is limited.  If you’ve spent all your self-control handling stresses at work, you will not have much left at the end of the day for sticking to your resolutions.  Think about when you are most likely to feel drained and vulnerable, and make a plan to keep yourself out of harm’s way.  Decide, in advance, what you will do instead when the impulse strikes.

The good news is, willpower depletion is only temporary.  Give your muscle time to bounce back, and you’ll be back in fighting form.  When rest is not an option, recent research shows that you can actually speed up your self-control recovery, or give it a boost when reserves are low, simply by thinking about people you know who have lot of self-control.   (Thinking about my impossibly self-possessed mother does wonders for me when I’m about to fall off the no-cheesecake wagon.)

Or, you can try giving yourself a pick-me-up.  I don’t mean a cocktail – I mean something that puts you in a good mood.  (Again, not a cocktail – it may be mood-enhancing, but alcohol is definitely not willpower-enhancing, nor trust-enhancing).    Anything that lifts your spirits should also help restore your self-control strength when you’re looking for a quick fix.

The other way in which willpower is like a muscle (and the really great news for those of us trying to rid ourselves of a trust saboteur) is that it can be made stronger over time, if you give it regular workouts.  Recent studies show that daily activities such as exercising, keeping track of your finances or what you are eating – or even just remembering to sit up straight every time you think of it – can strengthen your capacity for self-control.  For example, in one study, people who were given free gym memberships and stuck to a daily exercise program for two months not only got physically healthier, but also smoked fewer cigarettes, drank less alcohol, and ate less junk food.  They were better able to control their tempers, and less likely to spend money impulsively.  They didn’t leave their dishes in the sink, didn’t put things off until later, and missed fewer appointments. In fact, every aspect of their lives that required the use of willpower improved dramatically.

So if you want to build more willpower, start by picking an activity (or avoiding one) that fits with your life and your goals – anything that requires you to override an impulse or desire again and again, and add this activity to your daily routine.  It will be hard in the beginning, but it will get easier over time if you hang in there, because your capacity for self-control will grow.    Other people will notice the change, and trust you more.

Armed with more willpower and the trust of those around you, you’ll be more successful than ever before.

If there were something you could add to your car’s engine, so that after driving it a hundred miles, you’d end up with more gas in the tank than you started with, wouldn’t you use it?