Succeed

Research and stories are the tools social psychologist Heidi Grant Halvorson uses to explain why even very capable people misjudge the reasons they succeed or fail at their goals. Her advice covers setting goals that hold up under adversity, building willpower, which she says can be strengthened like a muscle, and avoiding the kind of positive thinking that leads people to fail. The chapters fall into three parts, Get Ready, Get Set and Go, moving from where goals come from, through goals for optimists and pessimists and goals set for other people, to beating goal saboteurs, making a simple plan, giving the right feedback and knowing when to hang on. It appeared in 2010.

Copywriter Cristian-Dragos Baciu said he picked it up to learn more about the inner forces that make people pursue some goals tirelessly and drop others.