DELAY: The Valley of No Results

Delay is the time before you reach the endpoint. It is fundamental to any work.

The delay affects our will to work, and the longer the delay is—i.e., the longer we do not see the result—the harder it becomes to force ourselves to persevere.

Not all work motivation theories account for it. For example, Goal-setting theory does not use it because the delay is minimal in the jobs used to ideate it.

As you remember, in the study of lumber truck drivers, hard, specific goals led to more lumber loaded than “do your best” goals. The same principle applies to performing routines in sports—no coach will advise you to “do your best” during the two-hour training. Hard, specific goals motivate better.

On one condition: you must see results soon.

Research dramatically differs from sports and physical work. It usually has extensive delays in achieving the endpoints, and such achievement is hard to predict. The unpredictability, in turn, creates low expectancy and possible demotivation. Attempting to motivate oneself with a ‘hard specific goal’—such as aiming to publish results within a month—often leads to frustration and demotivation.

However, the ‘small wins’ approach can be a game-changer in research. This approach leverages small achievements as feedback, effectively playing with the delay. For instance, the 200 words you managed to draft in the last hour is undoubtedly a small win, providing you with valuable feedback.

If we think of endpoints, we see that tasks have the shortest delays, while aspirations can have delays larger than life. Literally. {ENDPOINT TIERS}

Therefore, if you aspire to follow your dream, it’s crucial to cultivate immense patience. Simultaneously, you must commit to daily work and find ways to mark your ‘valley of no results’ with milestones, fingerposts, and other markers. These will keep you on track and remind you of your progress, fueling your motivation.

The noteworthy thing about delay connecting it to expectancy is that we can be exact about the delay’s duration only when we reach the endpoint and the future becomes present.

{SMALL WINS, FEEDBACK, MOTIVATION THEORIES, LACK OF MOTIVATION, EXPECTANCY, PROCRASTINATION, GHOST RESOURCES}