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Following Through: A Revolutionary New Model for Finishing Whatever You Start
First published in 1998, Following Through shines a spotlight into the black hole in inner space where good intentions disappear. It reveals the startling reason why we so often fail to make the life-improving changes we truly intend to make. Although we typically blame ourselves for poor follow through -- we beat ourselves up for lacking motivation, willpower, self-discipline -- Levinson and Greider argue that the real culprit is the mixed-up way the human mind designed. The mind, they insist, simply isn't hard-wired for follow-through. And as much as we -- individuals, society, and especially the self-improvement industry -- like to pretend otherwise, good intentions do not automatically drive our behavior. And expecting ourselves to automatically do whatever we intend to do only leads to disappointment, frustration and failure. Fortunately, Following Through won't leave you discouraged. Instead, it will show you why facing the truth about the mind's faulty wiring is a key to achieving greater success in virtually every area of life. Following Through will teach you bold new strategies for consistently turning good intentions into life-improving action. Note for readers of previous editions of Following This edition is redesigned but does not include new content. About the Steve Levinson, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist who specializes in helping people turn their good intentions into life-improving action. He's an inventor, entrepreneur, executive, teacher and consultant, who combines psychological expertise with real-world experience to coach individuals and organizations who are eager to enjoy the benefits of following through consistently. Pete Greider, M.Ed. is a consultant who helps businesspeople and others overcome obstacles to peak performance. His clients have included the Orlando Magic, Northwestern Mutual Life, State Farm Insurance, and General Electric. A popular keynote speaker, his credits include Exxon and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
242 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 1, 1998
175 people are currently reading
362 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
January 11, 2008
My husband LOVED this book. I thought it was inspiring, but had a hard time "Following Through" with finishing it for some reason. I think the main thing I took away from it was that we have to make our environment work for us (set things up so that we can not procrastinate or leave things unfinished, etc.) There were some other good ideas, but they must not have been too great b/c I can't remember them at the moment!
May 25, 2019
Do you start a lot of projects, but end up finishing only a few? Do you feel bad about it? Do you think there is something wrong with YOU that you are not able to follow through on even the most important things?
If yes, you must read this amazing book. It gives excellent explanation on why we humans fail to follow through and provides number of tools to overcome this problem. I loved reading. Strongly recommended.
If yes, you must read this amazing book. It gives excellent explanation on why we humans fail to follow through and provides number of tools to overcome this problem. I loved reading. Strongly recommended.
September 20, 2020
This is an OK book. Nice effort and there are some very useful tips in there. To be honest, after reading John Isaac's Procrastination Elimination Method book, nothing else impresses me easily lol
March 30, 2010
While the authors do have some good ideas, I wouldn't say any of it is "revolutionary". I would suggest to people who have difficulty with follow through. There are a lot of case-stories for ADD people like me, but by the end I thought there were too many and the whole book could have been half as long.
July 13, 2019
Do yourself a favor and start at Chapter 6. It has some great methods and it makes a lot of sense but the first quarter of the book is completely pointless. Revolutionary? It can be if you use the tools and implement them in a way that brings you great results. The self help book is only as good as how you use it to help yourself.
October 8, 2021
Focused little book about following through on our intentions.
Paradigm shift: Errors in us not being able to Follow Through are DESIGN Errors of the mind.
The Intelligent Guidance System (IGS - our complex forward Thinking Prefrontal cortex) and our Primitive Guidance System (PGS - emotional amygdala-driven survivor brain) need to be in synch to follow through properly. Otherwise PGS will take over and misguide us into unwanted directions, away from our goals.
The strategies we could use are:
1. Spotlighting (using a lot of cues)
2. Willpower leveraging ("buying our willpower" at the store, using as little temptations as possible)
3. Creating compelling reasons (making ultra hard commitments which we don't want to do - e.g. betting our monthly income, if we fail to follow through)
4. Leading the hose to water (split us the task we want to follow through and only do the easy part first - put on our running shoes (without running)
5. Go way too far (do the bad stuff, but at much more disgusting levels to make ourselves learn memorable lessons)
6. Right before wrong (do a good thing, before we indulge in a bad one - eating the salad first, and the dessert later).
Nice book, worth reading, and it's even more worth it to apply in practice!
Paradigm shift: Errors in us not being able to Follow Through are DESIGN Errors of the mind.
The Intelligent Guidance System (IGS - our complex forward Thinking Prefrontal cortex) and our Primitive Guidance System (PGS - emotional amygdala-driven survivor brain) need to be in synch to follow through properly. Otherwise PGS will take over and misguide us into unwanted directions, away from our goals.
The strategies we could use are:
1. Spotlighting (using a lot of cues)
2. Willpower leveraging ("buying our willpower" at the store, using as little temptations as possible)
3. Creating compelling reasons (making ultra hard commitments which we don't want to do - e.g. betting our monthly income, if we fail to follow through)
4. Leading the hose to water (split us the task we want to follow through and only do the easy part first - put on our running shoes (without running)
5. Go way too far (do the bad stuff, but at much more disgusting levels to make ourselves learn memorable lessons)
6. Right before wrong (do a good thing, before we indulge in a bad one - eating the salad first, and the dessert later).
Nice book, worth reading, and it's even more worth it to apply in practice!
Read
April 6, 2020The best ideas I've read in a self-help book!
Forget all the other self-help books you've read. THIS is the book you need!
What I liked:
• The follow-through strategies (lots of examples)!
• The follow-through theory (I don't want to spoil it, but it probably isn't what you think it is). Think about this. You wouldn't rely on Santa Claus to bring your kid's Christmas presents, right?
What I didn't like:
• Some typos and line breaks in between sentences distracted me, but it was no more than 5.
• I lost interest at about 77% through, but that might just be my poor follow-through muscles at work. I pulled through and finished it. So, maybe it worked!
I highly recommend this book! It's been a lot of help. I now need to act on the startegies learned in this book (which is one of the follow-through strategies) and implement them. Otherwise, they will fade into oblivion.
Forget all the other self-help books you've read. THIS is the book you need!
What I liked:
• The follow-through strategies (lots of examples)!
• The follow-through theory (I don't want to spoil it, but it probably isn't what you think it is). Think about this. You wouldn't rely on Santa Claus to bring your kid's Christmas presents, right?
What I didn't like:
• Some typos and line breaks in between sentences distracted me, but it was no more than 5.
• I lost interest at about 77% through, but that might just be my poor follow-through muscles at work. I pulled through and finished it. So, maybe it worked!
I highly recommend this book! It's been a lot of help. I now need to act on the startegies learned in this book (which is one of the follow-through strategies) and implement them. Otherwise, they will fade into oblivion.
October 28, 2016
My Follow Through Has Improved
The biggest problem that I have had in my life is with following through. I get about 85% of a project done and then I stop. This book helped me with the science of why that happens and ways to combat the issue.
The biggest problem that I have had in my life is with following through. I get about 85% of a project done and then I stop. This book helped me with the science of why that happens and ways to combat the issue.
May 28, 2019
At first I found the first part of the book to be tedious as I thought it gave too many example stories. So I skipped to the portion of the book that explains the prescribed methods for following through and I found it an easy read from there on. Once I finished the book I went back to read the beginning and actually it was interesting once I understood where the author was going with all the stories. And actually found the examples quite helpful in the end.
The advice in this book is fantastic. I'm currently holidaying in Bali and plan to put all of this into action once I return home.
The advice in this book is fantastic. I'm currently holidaying in Bali and plan to put all of this into action once I return home.
August 9, 2019
I cannot express how happy I am to have found this book. ADHD or not, this book gives literal techniques, REAL how tos, with examples! This is what I've been looking for. And I followed through with finishing it too
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June 27, 2022This self-help book is well worth reading as it helps you understand in order to get something done you will need to follow through and get it done. There are practical examples of strategies and how to implement them in order to succeed. I really enjoyed reading this self-help read.
January 1, 2018
The writing style was a little odd, and the first half of the book could have been condensed to a chapter without losing much, but some of the ideas were really useful.
June 4, 2020
One of those rare self-help books which make things very easy to understand as well as implement.
Never have I read a self-help book that's so easy to read, and similar easy to understand. It has so many practical examples, that whatever it is that you're not able to follow-through, you will be able to relate some way or other. And the strategies are explained with such simplicity that we can easily implement them right now.
The book is definitely worth reading.
Ask me if it helped me? Well.
There's a line in the book which says "Don't do it unless you're ready, able, and willing to actually do what it takes." If that's the case, I am willing to do nothing. I know what all things I should be doing, and I really want to be doing them. But I have so far not been able to implement any strategies.
The strong ones- like going too far or signing off with some other person, they don't work with me. I always stop myself from signing up, forget about that signed up person forcing me to follow-through.
Then the Leading the horse to the water also doesn't work for me. I want to wake up and get my daily exercise started. But the most difficult thing for me to do is to get up from the bed and go to the gym. The book says just go to the gym, don't workout don't do anything. But that's exactly the difficult part. Going. If I am able to go there, obviously I will workout. I have tried reminders, phone calls, friend's calls, signing up to a paid service, having a deal with myself (I don't even keep up that deal with myself), creating obstacles (like keeping the alarm far away that needs me to get up from the bed, but I just walk all the way to a different room to turn the alarm off and then come back and sleep.)
The problem is even after knowing all the strategies and knowing what to do, how to start to do that. I fail to follow-through even in implementing the follow-through techniques. Quite a deadlock for me. Funny thing is, even after knowing and understanding that just by intending, I won't accomplish anything, even after knowing how to trick my brain, my brain still overpowers me to not implement those tricks.
The book, though, was one of the simplest and easiest self-help that I have read, even though the research subject - following-through - is definitely a complicated one.
Never have I read a self-help book that's so easy to read, and similar easy to understand. It has so many practical examples, that whatever it is that you're not able to follow-through, you will be able to relate some way or other. And the strategies are explained with such simplicity that we can easily implement them right now.
The book is definitely worth reading.
Ask me if it helped me? Well.
There's a line in the book which says "Don't do it unless you're ready, able, and willing to actually do what it takes." If that's the case, I am willing to do nothing. I know what all things I should be doing, and I really want to be doing them. But I have so far not been able to implement any strategies.
The strong ones- like going too far or signing off with some other person, they don't work with me. I always stop myself from signing up, forget about that signed up person forcing me to follow-through.
Then the Leading the horse to the water also doesn't work for me. I want to wake up and get my daily exercise started. But the most difficult thing for me to do is to get up from the bed and go to the gym. The book says just go to the gym, don't workout don't do anything. But that's exactly the difficult part. Going. If I am able to go there, obviously I will workout. I have tried reminders, phone calls, friend's calls, signing up to a paid service, having a deal with myself (I don't even keep up that deal with myself), creating obstacles (like keeping the alarm far away that needs me to get up from the bed, but I just walk all the way to a different room to turn the alarm off and then come back and sleep.)
The problem is even after knowing all the strategies and knowing what to do, how to start to do that. I fail to follow-through even in implementing the follow-through techniques. Quite a deadlock for me. Funny thing is, even after knowing and understanding that just by intending, I won't accomplish anything, even after knowing how to trick my brain, my brain still overpowers me to not implement those tricks.
The book, though, was one of the simplest and easiest self-help that I have read, even though the research subject - following-through - is definitely a complicated one.
February 18, 2008
I am almost done with this book. I was familiar with ideas before I started reading it, as I have listened to long interview with Steve Levenston.
This book has somewhat different angle and fresh take on procrastrination. While definitely useful, I feel like some stories are invented by authors. Other than that, it has good strategies and fairly solid explanation of the problem. One thing that I would add, is that they never ever mention that something else can be the problem for people avoiding to do things they need to do, in some case studies it almost is obvious that problem doesn't seem to be procrastrination but some previous frustrations of those involved.
Again, minor complaints, overall very good book, well worth few bucks you will pay for it.
This book has somewhat different angle and fresh take on procrastrination. While definitely useful, I feel like some stories are invented by authors. Other than that, it has good strategies and fairly solid explanation of the problem. One thing that I would add, is that they never ever mention that something else can be the problem for people avoiding to do things they need to do, in some case studies it almost is obvious that problem doesn't seem to be procrastrination but some previous frustrations of those involved.
Again, minor complaints, overall very good book, well worth few bucks you will pay for it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 3, 2015
I found quite a few of the ideas in the book helpful and insiteful and have put some of the ideas into practice and a few other ideas into my will try mental files . However... i did not like the part where they tried to sell me their product. I don't wish to read a really long sales pitch. Fortunatly this book did not turn into one of those. They also gave simple alternatives to their product.
November 6, 2013
Although a bit misleading with the word "revolutionary," Following Through is a useful book. As a person with AD/HD, I have zero problem with motivation, but nothing BUT problems with follow through. This book proved to be a very helpful tool for me.
January 3, 2017
A little corny and outdated BUT excellent tips and strategies for following through. This was my word for 2016 and I'm only now doing it so obviously I needed the help. Great examples of real life failures to follow through, and great solutions!
February 4, 2017
Interesting and informative, presents some food for thought.
August 1, 2012
Maybe once I finish this book I'll go back and finish the others I've started!!
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October 28, 2012The co-author on the book was Pete Greider, one of my college roommates.
January 14, 2013
Solid, worth reading.
April 4, 2016
This is an absolute great Book to read on Self-discipline and getting things done. Everyone who is into personal Development should read this book.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews