Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When It Matters Most

by Adam Alter

A groundbreaking guide to breaking free from the thoughts, habits, jobs , relationships, and even business models that prevent us from achieving our full potential.

Almost everyone feels stuck in some way. Whether you’re muddling through a midlife crisis, wrestling writer’s block, trapped in a thankless job, or trying to remedy a fraying friendship, the resulting emotion is usually a mix of anxiety, uncertainty, fear, anger, and numbness. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Anatomy of a Breakthrough is the roadmap we all need to escape our inertia and flourish in the face of friction.

Adam Alter has spent the past two decades studying how people become stuck and how they free themselves to thrive. Here he reveals the formula he and other researchers have uncovered. The solution rests on a process that he calls a friction audit—a systematic procedure that uncovers why a person or organization is stuck, and then suggests a path to progress. The friction audit states that people and organizations get unstuck when they overcome three sources of HEART (unhelpful emotions); HEAD (unhelpful patterns of thought); and HABIT (unhelpful behaviors).

Despite the ubiquity of friction, there are many great “unstickers” hidden in plain sight among us and Alter shines a light on some exceptional stories to share their valuable lessons with us. He tells us about the sub-elite swimmer who unstuck himself twice to win two Olympic gold medals, the actor who faced countless rejections before gaining worldwide fame, the renowned painter who became paralyzed and had to relearn to paint with a brush strapped to his wrist, and Alter’s own story of getting unstuck from a college degree that made him deeply unhappy.

Artfully weaving together scientific studies, anecdotes, and interviews, Alter teaches us that getting stuck is a feature rather than a glitch on the road to thriving, but with the right tweaks and corrections we can reach even our loftiest targets.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Self Help, Business, Personal Development, Productivity, Audiobook

320 pages, Hardcover

Published May 16, 2023

About the author

Adam Alter is an Associate Professor of Marketing and Psychology at New York University’s Stern School of Business, and the author of Drunk Tank Pink, a New York Times bestseller about the forces that shape how we think, feel, and behave, and Irresistible, a book about the rise of tech addiction and what we should do about it.

Alter was recently included in the Poets and Quants “40 Most Outstanding Business School Professors under 40 in the World,” and has written for the New York Times, New Yorker, Wired, Washington Post, and The Atlantic, among other publications. He has shared his ideas at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity and with dozens of companies around the world.

Alter received his Bachelor of Science (Honors Class 1, University Medal) in Psychology from the University of New South Wales and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Psychology from Princeton University, where he held the Charlotte Elizabeth Procter Honorific Dissertation Fellowship and a Fellowship in the Woodrow Wilson Society of Scholars.

Reviews

[CatReader · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up. This is a well-written, engaging book on a very oversaturated topic in pop psychology, "getting unstuck." I enjoyed the read but there's not a ton of novel content here if you've read many books in this area previously.

Further reading (ranked roughly in order from books I've rated 5 stars to books I've rated 3 stars -- and this is only a partial list!):
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth (2016)
Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All by Tom and David Kelley (2013)
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear (2018)
Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg (2016)
Creativity Rules: Get Ideas Out of Your Head and into the World by Tina Seelig (2017)
Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport (2019)
Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace (2009)
Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today by Hal Hershfield (2023)
The Practice: Shipping Creative Work by Seth Godin (2020)
Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland (2014)
Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...And Maybe the World by William McRaven (2017)
Do Over: Rescue Monday, Reinvent Your Work, and Never Get Stuck by Jon Acuff (2015)
Work Like Da Vinci: Gaining the Creative Advantage in Your Business and Career by Michael Gelb (2006)
The Golden Rules: 10 Steps to World-Class Excellence in Your Life and Work by Bob Bowman (2016)

[Ananyaa Ravi · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars :
I made so many notes while reading this book - Alter uses really interesting historical facts, stories and anecdotes to back up each of his "recipes" to finding your way out of a breakthrough. Many resonated with me almost immediately, some were surprising, others less surprising but worth repeating. I shared some of the examples with creative friends, and it helped give them all a new perspective. I also successfully used the idea of generating ideas in multiple settings in a design sprint I lead with my team. My only complaint while reading it was that it's quite long - and so, hard to remember each "tip" as you move through chapters. An end of chapter summary in addition to the `cheat sheet' at the end would have been very helpful.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the ARC.

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess I'm not sure what I exactly thought of when I thought of being stuck, but it wasn't quite this. The organization didn't quite work for me somehow. I usually like real life examples, stories that go along with the point the author is trying to make, but in this instance I just found them distracting. I would say skip the book and just go to the very end where they summarize with the 100 points.

[Vanessa Bohns · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly one of the absolute best pop science/business writers!

[Charmin · Rating 3 out of 5]

HIGHLIGHTS:
1. DIAL BACK THE INTENSITY:
- Radical acceptance: Focus on worst case scenario so failure isn’t overwhelming.

2. HARDSHIPS:
- Inoculation against hardships.

3. EXPLORE:
- Exploit = hot streak
- Explore the first two years of college.
- Exploit the last two years

4. GET UNSTICK:
- Take action.
- Write briefly with a timer for 2 minutes.
- Move your body.

5. IDENTITY:
I vote vs. I am a voter.

6. MICRO-SCHEDULE:
- define action and goal.
- Strict structure removes extra thinking.

7. STANDARDS:
- Lower your standards.

8.BARRIERS ARE NORMAL:
- shrink midpoint when progress slows down.

9. LONG TERM:
- Make decisions for the long term.

10. PLAN:
- Build failure into the plan.

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loads of recommendations for getting “unstuck” in life, whether on the personal or professional level. I enjoy books like this one from the pop psychology genre that provide a multitude of mind tricks to help reframe challenges in your way - small or large, self-manufactured or an unexpected lifequake - to help you overcome and perhaps even benefit from those obstacles and anxieties that previously seemed insurmountable. Put another way in a favorite song: “Once in a while, you get shown the light In the strangest of places if you look at it right.”

[Nandita Damaraju · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started reading this late last year when I felt a little stuck across many aspects of life. Reading the book tells me that this is a very common feeling for one to experience as they end a decade (20,30,40 etc). I honestly couldn't summarize the key takeaways from the book and the book felt like a bit of drag for the most part. I will give it 3 stars because I did feel validated by the anecdotes every now and then.

[Gijs Limonard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was ok but not great; there is nothing special about the specifics of a breakthrough moment; this quickly devolved into a rather bland enumeration of general sensible actions you can take to get things moving.

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/arc...

[Dan Connors · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The optimal failure rate to stay motivated- and not get stuck- is roughly one in five or one in six, in most situations. If you're failing more than every fifth or sixth attempt, you'll get stuck in the short term. If you're failing less than every fifth or sixth attempt, you'll get stuck in the long term.” Adam Alter


It's great to feel like you're making progress, but it's also human to get stuck from time to time. When you're stuck, you feel like nothing is working out, and extra efforts are just wasted. Feeling stuck is an inevitable part of life, and it's our chance to slow down, take a break, and reassess exactly where we want to go. Without that, our lives would be just one boring progression from one predictable stage to another. Breakthroughs are our big chance to add meaning to our lives and to those around us.


Anatomy of a Breakthrough is a how-to guide to getting unstuck. It's author is a business school professor, Adam Alter, writer of two other books, and numerous other articles for publications like the Washington Post, The Atlantic, and New York Times. The book talks about how we get stuck in the first place and offers some suggestions to get unstuck.


One of the main reasons that we get stuck is that our course of action is in need of a correction. Our past assumptions need updating and we need to recognize our mistakes before plunging forward. I feel like the entire world is a bit stuck at the moment. Two of its cherished beliefs- that white people should be in charge and that fossil fuels are safe to use are under a lot of scrutiny, and those beliefs will have to be modified before we can move forward as a planet into a better future. One of the biggest traps that slows us down is perfectionism. We create unrealistic goals and when they don't work out we get stuck. Our imperfect brains are easily influenced by cognitive biases, and they blind us to alternatives.


One lesson I got from this book is that goals that are too big and too distant are the hardest to reach. The easy fix for big goals is to break them down into smaller, more manageable ones. Getting stuck often happens in the middle of a process, when the excitement of the beginning is long gone and the anticipation of the finish line isn't close to being in sight. Once in the middle of a journey, mistakes and roadblocks will inevitably pop up, and it's critical to learn from them rather than ignore them or give up.


Failure isn't something to avoid, but something to embrace. (I've heard this a thousand times- doesn't make it any easier to do in reality.) People who have had to respond to challenges are more resilient and resourceful than those who've had an easy path in life. Scientists have even come up with a formula- we need at least 15% of our efforts to fail in order to learn enough to accomplish our goals. (How they came up with that number I have NO idea.) Too much failure can discourage even the toughest souls, while not enough failure leads us to feel empty at the end.


Alter recommends something called friction audits, which are procedures to examine all of the friction points in an endeavor and evaluate them. Friction audits simplify complex processes into their most essential components, allowing behavior modifications that might work. When a result is not desired, like eating too much unhealthy food or drink, adding friction makes it harder to do the unwanted activity. When a result is desired, a friction audit can identify the points where things slow down and get off track, preparing us for the stickiest traps and giving us ideas of how to get past them.


Diversity is another key tool in making a breakthrough. One danger that gets many people stuck is to limit their information bubble to such an extent that the same ideas keep getting tried over and over. By varying your social circle and media intake, while challenging your assumptions from time to time, you build up a large reservoir of ideas that could come in useful the next time you get stuck. No one person can figure it all out by themselves. We all need a diverse input in order to see a problem from more than one vantage point.


Crowdsourcing is an incredibly powerful method of getting help. In a famous study, a large number of people were asked to guess how many gumballs were in a large container. While most of the people were over or under the correct amount, the average of all the guesses was very close to the exact total. This is known as the wisdom of the crowd.


While our main goal in economic terms is increasing productivity, this goes counter to the goal of making a breakthrough. Productivity commands us to work long hours as efficiently as we can. But breakthroughs require down time. They require reflection and reassessment. Many great inventions came about by accident while people were trying to do something else. Getting unstuck, or even realizing that you are stuck in the first place, requires a pause in the action, but it's an essential pause that makes life more meaningful.


Alter concludes the book with one of his most helpful suggestions- "when you're stuck, act." Move your body- go for a walk. Do very small things if the big ones seem overwhelming. Take a class and put what you learned into action immediately. Some of my best ideas have come when I was walking or riding a bike. Sitting in a stationary position for hour after hour is the best way to get stuck and feel physically stuck while doing it. It's recommended that office workers get up and walk for at least 10 minutes every hour to recharge their bodies. Action could also include talking to an uninterested person about your challenge and getting a fresh perspective.


There's something about taking action that moves things along. Even a mistaken action causes a course correction that gets us one step closer to the right actions. But sitting in stuckness and ruminating about it gets us nowhere.


In every chapter Alter provides interesting stories that illustrate his points. Seeing how other people managed to get unstuck is both illuminating and inspiring. Everybody gets stuck, and good stories are essential to making the concepts relatable and interesting. We tend to only hear the success part of success stories, but behind most successful celebrities is hidden a long and difficult journey to get there, accentuated by good luck and timing.


Alter concludes the book with an excellent summary of all the most important points of each chapter. He gives a list of 100 ideas to getting unstuck. I wish most non-fiction writers would do something like this. Once you put down a book, you quickly forget 95% of the contents. Having a quick summary sheet is invaluable for picking up the highlights later on.


This is a good book, even though it covers a lot of the territory from other self-help books. The principles are universal and, as I said, the United States and the rest of the world seem pretty stuck to me at the moment.

[Tyler Critchfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 - This had some great ideas and overarching principles that can help you get unstuck and maintain productivity. At the end he summarizes all his main points together, so I may need to get a copy so I can reference that in the future.

A few key ideas that stuck with me: (1) often the best thing to do when you're stuck is to keep persevering (learned experience, more time to chance on luck, etc.), (2) knowing when to explore vs exploit ideas, and (3) often it's good to slow down, but you need to keep moving forward and avoid inaction.

[L]

I enjoyed listening to it, and I just love this kind of popular psychology book. I heard several ideas that could be useful to me when I am stuck. Will I remember all of them? Probably not. Maybe I’ll remember a few. The last chapter is a list of 100 ideas for getting unstuck. I think I need to seek out a text copy of this book and copy that list.

[Saba · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتابی که قطره ای خوندم و خوندنش دوماه طول کشید و انگار یک نردبان بلند بود که هروز یک پله ازش بالا‌ می رفتم .
کتاب از لحاظ ارقام و امار یک سری رفتار انسانی رو برسی می کنه و تو می‌بینی که تقریبا همه آدم ها چنین مشکلاتی رو دارن و خیالت راحت میشه، یه هوف بلند می کشی. به خودت می‌گی بیا یه شکست خوب همراه با شجاعت بخوریم چون دیدت باز شده، حداقل برای یه مدت!
تمرین کنیم شاید به عادت تبدیل شد !

[Kate Younkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

WOW. If you’re feeling stuck in life - at your career, personally, with a hobby, etc. - this book is exactly what you need. I thought the examples were relevant, there were clear steps on how to beat the stuckness, and the reasoning behind it.

The only drawback was that a LOT of the examples were about men, and this book is for everyone.

I’m definitely going to be rereading this one.

[Jes · Rating 1 out of 5]

Got through about 60%. Couldn’t make it all the way. Just a book of dry short stories, which you may enjoy but I didn’t. Minimal actionable content.

[Zoë Routh · Rating 3 out of 5]

There’s a lot of great stories and anecdotes in here. But the real value was the summary of the “100 ways to get unstuck” in the last chapter. This was the most useful part. It just made me annoyed to wander through the stories to get to the main points. Could have just read a blog post.

[Pooja Mathur · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars maybe. I really enjoyed this book and all the ideas it had.

[Dhiraj Khapangi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book

[Rachel Shattuck · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you’re feeling stuck, in life or in work, Anatomy of a Breakthrough can help you reduce friction and move forward. Be sure to anticipate change, use material from others as inspiration, embrace pausing, experiment and iterate, and break down the process into smaller steps. Alter illustrates his tips with examples of individuals who overcame seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Sometimes these anecdotes become distracting from the rubric for change.

[Lauren]

dnf at 55%. couldn’t get unstuck.

[Elías González Rogel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recién terminé: "Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When It Matters Most" de Adam Alter, una guía para sobreponerte cuando te sientes estancado, todo parece ir en círculos y estás considerando renunciar.

La solución propuesta por el autor se basa en un proceso que él llama: auditoría de fricción, un procedimiento sistemático para entender por qué una persona u organización está estancada y cómo avanzar superando tres fuentes de fricción: las emociones inútiles, los patrones de pensamiento inútiles y los comportamientos inútiles.

El autor entrelaza ingeniosamente estudios científicos, anécdotas y entrevistas para explicar que las adversidades son parte de la vida y sentirse atascado es una característica más que un problema en el camino hacia el éxito. Afortunadamente, podemos superar el estancamiento y alcanzar nuestros objetivos más elevados implementando los ajustes y correcciones adecuados.

Esta es una lectura que cambia vidas y que recomiendo ampliamente y sin reservas.

Alter, A. (2023). Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When It Matters Most. New York, NY, USA: Simon & Schuster.

[Siyun · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5

Recommend it for all the anxious, high achievers / perfectionist out there.

The science, techniques and wide range of examples shall give you some direction and practical tricks to unstuck yourself at high stake moments, or even achieve a breakthrough.

PS. If you have not read Atomic Habits, read it after this one .

[Aaron Mikulsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read with a ton of interesting examples and stories. As a music lover, I really enjoyed the many references to some of my favorite musicians.

Below is a teaser summary of part of the book to peak your interest. I recommend this read. Let me know your thoughts!

Persistence is undervalued. Keep going for longer than you believe you should as most successes take longer than people anticipate. Duration = Success. Often the best ideas come later than we expect. People tend to associate challenges with failure, but challenges in the sense that you’re struggling are a signal that you’re moving beyond the obvious. The obvious rarely produces great results. At the same time, learn to quit when the cost of continuing massively dwarfs the benefits of continuing. Give yourself 50% more time to work through the kinks than intuition suggests. The more time, energy, and effort you pour into a creative pursuit, the more likely you are to succeed. Each dead end pushes you to think beyond your default assumptions and strategies. If people first exhaust an obvious category and then stop and switch to new idea categories, their later responses will be better than their earlier responses.

The average age of successful entrepreneurs is 42. Many founders thrive in their 40s, in part because they’ve lived. Those who successfully exit from their startups were on average 47 years old when they founded their startups. One study showed that a founder at age 50 is approximately twice as likely to experience a successful exit compared to a founder at age 30.
Scientists tend to do their best work near age 40.

Few of the largest tech companies today were first movers. Sergey Brin and Larry Page revolutionized search with Google, which was the 22nd entrant into that market.
Part of succeeding is learning not just what works, but also what doesn’t. “Novelty is overrated; success often comes when you're second or third, or even 22nd, to the party.”
The best way to be lucky is to persevere, because luck overlaps with longevity.

The universe is statistically lumpy, and luck rarely arrives on time.
Mismatches in timing: you can have a good idea too late or a good idea too early. Josh Harris in the 1990s had almost become Mark Zuckerberg five years before Zuckerberg developed Facebook. But the web infrastructure in the 1990s was too immature to support his vision due to bandwidth constraints. A video that takes one second to download today would’ve taken 11 hours to download in 1999.

Creativity is almost always elusive because we’re all susceptible to the same cultural and biological forces. Genuine creativity is elusive because we so often fail to recognize that our ideas are shared by other people.
Optimal distinctiveness: it’s difficult to be truly novel in any domain. It’s smarter to strive for modest differences and advances.
You’re rarely as well understood as you think you are.
Small communication gaps are often bigger problems than large communication gaps.
We ignore small problems longer than larger problems, and that makes smaller problems more difficult to overcome.
The Y2K crisis, for example, didn’t happen precisely because people started preparing for it over a decade in advance.
“The vast majority of us, most of the time, are shortsighted. Most humans prefer to be lazy today even if they’ll have to work twice as hard tomorrow.”

Our culture celebrates boldness. Being slightly less bold, and slightly more careful, is almost always a better approach, however.
When you’re paralyzed by a decision or a task, imagine the worst-case outcome that might follow your next step.

A mindset of radical acceptance in the face of anxiety eliminates or shrinks most anxiety-driven sticking points. It’s learning to accept and live with the prospect of failure. It’s a term coined by Tara Brach, a prominent clinical psychologist, and practicing Buddhist. She describes the fear of failure as a universal affliction that plagues all of us from time to time.
From psychologist Barry Schwartz: Learn when to maximize and when to satisfice (find an option that’s just good enough.). Occasionally, in limited situations, you should maximize. The vast majority of the time, though, satisficing is sufficient, and less likely to fix you in place. Whereas maximizing is inherently stubborn, satisficing is flexible, nimble, accommodating, and forward-focused. Maximizers look backward. Satisficers leave the decision behind and move on with their lives.
Strive for excellence rather than perfection. Perfectionists can be driven and successful, but they’re also hypervigilant and self-critical. Maximizing overlaps substantially with perfectionism, which is the often paralyzing, anxiety-provoking drive for flawlessness. Perfectionism is stifling, whereas excellence is mobilizing.
“Letting go” or choosing not to fight, is central to Eastern philosophy. Think of the Chinese finger traps - small cylinders made of woven bamboo. Most animals instinctively fight when trapped but the only way to get free from the trap is to relax - to work with the trap rather than trying to work against it. Relaxing conserves energy and forces us to pause as we consider other options.
Make larger tasks granular. Focus on one aspect of the larger task at a time.
Lower your standards by default.

[BooksBoardsandBottles · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly, this book gave me anxiety. There was too much to process and I didn’t really walk away with anything tangible.

[Pushkar Sohony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book Review - ANATOMY OF A BREAKTHROUGH - ADAM ALTER

If you’ve ever felt stalled, this book offers more than encouragement—it offers a blueprint. In Anatomy of a Breakthrough, Adam Alter argues that feeling stuck is inevitable, yes—but it’s also fixable.

“The path forward begins with clarity: separate what you can control from what you can’t, and focus your energy where it truly matters.”

This one sentence captures the first shift the book asks of us. Rather than battling every wind and wave, decide: what’s mine to manage? What isn’t? And where should I invest now?
Here are the key themes and insights,

1. Recognising “Stuckness” as Normal

The first service Alter does is normalise the experience: being stuck isn’t a personal failure; it’s a universal stage. He describes how people slow in the middle of long endeavours—what he calls the “quick-slow-quick” pattern.

By acknowledging this, the book reduces the shame and opens the door to strategy.

2. Friction Audit: Heart, Head & Habit

A major model in the book is the friction audit—a systematic way of uncovering why you’re stuck. According to Alter:

HEART = emotional friction (anxiety, grief, dread)

HEAD = thinking friction (rumination, perfectionism, overthinking)

HABIT = behavioral friction (inefficient routines, decision overload)

By running this audit, you clear away hidden blockers and simplify the path forward.

3. Break Big Goals into Micro-Goals & Waypoints

Long journeys exhaust our fuel lines. Alter emphasises the power of narrow bracketing—breaking large goals into smaller parts so you maintain momentum and avoid the dreaded “middle slump”.
He suggests building waypoints—mini-targets that keep you moving, measuring, celebrating.

4. Experimentation > Perfection

Instead of waiting for the perfect idea, Alter pushes for many fast experiments. Try broadly, test, then exploit what works. Creativity thrives on recombination—mixing inputs, stepping outside your comfort zone, embracing beginner’s mind.

5. Managing Emotional & Cognitive Load

Transitions (career shifts, creative blocks, life changes) often come with anxiety, grief, identity-crises. Alter gives tools like radical acceptance and mindfulness (e.g., R-A-I-N: Recognise, Allow, Investigate, Nurture) to help navigate the “heart” component.
Also: simplify decisions, reduce cognitive clutter, protect will-power by microscheduling key tasks.
6. Use Constraints, Seek Slight Discomfort

Deliberate limitations spark invention. Imposing constraints (time‐limit, budget, tool-limit) forces creative leaps. Similarly, stepping into modest discomfort builds resilience—when you stretch just beyond your comfort, you prime your system for breakthrough.

7. Action Trumps Ideas

Ideas feel great but doing wins. Small repeated steps convert insight into progress. The book emphasises movement—not waiting, not perfecting—just moving.

8. Explore Widely, Then Exploit What Works

The “explore-then-exploit” pattern shows up frequently. Initially: generate many options, gather diverse perspectives, play broadly. Then: identify what’s working and commit to it. Best creativity comes when you mix across disciplines.

9. Anticipate Plateaus & Life-Quakes

Alter flags two hidden traps:

Plateaus: when you’ve been following a path and the returns start diminishing – time to switch tactics.

Life-quakes: big events (job loss, illness, relationship rupture) that knock you off course. The key is not being derailed, but having a toolkit ready when one hits.

10. Diversity of Projects & Threads

Rather than over-investing in one project, the book suggests maintaining multiple “threads” at varying maturity levels—some routine, some experimental, some nascent. That way if one thread stalls, you’re not stranded.

[Matt LoGrasso · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot of the learnings in this book are obvious, but they are good reminders around tackling issues. Here are my main takeaways:

When you see other people succeeding, remember that you’re only getting the aftershot.

Break bigger goals into subgoals or smaller chunks that eliminate or shrink the midpoint.

Some goals don't have obvious endpoints. And you're far more likely to get stuck in the face of these boundless goals. You can overcome this issue by creating artificial waypoints that break the goal into chunks.

Duration equals success. Last longer in almost any domain and you’re more likely to succeed.

It's difficult to be truly novel in any domain. It's smarter to strive for modest differences and advances. This is known as optimal distinctiveness.

Small communication gaps are often bigger problems than large miscommunication gaps. Two people speaking slightly different dialects are more likely to get stuck in a miscommunication loop than two people who speak two completely different languages. This is known as the pseudo-intelligibility trap.
In moments of anxiety and tension, we tend to focus on ourselves. It's far more productive to focus outward, on others and on the situation at large particularly when anxiety fixes us in place.

The optimal failure rate to stay motivated and not to get stuck is roughly 1 in 5 or 1 in 6 in most situations. If you’re failing more than any 5th or 6th attempt, you’ll get stuck in the short term. If you’re failing less than every 5th or 6th attempt, you'll get stuck in the long term.

Put yourself through stress tests. If you expect you’ll need to deal with a particular challenge, prepare by putting yourself through a challenge 20 or 50 or 200% greater.

Complete friction audits often. Look for friction points, sand them down, assess whether you've successfully eliminated them. Repeat.

Strive for original combinations of two or more interesting ideas. This is the recipe that drives the vast majority of what we consider new and innovative.

Embrace beginnerhood. Being an expert is narrowing and once you're an expert, it's almost impossible to return to the mind-expanding experience of being a novice. Don't race toward narrowness and depth, but get there eventually because that's how you differentiate yourself.

You can prepare for serendipity: a blend of luck and skill. Some people seem luckier than others, but much of that luck is invited by skill.

Allow your mind to wander. A lot of excellent ideas come from what seems like idle mind-wandering.

To drive yourself forward when you’re stuck, describe yourself using nouns rather than verbs. ‘I’m a runner’ drives people to run on days they feel lazy. ‘I run’ doesn’t. The former describes who you are at your essence, and the latter merely describes what you do.

If you're striving for a quality product and you're stuck, begin by pouring out your worst. Do the exact opposite of what you’re striving to do which empties out the bad, liberates the good.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Innovators and creative people often make their work seem easy. But we usually only see the final results and don’t hear about the moments of creative drought, writer’s block, and other struggles: the times people are stuck. Anatomy of a Breakthrough is about how to get unstuck, with lessons to apply to business and personal life and relationships.

The path through unblocking includes some points that you might have come across elsewhere. For example, that creativity is about building on the work of others is a theme of Steal Like an Artist. Acknowledging the inevitability and even necessity of failure in the learning process is the theme of Right Kind of Wrong. and the team dynamics that encourage creativity in groups (psychological safety and diversity, for example) is what Creativity Inc. is about. Anatomy of a Breakthrough connects these and other ideas to give you a guide for learning and getting past roadblocks in your personal
And professional life.

Approachable, easy to read, with short chapters. The book ends with a summary of 100 key points from the book to help you put it all together.

Whether you are an artist, a software developer, a parent, or a partner-- or maybe multiples of those things, you’ll find the lessons in this book valuable and inspirational. There is nothing magical about getting past blocks. But having a guidebook makes the journey easier.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this one! It’s a non-fiction book about how to get “unstuck” when you’re feeling stuck in your life, especially with regards to big decisions or creative pursuits. Alter gives practical tips backed up by research – things like breaking down tasks into smaller chunks (to avoid getting stuck in the middle), alternating between exploring and exploiting (explore widely, then exploit the best ideas you encounter while exploring), asking advice from lots of other people to take advantage of diversity (when dealing with complex problems, often even an incompetent outsider is better than an in-house expert, because they bring a diversity of opinions), being constantly curious and experimenting, etc. There’s a handy 100-item “cheat sheet” as the closing chapter, so all the takeaways are in one handy place – I really love it when authors do this. The best part, for me, is that the book made me feel motivated while I was reading it – there are steps I decided to take in my own life just because I felt excited while reading about them. Perhaps that’s the highest praise I can give a non-fiction book: it moved me to action. If you’re a person in a creative field who often finds yourself getting stuck, I definitely recommend this one.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adam Atler - Anatomy of a Breakthrough 8.5/10


Book 42 of 2023.


In an insightful exploration, Adam Alter presents readers with a guide on how to break free from the shackles of inertia and carve out a new, purposeful path in life.


At some point in the journey of existence, there comes a moment when the weight of monotony and stagnation holds sway, as individuals find themselves ensnared in a relentless cycle of sameness. It's a feeling that resonates with countless souls, a gnawing sense that there must be more to life.


Alter skillfully uncovers the elusive but remarkable figures who possess the key to liberation, the "unstickers" quietly residing in the midst of our daily lives. Drawing from a treasure trove of inspiring stories, Alter brings these extraordinary tales to the forefront, allowing us to glean invaluable lessons from their journeys. 


This book is an anthem of resilience for those navigating life's uncharted waters. With its insights and compelling narratives, this book is recommended for anyone seeking the means to free themselves from the clutches of inertia and embark on a journey of self-discovery and reinvention.

[Dini Mohamad · Rating 5 out of 5]

There were a lot of nuggets of valuable information that helped me to see alternative approaches to getting unstuck, as well as a wealth of use cases & stories that evidence the points that the author makes. I don't read much self-help books anymore because I find they talk about the same topics, but I can say this is a solid 4.5* (rounded up) since I learned some new things that I can apply to my life. I've been able to craft up some fresh journal prompts for my next self-audit from this book.

If there's anything to highlight that doesn't make it 5* besides the fact that nothing is perfect, reading this makes me wonder if there are good motivational books written by non-white, cismen since the sources & examples are heavily skewed towards men. Not trying to discount their contributions & experiences but there are some challenges unique to biological make-up and I am curious to see an approach to getting unstuck from someone with a similar background / identity as mine. Note that I've read Brene Brown & Mel Robbins' works before but I find they lean more towards simple autobiographical works rather than statistics-driven.