Quick Cut: S2E357 How to Get Unstuck - a Conversation with Adam Alter

Summary

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Podcast Summary

It's a Good Life – Quick Cut: S2E357

Episode Title: How to Get Unstuck – a Conversation with Adam Alter
Air Date: December 18, 2025
Host: Brian Buffini
Guest: Adam Alter, NYU Professor & Bestselling Author of "Anatomy of a Breakthrough"

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Overview

This episode of It's a Good Life centers on the universal human experience of getting "stuck," particularly in personal growth and business development. Host Brian Buffini interviews Adam Alter—academic, author, and expert on human behavior—about the key themes from his book "Anatomy of a Breakthrough." The discussion provides practical, research-based strategies for overcoming periods of stagnation, and reframes being stuck as not just normal, but an integral part of the journey toward growth and achievement.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Defining "Stuckness"

• What does it mean to be stuck?

  • Adam defines being stuck as more than momentary frustration, focusing on "protracted stuckness"—periods that last days, weeks, months, or even years ([01:14]).

  • He distinguishes stuckness susceptible to change and improvement, making it a relatable, nearly universal experience.

    "Most of my work focuses on protracted stuckness...that are susceptible to our interventions, where there's something we can do to shift things to maybe move forward."
    — Adam Alter ([01:14])

The Inevitability of Getting Stuck

• Why do people get stuck?

  • It's common for people to feel uniquely afflicted when they're stuck, due to a lack of open discussion and the unrealistic success narratives seen on social media ([02:48]).

  • Adam identifies two immutable reasons:

    1. Effective techniques lose efficacy over time—"what worked before stops working."
    2. Environmental and situational changes force us to reevaluate and adapt.

    "Things seem like they're less successful over time, but also the situations change, the environments change...what was working before is no longer as effective."
    — Adam Alter ([02:48])

Stuckness as a Feature, Not a Glitch

• Reframing the experience:

  • Brian discusses personal experiences with plateaus and relates them to the entrepreneurial journey, noting that "plateau" periods are often longer than peaks ([04:09]).

  • Adam asserts that stuckness should be viewed as a necessary "feature" of progress, not a defect:

    "It's a feature rather than a glitch. It feels like a glitch...But actually there is no success story...that doesn't involve multiple repeated periods of stuckness."
    — Adam Alter ([05:53])

The Role of Loneliness and Social Pressure

• The hidden struggle:
  • Stuckness can create feelings of isolation, especially among men, due to societal pressure to have all the answers ([06:57]).
  • Brian notes that the illusion of seamless success on social media contributes to this loneliness and reluctance to admit struggles.

The "Goal Gradient" and The Difficulty of Middles

• Understanding motivation and progress:

  • Adam introduces the "goal gradient hypothesis," explaining that motivation is high at the start and end of goals, but predictably sags in the middle ([07:47]).

  • The middle of long-term goals ("stuck in the middle") feels devoid of progress and is demotivating. This is where most people get stuck or disengage.

    "At the beginning, when you start the goal, it feels pretty good...As you get to the end of the goal, you can see it, it's in sight...But there is a middle...where... you don't have the sense that you're making forward progress and that's demotivating."
    — Adam Alter ([07:47])

Practical Strategies: Breaking Stagnation

• How to get unstuck:

  • Adam recommends "narrow bracketing": break big goals into small, manageable sub-goals, eliminating the discouraging "middle" ([09:38]).

    "You turn this very big goal into so many small goals that are so brief that there is no middle. Each sub goal is so brief that there's a beginning and an end, but the middle is so short that you don't get stuck in the middle anymore."
    — Adam Alter ([09:38])

• Apply rewards and visible progress markers to sustain motivation.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Brian Buffini on Plateaus and Relationships:

  "The plateau is a lot longer than the peak. And...being stuck is on occasion a symptom of being successful. Like you're actually on the right track. It just doesn't feel like it." ([04:09])

• Adam Alter on the Feature of Stuckness:

  "It is not a glitch. It's a feature rather than a glitch...There is no success story that doesn't involve multiple repeated periods of stuckness." ([05:53])

• On Overcoming the Middle:

  "Each sub goal is so brief that there's a beginning and an end...so you don't get stuck in the middle anymore. And that tends to work quite well." ([09:38])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:14] — Adam defines "stuckness" and what his book addresses.
• [02:48] — Adam explains why stuckness is inevitable.
• [04:09] — Brian on plateaus and reframing stuckness.
• [05:53] — Adam: "It's a feature, not a glitch."
• [06:57] — Discussion on loneliness, social expectations, and the hidden nature of being stuck.
• [07:47] — Adam introduces the "goal gradient" and the challenge of middles.
• [09:38] — Adam's advice: narrow bracketing and small wins.

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Conclusion

This episode offers a compassionate, research-informed look at the reality underlying every rarely-linear success story—periods of stuckness are natural, expected, and even necessary for growth. By sharing personal anecdotes and actionable strategies, Brian and Adam provide listeners motivation and tools to navigate their own plateaus and challenges. If you're struggling through the "middle," this episode reminds you: you're not alone, and there are concrete steps you can take to break through.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to It's a Good Life with Brian Buffini, founder of America's largest business coaching company. Here's a short classic cut from one of our all time favorite episodes.

[B]

Well, the top of the morning to you and welcome to It's a Good Life. I'm your host, Brian Buffini. And today we have a very special guest. His name is Adam Alter and Adam is New York Times bestselling author. He's also professor at NYU's Stern School of Business, which has a great reputation. And I'm excited to talk about Adam's new book today, which is called the Anatomy of a Breakthrough. It's really up our alley here today. The subtitle is how to Get Unstuck when It Matters Most. Very fired up to dive into this. Very practical ways to get unstuck. And if you're feeling a little stuck, Adam's got some words of wisdom here today that'll help you do that. Adam, thanks for joining us all the way from Connecticut. We appreciate it.

[C]

Thank you for having me, Brian. Great stuff.

[B]

So, you know, I am a big fan of definitions. I think growing up in Ireland, you know, you come to the States and you say a word and everybody has an idea what it means, but they're not sure exactly what it means. And I'm a big definition guy.

[C]

Yeah, it's a good question. I think there are a lot of definitions of the term stuck. For me, I'm especially interested in two facets of being stuck. One is the kind of stuckness that's protracted. It's not like the daily frustrations that affect us for a few minutes at a time. So most of my work focuses on protracted stuckness that affects people for days, weeks, months, years, and in some cases even their entire lives. And I'm also not so interested in the kinds of stuckness that cannot be changed or fixed. I'm interested in the kinds, and it turns out this describes the majority of them that are susceptible to our interventions, where there's something we can do to shift things to maybe move forward. And so the book is really concerned with those protracted and movable kinds of stucknesses, for sure.

[B]

Well, I would say I've been in a personal growth journey since I was 19 years old. I'm 57. And I tell people all the time, you're either on the wagon or off the wagon or getting ready to get back on the wagon. So I think so many people have a misnomer of what it means to be successful or thriving or living well because we're always in this comparison mode. Oh, that person's never had a bad day in his life. That gal's doing great. And I would say this. Throughout my life, I found myself stuck at certain periods. And as a person who loves momentum, as an entrepreneur, as a guy who loves to grow, I've made the worst decisions in my life when I've been stuck in a way to force being unstuck. So why is getting stuck inevitable for the human condition?

[C]

Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I think this is the first issue that people face that when they are stuck, it almost feels like this very personal affront that it's an unusual thing that other people are not in the same position. People don't generally share their struggles. And so what you end up seeing, especially in the world of social media, is essentially one success after another. But as you say, stuckness is inevitable. It's inevitable because there are really two reasons. One is that the things that work tend to work less well over time. So we get into a bit of a groove. And this is true whether you're lifting weights at the gym or you're a runner, or you're in business, or you're trying to learn a language, it doesn't matter what you're doing. Techniques tend to stop working as effectively over time. And it's almost immutable law of psychology and physiology. And so that's one reason. So things seem like they're less successful over time, but also the situations change, the environments change. And as environments change, we get stuck because some facet has shifted. That means that what was working before is no longer as effective in this new environment. And we're always sort of blindsided by those changes. And so this book is essentially designed to be a manual to help people across lots of different domains, professional and otherwise, to get unstuck when they are faced with these, as you say, inevitable stucknesses.

[B]

Right. You know, I always see the. For us, we're a coaching company and we have people we've been coaching in some cases for decades. And I think some folks look from a distance and they go, it's this meteoric rise, it's a rocket ship piece. And it's actually what I've experienced is there's peaks and then there's these plateaus and the plateau is a lot longer than the peak. And then eventually if the person perseveres, you can have another peak, but followed immediately by another plateau. And so I think a lot of times people think they're stuck, but they're actually just on a plateau. And it's actually being stuck is on occasion a symptom of being successful. Like you're actually on the right track. It just doesn't feel like, you know, it's, Look, I'm married 35 years. I married the love of my life. She's still the love of my life. I have six kids and we're deeply in love with one another, but we're not skipping through the daisies the way we were after our first date. You know, you grow and then you go through plateaus, and then you grow and you go through plateaus. And we're in a stage now. We've got the grown kids and the grandkids and we've got the empty nest and we've had this next new lease on life and so on and so forth. But I think people think the success is, oh, the successful relationship is that it's supposed to be the same as when you're dating 35 years in. I can, news flash, it's not okay. It's different. It's better to be honest with you, but it's different. And so I think this dynamic of stuck, one of the things I saw in the book, and I thought it was a great way you put it, is it's actually a feature of progress. And I think that is not a common concept. That is not lighting up, that's not going viral on social media, but truth rarely is. Talk about how being stuck is a feature of progress.

[C]

Yeah, that is what I say, that it's a feature rather than a glitch. It feels like a glitch. Right. There's a sort of birthright sense that if you work hard and you apply yourself and you get the right skills, that you're on the fast track to some sort of destination, whatever that is. It's a destination that you're striving for. And when things feel sticky and hard and you just aren't making forward progress or you hit a plateau as you described it, it feels like a glitch on that path. But actually there is no success story and you're included in this. Obviously, as you said earlier, that doesn't involve multiple repeated periods of stuckness. And so we don't talk enough about this. We feel isolated, quite lonely, to be honest, when we're stuck. And part of it is recognizing that it's going to happen. It's inevitable if it's not happening right now, and for most people, there is probably a stuckness that affects them today, but it's around the corner. There are lots of reasons why it might emerge. And if you're not blindsided by it, if you know that it's going to happen and you prepare yourself for it and you have a strategy for dealing with it, you're ultimately, in the long run going to be much more successful.

[B]

Yeah, I love that it's not a glitch and I think that's a good thing because, oh my gosh, the reason why it causes such stress is this is not normal. I'm the only one feeling this, which. It's interesting you brought up the term loneliness. People get, and especially men, men get embarrassed. Like I'm supposed to have all the answers, I'm supposed to be on track and then we withdraw. And I think it's common now. And I believe one of the reasons for it is we've gotten used to this loneliness. We've gotten comfortable with this loneliness. I think people are getting comfortable being stuck and I think that's where most people are. But I saw something in your book that I hadn't seen before, which is this thing called the goal gradient. When I saw that, I was fascinated by it. Our audience is very familiar with goal setting. I'd love you to talk through this goal gradient piece and just a little bit that this whole dynamic of the middles that you talk about.

[C]

Yeah. The goal gradient research is based on a huge number of studies in lots of different domains looking at how humans and even other animals progress towards goals and the pace with which they do that across the course of a long term goal. So whether you're writing a book that's 100,000 words, or trying to make a thousand sales, or trying to find, acquire followers online or whatever it is you're trying to do. If it's a long term goal, the. The goal gradient hypothesis says that at certain points in that goal, things will feel easier. Like you're almost coasting downhill on a bicycle. But there are moments where it's predictably so that you will feel like you're going uphill and the gradient gets steep and it's tough. And what the research shows is that at the beginning, when you start the goal, it feels pretty good, you're invigorated, you're starting something new. There are a lot of low hanging fruit which give you the sense of progress and mastery and so on. As you get to the end of the goal, you can see it, it's in sight. And that also motivates you, draws you in. It's magnetic, makes you feel like you're Making a lot of good progress. But there is a middle. It's called stuck in the middle, where if you imagine that you're on a ship between, say, the east coast of the United States and Ireland, you're on this ship that's heading over, there's going to be this long period in the middle where there are no real good signposts of progress. You don't have the sense that you're making forward progress and that's demotivating. And that happens in a lot of these long term goals. So the goal gradient hypothesis says that you make a lot of progress at the beginning and the end, but a lot of people get stuck and then demotivated and then completely disengage in the middle.

[B]

Oh, that, that is so true.

[C]

And that's the, that's the research.

[B]

Yeah, that is it. Like that's it. So what is your best advice? How do you get people through that middle? They don't have a signpost, they feel like giving up. What are the best ways to push through to get to the other side?

[C]

Yeah, one of the best ways is to engage in a process called narrow bracketing. So when you think of a goal, let's say you've got 100,000 words to write. And I've written three books and so I've been through this process three times now. It's a long process and there are periods where you wake up and you sit at the computer and nothing comes out. But one thing you can do is instead of saying, my goal is to write 100,000 words, you break it into smaller chunks that are bite sized that give you the sense of progress. So what you say is, for example, every 500 words or 100 words or a thousand words, I will reward myself in some way. I will see that maybe on a document that I've created, I'll put a check mark in, have some sort of treat that'll make me feel good about it. And what you essentially do is you turn this very big goal into so many small goals that are so brief that there is no middle. Each sub goal is so brief that there's a beginning and an end, but the middle is so short that you don't get stuck in the middle anymore. And that tends to work quite well.

[A]

Well, we hope you enjoyed this. Quick cut. Head to the show notes to listen to the full episode. If you'd like to elevate your business to achieve your goals, talk to one of our experts on a free business consultation. Visit it'sagoodlife.combc to schedule yours.

[B]

Ra.