Why Motivation Doesn’t Start at Zero
How perceived progress keeps goals alive
Our brains don’t always work the way we think they do. Most of us assume motivation comes from knowing where we’re going and understanding what we’ll get when we arrive. Behavioral science suggests something else matters just as much, sometimes more: the feeling that we’re already on our way.
This is the core idea behind illusionary goal progress, closely related to the endowed progress effect: people work harder when they believe they’ve already crossed the starting line, even when that progress is partly symbolic. The brain doesn’t carefully audit whether progress is “real.” It reacts to signals of movement.
And those signals can dramatically change behavior and enhance goal motivation.
Why Progress Feels So Powerful
From a behavioral perspective, progress acts like psychological fuel. When people feel stuck at the starting line, effort feels costly and uncertain. When they feel they’ve already begun, effort feels justified.
This isn’t irrational in the way we often think about bias. It’s adaptive. Progress signals reduce uncertainty. They reassure us that effort will pay off. They make the next step feel smaller.
That’s why to-do lists work, why streaks are addictive, and why “Day 3 of 30” feels better than “Day 1.” The brain is constantly asking, “Is this worth continuing?”
Progress—real or perceived—helps answer that question with a yes.
A Coffee Study That Changed How We Think About Goals
You’ve probably experienced this without realizing it. You grab a coffee, they punch your loyalty card, and suddenly that flimsy piece of cardboard matters more than it should – whether your conscious of it or not.
One of the clearest demonstrations of illusionary goal progress comes from a study by Ran Kivetz, Oleg Urminsky, and Yuhuang Zheng using something almost embarrassingly simple: coffee loyalty punch cards. You know, those cards you get when you go into a coffee shop? They get punched whenever you purchase a drink and when you fill the card up, you get a free one.
Participants I the study were given loyalty cards at a coffee shop. Everyone had the same objective reality—buy ten coffees and earn a free one. The twist was in how the goal was framed.
One group received a standard punch card with ten empty circles. They started at zero.
Another group received a card with twelve circles—but two were already stamped.
Functionally, these cards were the same. They both needed to buy ten coffees. Nothing really varied in terms of effort or reward. A traditional economic model would predict no difference. Rational consumers should see through the framing and behave the same way.
But, as you probably guessed, that’s not what happened.
The group with the two pre-filled punches completed their cards significantly faster—about three days sooner on average (15.6 days vs 12.7 days), and the median completion time shifted from 15 days to 10 days.
Nothing magical happened to the coffee, yet a story changed in the customer’s mind: “I’ve already started.” Simply seeing progress at the outset changed how quickly people acted.
The researchers concluded that the early sense of advancement created motivational momentum. The card told a story: You’re already underway. And once people feel underway, they push harder to finish.
What’s Really Going on Psychologically
To understand why this works so reliably, it helps to zoom out and look at how the brain actually experiences goals. This effect works because humans don’t experience goals as static endpoints, we experience them as journeys.
When progress feels distant, effort feels risky. When progress feels underway, effort feels justified. The illusion doesn’t need to be deceptive, it just needs to shift attention from distance remaining to distance covered.
This also connects to a broader behavioral pattern often called the goal-gradient effect: people tend to accelerate effort as they perceive themselves getting closer to a goal. Illusionary progress essentially moves people closer in their own minds, even when the objective distance hasn’t changed.
Importantly, this doesn’t mean people are stupid or unaware. Many participants could articulate that they still had to buy ten coffees. But cognition and motivation operate on different channels. Knowing something rationally doesn’t cancel how it feels.
Why This Matters for Change (and Why So Many Goals Stall)
Most meaningful goals suffer from a delayed payoff problem. The effort is happening now, but the benefits don’t come until later. That gap is where motivation erodes. Failure often comes not because the goal is wrong but because the feedback is weak - you’re doing real work, but the results haven’t shown up yet. This area is what psychologist Ayelet Fishbach calls it, “the messy middle.” Our brain’s hate this delayed gratification.
Illusionary progress helps bridge that gap. By creating visible, early markers of movement, we give the brain evidence that effort is working. This reduces dropout, increases persistence, and makes long-term goals psychologically tolerable.
Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer’s research on work motivation points to a similar core idea: forward momentum in meaningful work is one of the strongest drivers of motivation.
This is why breaking goals into smaller milestones works. It’s why visual trackers outperform vague intentions. It’s why checking boxes, filling bars, and seeing streaks keeps people engaged long after novelty fades.
The key insight is that momentum is not a byproduct of success, it’s a precondition for it.
Using Illusionary Progress (Without Fooling Yourself…)
There’s an important nuance here. Illusionary progress isn’t about pretending work is done when it isn’t. Used poorly, it can lead to complacency—people ease off effort when they feel “ahead.”
Used well, it creates a sense of forward motion while preserving accountability.
With that in mind, here are a few practical applications:
1. Design goals so no one starts at zero. Build in legitimate “starter steps” that count immediately. Even small preparatory actions such as “I wrote down my goal in my Journal” can create the sense that the journey has begun.
2. Make progress visible. If progress can’t be seen, it might as well not exist. Track actions, not just outcomes, and put those trackers where they’ll be noticed.
3. Engineer early wins. The first week of a goal should produce evidence that something is happening—even if the ultimate result is far away.
4. Break your milestones into even smaller steps than you think necessary. If you are wanting to run a marathon – set your first milestone as running around the block, not completing a 5K.
5. Reset progress after each milestone. Motivation often dips right after a reward so starting a “new card” keeps momentum alive by restoring the feeling of forward movement.
The Real Takeaway
If motivation has been the missing ingredient in your goals, the problem may not be discipline, it may be that progress hasn’t been visible soon enough.
Illusionary goal progress isn’t a trick; it’s a recognition of how human motivation actually works. People don’t persist because goals are important, they persist because progress feels real.
If you want to motivate yourself stop only asking what’s the goal? and start asking: How quickly will this feel like it’s working?
Because when progress feels real, motivation follows.
And, of course, keep on shifting,
This Week’s Shift
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What would “already underway” look like for me right now?
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Every week in Behavior Shift Weekly, we share ideas grounded in behavioral science and psychology, practical tools to help you think differently, act intentionally, and build the life you actually want.
This is brilliant stuff! The coffee card study really drives home how much our brains crave that feeling of momentum, even when its partly illusion. I've definitly noticed this with fitness apps that show "you're 10% there" right away, makes a huge difference. Such a practical lens for understanding why some goals stick and others don't.