Humans hate open loops

Remember the time you had a fight with your best friend? You both walked away. There was no conclusion. Nobody apologized or said anything. So, are we still friends or what?

You probably hated the open loop.

Why am I talking about relationships? Because there's a lesson there.

Humans crave closure.

Take Hyrox. You have to be lost in a cave if you've not heard about Hyrox. One of the reasons Hyrox caught on was because it had competitions.

"Try fitness sometime" is vague and boring.

"Complete a Hyrox competition" is concrete.

Even with CrossFit (something I do), we do workouts of the day (WOD) – a set of workouts that's different every time.

When there's a start and finish, the brain says: "I can do this". We can visualize the end result. It's not an endless torture.

Another example. Pickleball. If you show up on court just to hit balls back and forth aimlessly, it'll start to get boring. (I recently experienced this in a recent meet-up, but was too nice to let the group know I was getting bored.)

But if you start playing games, it adds a whole level of engagement. Then there are competitions, which add to the whole explosion of the Pickleball craze.

I've also seen this in the world of learning and development.

When Udemy first launched, people were into self-paced courses. Enroll now. Do it anytime, anywhere, at your own pace. Guess what. We know most Udemy students don't complete courses.

To make courses enticing and something learners actually complete, you have to create challenges or design programs with a start and end date:

• The 4-day AI bootcamp
• 24-hour vibe coding challenge
• 30-day brand story bootcamp
• 90-day accelerator program

A start and end date provides closure. Progress without measurement is invisible.

If you want growth, give people a finish line.