Sunday 29 July 2012
How Our Brains Stop Us From Achieving Our Goals (and How to Fight Back)
Your brain can hurt your goals by fantasizing too much
Would you believe that fantasizing is the #1 way your brain unintentionally ruins your goals? It seems unlikely, right? The thing is, the proof is in the pudding (or in this case, the research): psychologists have found that while positive thinking about the future is broadly beneficial, too much fantasy can have disastrous results on achieving goals. Researchers tracked the progress of how people cope with four different types of challenges.
As an example, in one of those challenges (trying to find a fulfilling job), those who had spent the most time fantasizing performed the worst in a variety of critical data points:
they had applied for fewer jobs
they had been offered fewer jobs
if they were able to find work, they had lower salaries.
Why? Why could fantasizing about a positive end take a turn for the worse?
Jeremy Dean, a psychological researcher at UCL London and the owner of PsyBlog had this to say about the researcher's conclusions:
The problem with positive fantasies is that they allow us to anticipate success in the here and now. However, they don't alert us to the problems we are likely to face along the way and can leave us with less motivation—after all, it feels like we've already reached our goal.
It's one way in which our mind's own brilliance lets us down. Because it's so amazing at simulating our achievement of future events, it can actually undermine our attempts to achieve those goals in reality. Our poor brain is thus a victim of itself.
Again, this is not to say that visualizing goals is necessarily a haphazard strategy for achieving them, it's just that we need to be aware of the dangers of excessive fantasy. Instead of being entranced with what the future may bring, we need to learn to love the work here and now. Enjoying our day by day progress and realistic ‘checkpoints' is a much more practical way to create our future; getting lost in grandiose dreams that focus on the ultimate end is not. As they say, don't give up on your dreams, but don't fall under their spell either.
Your brain procrastinates on big projects by visualizing the worst parts
Procrastination, of all of the things on this list, is likely the most recognizable: everybody realizes that they procrastinate from time to time, and it's something we are forced to battle with every day. How can we fight this persistent opponent?
Interesting research from Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik (of whom the Zeigarnik Effectis named after) reveals to us an interesting tidbit about the human mind: we are better at remembering things that are partially done. Ms. Zeigarnik came to this conclusion by testing the memory of folks doing simple "brain" tasks like puzzles or crafts. She then interrupted them and asked them to recall (with specific detail) the tasks that they were doing or had completed. She found that people were twice as likely to recall more detail about the tasks they had been interrupted in than in the tasks they had completed.
What does this have to do with procrastination?
Before we get to that, know this: in a study by Kenneth McGraw, participants were given a very tricky puzzle to solve with an "unlimited" amount of time. The thing is, all of the participants were interrupted before they could finish, and then told that the study was over. Despite being told they were done, nearly 90% of participants continued working on the puzzle anyway.
What both of these studies teach us is that when people finally manage to start something, they are much more inclined to remember the task and finish it. The Zeigarnik Effect and the subsequent McGraw study assure us that the best way to beat procrastination is to start somewhere…anywhere. Our brain has the habit of envisioning the impending huge workload of an upcoming task. It also tends to focus on the most difficult parts or sections, and this is where procrastination begins to set in: as we try to avoid the "hard work," we find ways to skate around it and trick ourselves into thinking that we're busy.
Just starting though, triggers our brain in a different way. It's the same way that cliffhangersare utilized to keep us coming back to our favorite TV shows; we're primed to remember the last episode because the story was interrupted, and our brain wants a conclusion. It's the same with your tasks: start, and your brain will overcome the first hurdle.
This seemingly small milestone appears to be the most important one to overcome if you wish to defeat procrastination. After starting a task, your brain will be more enticed to finish it to it's "conclusion." You also tend to see that it's not as big a mountain as you initially imagined, and that the work involved in completing this task won't be so terrifying after all.
Your brain will "abandon ship" at the first sign of distress
Anyone who's fought the good fight with dieting will likely recognize this phenomenon. Envision this:
You're on a diet, and have been doing well for about 2 1/2 weeks, but you know your defenses are at risk. To make matters work, you're having dinner with friends tonight. Instead of the healthy meal you could have made at home, you're forced to use a restaurant menu.
The problem is this: At the bar before dinner, you had a little "cheat" moment by ordering snacks and drinks, after all, you're with your pals tonight, right? You know that those drinks and snacks, combined with the bread you had before dinner, leave you with one option to stay a bit over your caloric intake goals: you must eat a salad. The thing is, your brain is yelling out "BURGER!". Instead of finishing the day a tad over your 2000 calorie goal, you order the burger with fries and don't look back.
The crazy thing about this scenario?
It's much more than a momentary act of weakness: psychologists have observed that this is much more likely to happen as a result of you missing a previously set goal. Specifically, inresearch by Janet Polivy and her colleagues, people who were actually on diets were tested with pizza and cookies. In the study, two groups of participants (those on diets and those not dieting) were told not to eat beforehand and then served exactly the same slice of pizza when they arrived to the lab. Afterwards, they were then asked to taste and rate some cookies.
The thing was, the experimenters didn't really care about the cookie's rating, they just wanted to see how many people ate. This is because they tricked some of the participants into thinking that they had recieved a larger slice than the others (using framing and false information). This was to make them believe that they had most certainly "ruined" their diet goals for the day.
The result?
When the cookies were weighed, it turned out that those who were on a diet and thought they'd blown their limit ate more of the cookies than those who weren't on a diet. This doesn't paint the true picture though: they ate over 50% more! On the flipside, the dieters that did think that they were in their caloric limit ate the same amount of cookies as those who weren't on a diet at all. Truly, our brain is geared towards a call of "Abandon ship!", whenever we come short of our goals.
Don't let this happen to you!
The best way to combat your brain from signaling ‘Mission Abort!' after you've missed a short-term goal is to re-frame what just happened. Yes, you did fall short or maybe mess up this time, but remember the progress that you've made. With the diet example, you could look at all of the "good days" you've accumulated thus far: even if you fell after only a few days of starting your new diet, it's still an accomplishment to have started one and to have set long-term goals for yourself.
Short-term lapses in your end-goal are not like a bad apple spoiling the bunch: you have gotten things accomplished so far and you need to stay focused on the long-term, not become distraught by a single mishap. Research tells us that this is the best mindset to take for misfortune and failure in general: your progress and achievements go so much farther than that slip-up; don't let your brain convince you that all is lost!
Your brain loves mindless busy work disguised as progress
One of the ways in which your brain continues it's trickery is through busy work: work that gets "something" done, but not something that produces any measurable results.
In fact, research by John Bargh and colleagues reveals that our brain loves to become robotic and to mimic people out of habit. I shouldn't have to tell you that this is disastrous to achieving long term goals! This busy work is often a mechanism our brain uses in cohesion with avoiding big projects (mentioned above): instead of diving into the difficult tasks we KNOW we should get done, we'll instead float around doing semi-related (read: barely related) menial tasks to make ourselves feel productive without actually getting anything done.
Here's the thing: you're not going to build a thriving business or a successful blog with that kind of busy work. It takes doing the hard work and it takes deliberate practice, there's no way around it. The thing is, your brain knows this, that's why you have to remind it that the challenging stuff is often the stuff that produces the results you desire. Also remember that you can fight that procrastination by just getting started.
When you look back at what you've gotten done by the end of the day, make sure you're proud of what you got accomplished, don't let your brain ruin your goals by diverting you from what needs to be done!
Your brain is not good at "winging it" when it comes to planning...ever!
Every night before I go to sleep, I like to write a simple to-do list that I group into two categories. I put some in category ‘A' (must be done tomorrow) and some in category ‘B' (must be worked on or done in 2-3 days). I do this because when I sit down at the computer without a plan, I tend to fall flat on my face. My so-called "work time" turns into the not-so-productive "check email time" or "browse Reddit" time; nothing of any importance gets done. It seems that I'm not alone!
In research by Gollwitzer and colleagues, the subject of "if-then" plans was discussed in relation to how we set and stay consistent with out goals, and the results are not surprising but reveal a lot of insight into how our brain reacts to planning (and even some great tips). The thing is, researchers found that not only do well-laid plans seem to get accomplished more often, but planning for failures along the way ("In case of emergency…") helps people stay on task under duress.
Let's continue our diet example from above.
Say you did have that lapse and go over your calories for the day. Instead of "winging it" and letting your brain crumble to it's likely response (discussed above), you should have a backup plan ready to know what to do when failure strikes. This could be something like: "If I go over 2000 calories in a day, I'll finish the day as close to 2000 as I can, and then the next morning, I'll go for a 15 minute run as a ‘penance,' make sure I eat an extra healthy breakfast, and then continue the rest of my day as normal." You are likely no stranger to feeling ashamed about getting off track; we've all been there.
Having those "In case of emergency…" plans help us to have a gameplan in case we do falter, and including a small ‘penance' like I discussed above can help us get over it quicker. If you failed on your diet for a day and then ‘punish' (again, just with a quick run) yourself by running in the morning, you can go about your day knowing that you got what you deserved, instead of sliding down the slippery slope of guilt through the rest of the day.
How Our Brains Stop Us From Achieving Our Goals (and How to Fight Back)
Your brain can hurt your goals by fantasizing too much
Would you believe that fantasizing is the #1 way your brain unintentionally ruins your goals? It seems unlikely, right? The thing is, the proof is in the pudding (or in this case, the research): psychologists have found that while positive thinking about the future is broadly beneficial, too much fantasy can have disastrous results on achieving goals. Researchers tracked the progress of how people cope with four different types of challenges.
As an example, in one of those challenges (trying to find a fulfilling job), those who had spent the most time fantasizing performed the worst in a variety of critical data points:
they had applied for fewer jobs
they had been offered fewer jobs
if they were able to find work, they had lower salaries.
Why? Why could fantasizing about a positive end take a turn for the worse?
Jeremy Dean, a psychological researcher at UCL London and the owner of PsyBlog had this to say about the researcher's conclusions:
The problem with positive fantasies is that they allow us to anticipate success in the here and now. However, they don't alert us to the problems we are likely to face along the way and can leave us with less motivation—after all, it feels like we've already reached our goal.
It's one way in which our mind's own brilliance lets us down. Because it's so amazing at simulating our achievement of future events, it can actually undermine our attempts to achieve those goals in reality. Our poor brain is thus a victim of itself.
Again, this is not to say that visualizing goals is necessarily a haphazard strategy for achieving them, it's just that we need to be aware of the dangers of excessive fantasy. Instead of being entranced with what the future may bring, we need to learn to love the work here and now. Enjoying our day by day progress and realistic ‘checkpoints' is a much more practical way to create our future; getting lost in grandiose dreams that focus on the ultimate end is not. As they say, don't give up on your dreams, but don't fall under their spell either.
Your brain procrastinates on big projects by visualizing the worst parts
Procrastination, of all of the things on this list, is likely the most recognizable: everybody realizes that they procrastinate from time to time, and it's something we are forced to battle with every day. How can we fight this persistent opponent?
Interesting research from Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik (of whom the Zeigarnik Effectis named after) reveals to us an interesting tidbit about the human mind: we are better at remembering things that are partially done. Ms. Zeigarnik came to this conclusion by testing the memory of folks doing simple "brain" tasks like puzzles or crafts. She then interrupted them and asked them to recall (with specific detail) the tasks that they were doing or had completed. She found that people were twice as likely to recall more detail about the tasks they had been interrupted in than in the tasks they had completed.
What does this have to do with procrastination?
Before we get to that, know this: in a study by Kenneth McGraw, participants were given a very tricky puzzle to solve with an "unlimited" amount of time. The thing is, all of the participants were interrupted before they could finish, and then told that the study was over. Despite being told they were done, nearly 90% of participants continued working on the puzzle anyway.
What both of these studies teach us is that when people finally manage to start something, they are much more inclined to remember the task and finish it. The Zeigarnik Effect and the subsequent McGraw study assure us that the best way to beat procrastination is to start somewhere…anywhere. Our brain has the habit of envisioning the impending huge workload of an upcoming task. It also tends to focus on the most difficult parts or sections, and this is where procrastination begins to set in: as we try to avoid the "hard work," we find ways to skate around it and trick ourselves into thinking that we're busy.
Just starting though, triggers our brain in a different way. It's the same way that cliffhangersare utilized to keep us coming back to our favorite TV shows; we're primed to remember the last episode because the story was interrupted, and our brain wants a conclusion. It's the same with your tasks: start, and your brain will overcome the first hurdle.
This seemingly small milestone appears to be the most important one to overcome if you wish to defeat procrastination. After starting a task, your brain will be more enticed to finish it to it's "conclusion." You also tend to see that it's not as big a mountain as you initially imagined, and that the work involved in completing this task won't be so terrifying after all.
Your brain will "abandon ship" at the first sign of distress
Anyone who's fought the good fight with dieting will likely recognize this phenomenon. Envision this:
You're on a diet, and have been doing well for about 2 1/2 weeks, but you know your defenses are at risk. To make matters work, you're having dinner with friends tonight. Instead of the healthy meal you could have made at home, you're forced to use a restaurant menu.
The problem is this: At the bar before dinner, you had a little "cheat" moment by ordering snacks and drinks, after all, you're with your pals tonight, right? You know that those drinks and snacks, combined with the bread you had before dinner, leave you with one option to stay a bit over your caloric intake goals: you must eat a salad. The thing is, your brain is yelling out "BURGER!". Instead of finishing the day a tad over your 2000 calorie goal, you order the burger with fries and don't look back.
The crazy thing about this scenario?
It's much more than a momentary act of weakness: psychologists have observed that this is much more likely to happen as a result of you missing a previously set goal. Specifically, inresearch by Janet Polivy and her colleagues, people who were actually on diets were tested with pizza and cookies. In the study, two groups of participants (those on diets and those not dieting) were told not to eat beforehand and then served exactly the same slice of pizza when they arrived to the lab. Afterwards, they were then asked to taste and rate some cookies.
The thing was, the experimenters didn't really care about the cookie's rating, they just wanted to see how many people ate. This is because they tricked some of the participants into thinking that they had recieved a larger slice than the others (using framing and false information). This was to make them believe that they had most certainly "ruined" their diet goals for the day.
The result?
When the cookies were weighed, it turned out that those who were on a diet and thought they'd blown their limit ate more of the cookies than those who weren't on a diet. This doesn't paint the true picture though: they ate over 50% more! On the flipside, the dieters that did think that they were in their caloric limit ate the same amount of cookies as those who weren't on a diet at all. Truly, our brain is geared towards a call of "Abandon ship!", whenever we come short of our goals.
Don't let this happen to you!
The best way to combat your brain from signaling ‘Mission Abort!' after you've missed a short-term goal is to re-frame what just happened. Yes, you did fall short or maybe mess up this time, but remember the progress that you've made. With the diet example, you could look at all of the "good days" you've accumulated thus far: even if you fell after only a few days of starting your new diet, it's still an accomplishment to have started one and to have set long-term goals for yourself.
Short-term lapses in your end-goal are not like a bad apple spoiling the bunch: you have gotten things accomplished so far and you need to stay focused on the long-term, not become distraught by a single mishap. Research tells us that this is the best mindset to take for misfortune and failure in general: your progress and achievements go so much farther than that slip-up; don't let your brain convince you that all is lost!
Your brain loves mindless busy work disguised as progress
One of the ways in which your brain continues it's trickery is through busy work: work that gets "something" done, but not something that produces any measurable results.
In fact, research by John Bargh and colleagues reveals that our brain loves to become robotic and to mimic people out of habit. I shouldn't have to tell you that this is disastrous to achieving long term goals! This busy work is often a mechanism our brain uses in cohesion with avoiding big projects (mentioned above): instead of diving into the difficult tasks we KNOW we should get done, we'll instead float around doing semi-related (read: barely related) menial tasks to make ourselves feel productive without actually getting anything done.
Here's the thing: you're not going to build a thriving business or a successful blog with that kind of busy work. It takes doing the hard work and it takes deliberate practice, there's no way around it. The thing is, your brain knows this, that's why you have to remind it that the challenging stuff is often the stuff that produces the results you desire. Also remember that you can fight that procrastination by just getting started.
When you look back at what you've gotten done by the end of the day, make sure you're proud of what you got accomplished, don't let your brain ruin your goals by diverting you from what needs to be done!
Your brain is not good at "winging it" when it comes to planning...ever!
Every night before I go to sleep, I like to write a simple to-do list that I group into two categories. I put some in category ‘A' (must be done tomorrow) and some in category ‘B' (must be worked on or done in 2-3 days). I do this because when I sit down at the computer without a plan, I tend to fall flat on my face. My so-called "work time" turns into the not-so-productive "check email time" or "browse Reddit" time; nothing of any importance gets done. It seems that I'm not alone!
In research by Gollwitzer and colleagues, the subject of "if-then" plans was discussed in relation to how we set and stay consistent with out goals, and the results are not surprising but reveal a lot of insight into how our brain reacts to planning (and even some great tips). The thing is, researchers found that not only do well-laid plans seem to get accomplished more often, but planning for failures along the way ("In case of emergency…") helps people stay on task under duress.
Let's continue our diet example from above.
Say you did have that lapse and go over your calories for the day. Instead of "winging it" and letting your brain crumble to it's likely response (discussed above), you should have a backup plan ready to know what to do when failure strikes. This could be something like: "If I go over 2000 calories in a day, I'll finish the day as close to 2000 as I can, and then the next morning, I'll go for a 15 minute run as a ‘penance,' make sure I eat an extra healthy breakfast, and then continue the rest of my day as normal." You are likely no stranger to feeling ashamed about getting off track; we've all been there.
Having those "In case of emergency…" plans help us to have a gameplan in case we do falter, and including a small ‘penance' like I discussed above can help us get over it quicker. If you failed on your diet for a day and then ‘punish' (again, just with a quick run) yourself by running in the morning, you can go about your day knowing that you got what you deserved, instead of sliding down the slippery slope of guilt through the rest of the day.
Wednesday 25 July 2012
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR CREATIVE MINDS::
As Louis Pasteur once famously said, "Chance favors only the prepared mind." To be an innovative entrepreneur, you want to foster creativity in your daily life so that your mind is ready when opportunity arises.
"Creative ideas often come from unusual combinations," explains Steven Smith, professor of cognitive psychology at Texas A&M University. "The best solution is not going to be the thing everyone thinks of. It's going to be something unusual."
These unusual combinations, called "remote associations," are related ideas that may seem unrelated at first glance. They are the essence of creative thinking.
To cultivate creativity, you want to increase your chances of stumbling on an unexpected link. Here are four strategies you can use in your everyday life that will train your mind to be more creative in business:
1. Shake up your routine. To expand your creative horizons, surround yourself with a broad range of perspectives and experiences. A diverse workplace is helpful, but it isn’t enough. Outside work, seek variety in what you eat, where you hang out, the types of art you look at, the places you travel, or the books you read.
"Diversity introduces all kinds of new stimuli," Smith says. "It opens you up to a number of new possibilities." You are more likely to find an unusual solution when you have more options at your fingertips.
2. Cast a wide net for feedback. We often discuss important ideas with the same inner circle of colleagues, but in doing that we can miss the obvious answers. "Someone less expert may notice invisible assumptions right away," Smith says. They may help you see a problem or idea in a new light.
Find intelligent people with little knowledge of your business and talk through whatever you're working on now. You may be surprised by the solutions they help you discover.
3. Let go of rigid rules. Like the queen in Alice in Wonderland who thinks of impossible things for half an hour each day, you want to train your mind to be more open. Practice letting your mind wander and come up with as many ideas as you can, however absurd they may seem. You can even be silly or funny. "Humor helps loosen up your constraints," Smith explains.
Relaxing your standards while you generate ideas increases your openness and boosts creativity. "If you think of 99 stupid, impossible ideas and one that works, then that was time well spent," Smith says.
4. Observe the world around you. "When you get wrapped up in your own head, creative ideas can slide under your nose," Smith says. The most creative people are always on the lookout for interesting things, even if they don't apply to whatever they're working on now, he adds.
Keep a notebook or a computer folder full of interesting ideas, articles, images, or even passing thoughts. They will likely come in handy at a moment you least expect.
Tuesday 24 July 2012
HEY PEOPLE DO WE CALL THIS SUCCESS OR WHAT DO YOU HAVE IN MIND???
Monday 23 July 2012
AND MUCH MORE TO QUENCH YOUR THIRST
1. “Identify your problems but give your power and energy to solutions.” Tony Robbins
2. “You live longer once you realize that any time spent being unhappy is wasted.” Ruth E. Renkl
3. “The only true wisdom is knowing that you know nothing.” Socrates
4. “Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out.” John Wooden
5. “Let no feeling of discouragement prey upon you, and in the end you are sure to succeed.” Abraham Lincoln
6. ” If you are not willing to risk the usual you will have to settle for the ordinary.” Jim Rohn
7. “Trust because you are willing to accept the risk, not because it’s safe or certain.” Anonymous
8. “When your life flashes before your eyes, make sure you’ve got plenty to watch.” Anonymous
9. “Screw it, Let’s do it!” Richard Branson
10. “Be content to act, and leave the talking to others.” Baltasa
11. “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” Steve Jobs
12. “The more you loose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have.” Norman Vincent Peale
13. “If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to meet it!” Jonathan Winters
14. “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.” Zig Ziglar
15. “Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.” John Wayne
16.“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.” Les Brown
17. “The link between my experience as an entrepreneur and that of a politician is all in one word: freedom.” Silvio Berlusconi
18. “The entrepreneur builds an enterprise; the technician builds a job.” Michael Gerber
19. “A real entrepreneur is somebody who has no safety net underneath them.” Henry Kravis
20. “Most new jobs won’t come from our biggest employers. They will come from our smallest. We’ve got to do everything we can to make entrepreneurial dreams a reality.” Ross Perot
21. “My son is now an ‘entrepreneur’. That’s what you’re called when you don’t have a job.” Ted Turner
22. “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” Bill Gates
23. “As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big.” Donald Trump
24. “If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work.” Thomas J Watson
25. “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Thomas Edison
26. “The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” Vidal Sassoon
27. “Capital isn’t scarce; vision is.” Sam Walton
28. “Failure defeats losers, failure inspires winners.” Robert T. Kiyosaki
29. “Some people dream of great accomplishments, while others stay awake and do them.” Anonymous
30. “I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.” Warren Buffet
31. “Going into business for yourself, becoming an entrepreneur, is the modern-day equivalent of pioneering on the old frontier.” Paula Nelson
32. “Poor people have big TV. Rich people have big library.” Jim Rohn
33. “A goal is a dream with a deadline.” Napoleon Hill
34. “Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I’m not there, I go to work.” Vinnie Rege
35. “Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.” Zig Ziglar
36. “People are not lazy. They simply have important goals – that is, goals that do not inspire them.” Tony Robbins
37. “Nobody talks of entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what it is.” Anita Roddick
38. “The best reason to start an organization is to make meaning; to create a product or service to make the world a better place.” Guy Kawasaki
39. “A friendship founded on business is a good deal better than a business founded on friendship.” John D. Rockefeller
40. “I’ve been blessed to find people who are smarter than I am, and they help me to execute the vision I have.” Russell Simmons
41. “I find that when you have a real interest in life and a curious life, that sleep is not the most important thing.” Martha Stewart
42. “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” Albert Einstein
43. “Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.” Maya Angelou
44. “Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill
45. “The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” Ralph Nader
46. “Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.” Benjamin Franklin
47. “Big pay and little responsibility are circumstances seldom found together.” Napoleon Hill
48. Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you.” Mark Cuban
49. “The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.” Colin R. Davis
50. “If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.” Jack Welch
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