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How can I effortlessly improve myself in lots of little ways?

October 21, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Answer: Set 30 implementation intentions and implement them!

An implementation intention looks like this:

If………………………………………….then I will…………………………

Some examples from Gollwitzer’s research studies:

If I am riding the bus home from work, then I will eat an apple. (Intended goal is to increase fruit intake.)

If I am watching television and want a snack, then I will reach for the fruit bowl and take an apple. (Intended goal is to reduce unhealthy snacking while watching TV.)

If, while doing this task, a distraction arises, then I will ignore it. (Intended goal is to concentrate hard on a boring task.)

My current 30 implementation intentions:

  1. If I am about to go upstairs, then I will run up the stairs. (Intended goal: to increase my incidental exercise.)
  2. If I am outside jogging, then I will apply my daughter’s two jogging tips. (Intended goal: to be able to jog without hurting my hip.)
  3. If I am walking down the hill,  then I will mindfully study the city skyline for signs novelty and difference. (Intended goal: to be more mindful of my beautiful environment.)
  4. If I eat, then I will mindfully savor the taste of what I am eating. (Intended goal: to savor my food and not mindlessly bolt it down  so fast.)
  5. If my husband gets out of bed in the morning, then I will note the time and make sure I get up no more than 10 minutes later. (Intended goal: to get up earlier than I do.)
  6. If I catch myself wallowing in morbid thoughts, then I will count backwards in 7’s from 102. (Intended goal: to tip myself out of negative, unproductive thinking.)
  7. If I am wanting to concentrate hard on my work and I catch myself wanting to get up and take a break, then I will make myself work at least another 5 minutes before stopping. (Intended goal: to build up my “concentration muscle”.)
  8. If I catch myself automatically getting up from my work, then I will make myself sit down again and work another 5 minutes before I can stop. (Intended goal: to strengthen my “concentration muscle” and to stay more in charge of my decisions.)
  9. If I think of a good idea but am not near my computer, then I will write the good idea down on my hand. (Intended goal: to capture my good ideas and not forget them.)
  10. If I have a shower, then I will spend a couple of minutes trying to recall what I’ve been recently reading or watching. (Intended goal: to consolidate my long-term memories.)
  11. If I am about to play the Stroop game on Posit Science, then I will mentally rehearse focusing just on the number of numbers rather than the numbers themselves. (Intended goal: to strengthen my impulse control.)
  12. If I am playing the n-back game and I make some errors, then I will calm down and re-focus on the new stimuli coming in. (Intended goal: to improve my ability to recover from failure.)
  13. If I am about to meditate, then I will spend a minute mentally rehearsing doing all the right things to create a good meditation session.( Intended goal: to improve my meditation success.)
  14. If I am meditating and my thoughts wander from focusing on my breath, then I will calmly bring my thoughts back to the breath. (Intended goal: to improve my self-control.)
  15. If I catch myself biting my fingernails, then I will stop. (Intended goal: to stop biting my fingernails.)
  16. If I go to get something to eat during the day, then I will first eat a small amount of vegetable before eating anything else. (Intended goal: to eat more vegetables during the day.)
  17. If it’s Friday, then I will water the house plants. (Intended goal: to keep plants alive.)
  18. If an email comes in requiring a reply, then I will reply to it before going to bed. (Intended goal: to be courteous and reply to emails promptly.)
  19. If I have trouble going to sleep, then I will recall all the happy things that happened to me during the day. (Intended goal: to replace anxiety with a happy frame of mind to help me sleep.)
  20. If I am doing my stretching exercises, then I will mindfully focus on my muscles stretching. (Intended goal: to get more out of the stretching exercises by concentrating on what I’m doing.)
  21. If I come across a fascinating fact, then I will note it down and add it to my fascinating fact file. (Intended goal: to build up my repertoire of fascinating facts.)
  22. If I come across some good material for my website but am not sure what to do with it, then I will add it to my “still to be processed” file. (Intended goal: to file good stuff away safely so I don’t forget it.)
  23. If a friend or one of my children comes over, then I will greet them heartily. (Intended goal: to train myself to greet people heartily.)
  24. If I make a promise to someone, then I will write that promise down on my checklist. (Intended goal: to keep all promises I make.)
  25. If I see a small mess I’ve made, then I will clean it up. (Intended goal: to be more orderly.)
  26. If I am cleaning my teeth, then I will then apply my skin cancer cream afterwards. (Intended goal: to remember to apply my cream twice a day.)
  27. If I finish reading an article or chapter of book, then I will spend a couple of minutes trying to recall what I’ve just read. (Intended goal: to remember and think about what I read, rather than to just read mindlessly.)
  28. If I am reading something, then I will note down practical ways to apply ideas I’ve read. (Intended goal: to read purposefully and extract practical value from what I read.)
  29. If I hit a serve off the end while playing ping pong, then I will serve more conservatively for the rest of the game. (intended goal: to control my mindless recklessness.)
  30. If I am about to phone up or see a friend,  then I will spend a couple of minutes thinking about what my friend has been up to recently. (Intended goal: to practise being other-person focused.)
Filed Under: achievement, goal-setting, setting a vivid implementation plan Tagged With: , ,

How can I get myself to do what I want to do?

October 20, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Answer: Make vivid, concrete plans that specify when and where, how you’re going to do what you want to  do.

The power of making a vivid implementation plan has been confirmed over and over in research by Peter Gollwitzer and his colleagues since the 1990s. (Click here for links to all the research papers.)

Carol Dweck, in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, sums up how to make a vivid, concrete intention plan:

What works is making a vivid, concrete plan: “Tomorrow during my break, I’ll get a cup of tea, close the door to my office, and call the graduate school.” Or, in another case,: “On Wednesday morning, right after I get up and brush my teeth, I’ll sit at my desk and start writng my report.” Or: “Tonight, right after the dinner dishes are done, I’ll sit down with my wife in the living room and have that discussion. I’ll say to her, ‘Dear, I’d like to talk about something that I think will make us happier.’ ”

Think of something you need to do, something you want to learn, or a problem you have to confront. What is it? Now make a concrete plan.

when will you follow thorugh on your plan? Where will you do it? How will you do it? Think about it in vivid detail.

These concrete plans–plans you can visualize–about when, where, and how you are going to do something lead to really high levels of follow-through, which, of course, ups the chances of success. (p 228)

Filed Under: achievement, goal-setting, setting a vivid implementation plan Tagged With: , , , , , ,

How can I cope better with failing to achieve a cherished goal?

April 7, 2011 by Leave a Comment

A:  Read this article for some comforting and inspiring ideas:

Laura A. King and Joshua A. Hicks

My summary of the article

Missing out on a cherished goal is excruciatingly painful.

Not only have we missed out on the important goal we’ve set our heart on, but we also have to cope with the loss of our hoped-for “new self” that would have come with our achieving our goal.

For instance, a woman with the goal of becoming a mother loses her hoped-for new self as “mother” the day she hears she cannot have children.

The father who hears his baby son has Down’s Syndrome loses his future self as the dad who was going to teach his son football and have deep philosophical conversations with him one day.

The same happens when we miss out on any cherished goal, such as the break-up of a relationship we thought was “the one”, or the failure of a business idea, or the collapse of an investment that was going to set us up for retirement.

We need time to process what’s happened.

Failing a cherished goal means  somehow we have to accommodate the failure into our life. This is truly challenging:  We have to somehow make sense of our new life without our cherished goal. We have to come up with replacement cherished goals and re-prioritize existing goals.

This adjustment takes time. It’s important to give ourselves that time to process all we have lost. The better we process it, the more we can learn from it.

We can learn a lot from loss and the suffering it brings.

Handled the right way,  the loss of the cherished goal helps us develop insight. We learn to find meaning in our failure and suffering. In the process, we grow into richer, more insightful and complex human beings.

Without life’s unwanted surprise twists, we’d live perfectly routine, predictable existences–with little growth happening as a result.

In time, we may even feel gratitude for the way things have turned out. We may realize that, although we have lost one possible self, we ended up with another– possibly even better–self.

Loss and suffering teaches us equanimity: we have to accept life is unpredictable and that the gods of fate won’t always give us what we want, no matter how much we want it or how hard try.

Missing out on a cherished goal also can teach us that we are robust enough to handle life’s nasty surprises. It’s not the nasty surprises that do us in, but rather our  inability to cope with them.

If we can’t handle the loss, bad things may happen.

If we can’t rise above our loss, then we’ve let ourselves be crushed by a sense of entitlement. We’ve become stuck in thinking that we are entitled to achieve our cherished goal and we feel deeply resentful that we did not get our expectations met.

We get locked into “if only” thinking: “There were so many things I could have achieved if only. . .”

If we can’t rise above our loss, we may lose some of our trust in life and other people and lose our courage to try again for new cherished goals. We may come to believe all our cherished goals will blow up on us and tell ourselves:

“Striving hard for tough goals isn’t worth it. Life’s too unpredictable. I had better not to try as failing hurts too much.”

A question to ask yourself, once you’ve had enough time to process your loss:

“If I had my time over again, would I still want to keep this unexpected experience — or would I prefer to skip it entirely”

Hopefully, for most of your experiences, your answer will be:

“I’m glad I had this experience. If I had my time over again, I would change almost nothing.”

Here’s a heart-warming account from someone who dealt well with her loss.

This mother of a Down’s Syndrome child explains how she has matured as a person from having to deal with her loss of her cherished dream (King and Hicks, 2006, p 133):

“I see myself on an exciting journey. I like who I am. I have many areas that need work but for the most part I’m present and attentive to my needs and dreads and goals. . . . I am finding that giving is truly more satisfying than receiving. I have had a challenge in accepting my son’s Down’s Syndrome. It’s taken time but unconditional love and acceptance are truly there. . .I want to work within the community to be an agent of change. We all have a time of being a caregiver — to our children or parents, or someone. I want to offer. . . tools for people to find their own balance and peace. . . I am quite selfish by nature: My son has opened that perspective — a new window for loving and caring now exists for me. I’m proud that I have taken responsibility for my own growth.”

In a nutshell, if you experience the loss of a cherished goal, remember these four things:

  1. Spend time visiting your loss to learn from it and extract all the good you can. But don’t let yourself get bitter or stuck, longing for what could have been.
  2. Now move on. Throw yourself into new cherished goals.
  3. Remember that life won’t always give you what you want, but, nevertheless,  you must stay optimistic and keep trying really hard for the things that matter.
  4. Embrace life’s rich complexity and unpredictability. This way, you’ll get properly tested and get to discover who you really are.

“Life is a work of art, probably the greatest one we produce.” (Bruner)

Filed Under: achievement, coping with failing to achieve an important goal, goal-setting