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February 6 - March 16, 2018
First, people often talked about getting a buzz from feeling productive, and from knowing that their efforts counted toward something worthwhile. The best days also tended to involve people feeling confident that they were doing a fine job, and that they had the support they needed from others. Finally, people talked about good days leaving them feeling more energized than depleted, overall.
Less of the day seems driven by chance once we understand some of the forces that shape our choices and our emotions, and once we recognize how our thought patterns can affect everything from our perception of reality to the moods of those around us.
that even small challenges to a person’s sense of competence will put their brain on the defensive, making it harder for them to think clearly (in turn creating something of a self-fulfilling prophecy).
The three themes, in brief, are: 1. The two-system brain: The brain’s activity is split across two complementary systems—one deliberate and controlled, the other automatic and instinctive.
2. The discover-defend axis: Subconsciously, we’re constantly on the lookout for threats to defend against and rewards to discover. It takes very little to put our brains into defensive mode, and we’re not at our smartest in that mode. However, a dose of self-awareness and the pursuit of certain types of rewards can help us move back into clearer-thinking discovery mode. 3. The mind-body loop: The state of our bodies and that of our minds are far more deeply entwined than we generally realize. As a result, certain simple physical interventions can immediately boost our intellectual
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That’s already quite useful, but there’s another way the automatic system saves us mental energy, which is this: it rapidly sifts through information and ideas, prioritizes whatever seems relevant, and filters out the rest.
As a result, the startling truth is that we don’t experience the world as it is; we’re always experiencing an edited, simplified version.
Our brain’s energy-saving automatic system doesn’t just filter our perceptions of the world. It also streamlines our decision making by nudging us toward whichever choice requires the smallest amount of conscious effort. If there’s a plausible option already on the table, or one that doesn’t involve thinking hard about the future, or one that resonates with something we heard recently, our automatic system will say: “Fantastic! Let’s apply the ‘most obvious option = best option’ rule. No need to think further.”
For one thing, we can be more proactive in telling our brain what’s “important” enough to merit our conscious attention, in a bid to get it through the spam filter.
We can also be smart in how we use the limited capacity of our deliberate system, by ensuring we’re lightening the load on our precious working memory where possible.
You make the most of your brain’s talents if you adjust for the limitations of each system. That means creating the conditions for your deliberate system to function at its best, and recognizing when to slow down and come off autopilot.
In fact, Amy Arnsten, a professor of neurobiology at Yale, recently discovered that falling into defensive mode impacts the intellect more severely than previously suspected. She found that exposure to even fairly mild negative stress can significantly reduce the amount of activity in the brain’s prefrontal cortex, where most of the deliberate system’s work gets done.
So how can you move away from the defensive end of the axis when you’re handling everyday workplace challenges? The answer is to look for potential rewards in the situation you’re facing. If you can tempt your brain’s reward system with something valuable, you’re more likely to be able to respond to a tough situation with the benefit of all your “discovery mode” intelligence.
One reason that shared humor is powerful is that it tends to make us feel more connected to other people.
In defensive mode, you become less smart and flexible, as your brain devotes some of its scarce mental energy to launching a fight-flight-freeze response to a potential “threat”—leaving less energy to power your brain’s deliberate system. Defensive mode can even be triggered by small personal slights.
In discovery mode, you’re motivating yourself with rewards: a social sense of belonging or recognition; a personal sense of autonomy, competence, or purpose; or informational rewards that come from learning or experiencing new things.
Being sleep-deprived makes it difficult for our brain’s deliberate system to perform its daily miracles. A tired brain devotes less blood to the prefrontal cortex, where most of the deliberate system lives. That makes it hard for us to respond intelligently to the unexpected, think up new ideas, or stay calm under stress. Skimping on sleep also dents our ability to remember and learn anything new, because sleep is central to the brain’s ability to convert the day’s experience into long-term memories.
Research shows that even a single session of aerobic exercise immediately improves our intellectual performance, giving us faster information processing and reaction time, more effective planning, better short-term memory performance, and more self-control.
They’re responding to scores of studies suggesting that mindfulness enhances our analytical thinking, capacity for insight, ability to focus, self-control, sense of well-being, energy, and emotional resilience.
And that lack of direction made me miss what I now know were three big opportunities to influence the quality of my morning. First, our priorities and assumptions determine our perceptions to a surprising extent. Second, setting the right kind of goals not only reliably lifts our performance but also makes us feel good. And third, what we imagine in our mind’s eye can shape our real-life experience.
It means that with a few minutes of mental preparation—involving a quick check and reset of those priorities and assumptions—we can shift the way we experience the day, making it more productive and enjoyable. This mental preparation is a process that I call setting intentions, because it’s about being more intentional about your approach to the day.
Astonishingly, 83 percent of the radiologists failed to spot the gorilla, although the image was forty-eight times the size of the average lung nodule.
This type of selective attention is what scientists call inattentional blindness—that is, we see what we’ve decided merits our attention, and we’re remarkably blind to the rest.
And what did Forgas and Bower find?4 That their happier volunteers were significantly more likely to see the people described in a positive light, compared with the volunteers they’d deliberately put into a funk. And it’s not just interpersonal judgments that are affected by our mood. Another research team found that sad people perceived a hill as being significantly steeper (and saw scaling it as a less pleasant prospect) than people who were feeling more upbeat.5
our brain’s automatic system makes sure that we see and hear anything that resonates with our conscious priorities, our top-of-mind concerns, and even our mood. Meanwhile, it downplays everything else.
Here’s an approach I like. It involves taking just a moment to look at something from three angles (each beginning with “A,” conveniently): Aim: Think about each of the most important of today’s activities—the people you’ll meet, the work you’ll do. What really matters most in making them a success? That’s your real aim. Attitude: As you think about the upcoming workday, take a moment to notice and acknowledge the concerns that are dominating your thoughts or your mood. Do these concerns help you achieve your real aim—and if not, can you set them aside for now?
Attention: Given your real priorities, where do you want to focus your attention? Figure out what you want to see more of, and then make sure you look out for it.
One helpful sign that you may be falling victim to confirmation bias is when you catch yourself using what I call absolute language: words like “never,” “always,” “completely,” “totally,” “absolutely,” or “definitely,” perhaps with a dash of “terrible” or “awful.”
So if you find yourself using strong words as you think or talk about the tasks ahead, or the people involved, take that as a helpful cue to check your perspective. Ask another “A” question: What negative assumptions do you have about this person or activity? And then take one more step back, and ask yourself: What are you likely to focus on to confirm your assumptions? If you had to challenge your negative assumptions, what would you say? What counterevidence can you look out for, to help you keep an open mind?
So when you’re looking at your aims for the day, don’t just set yourself task completion goals. Set at least one or two goals for your own behavior, and make them as specific as you possibly can, to magnify your chances of having the day you intended.
Now let’s shift to the evidence on how best to articulate our goals—whether they’re task-related goals or behavioral ones—if we want to boost our chances of success. Research suggests that we should aim to describe them in a way that is positive, personally meaningful, feasible, and situation-specific.
Our goals are usually framed in one of two ways. Either they’re about doing more of something good, or they’re about doing less of something bad. A wide range of research suggests that the first type (known as “approach” goals) are better than the second (“avoidance” goals) at encouraging high performance—even if they’re pursuing the same broad outcome. In fact, when psychologists Andrew Elliot and Marcy Church worked with a large group of students at the University of Rochester to track the effects of different types of personal goals on the students’ grades, they found that avoidance goals
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Correspondingly, scientists have found that we’re more likely to achieve a challenging goal if we’ve decided for ourselves why it’s worth succeeding. Or to use psychological terminology: intrinsic motivation—where we’re doing things because they feel personally meaningful or satisfying—tends to lead to higher performance than the kind of extrinsic motivation that comes from seeking to meet other people’s expectations.
The upshot? Not everything on our to-do list can be an act of personal passion. But the science tells us that we’re more likely to get something done if we take a moment to think about why it matters to us personally.
Finally, to make sure we accomplish our goals, it helps to get very specific about what we’ll do and when we’ll do it.
That’s because it contains a clear “when-then” rule, which says, “when X happens, then I will do Y.” This kind of rule—known to scientists as an implementation intention—takes much less effort for our brains to handle than an abstract concept like “being collaborative,” since it leaves no doubt about what to do when the time comes.
setting implementation intentions makes people as much as three times more likely to achieve their aspirations.6
Only keep today’s tasks in view. You might have a grand list of tasks you’d like to complete in the coming weeks or months. But once you’ve decided what you really need and want to get done today, work off that list, and hide the rest.
Make it satisfying to check off.
Be realistic about what you can do in a day.
Include mind-body maintenance.
SETTING GREAT GOALS Take a moment now to think about your priorities for today. Set some behavioral goals. Personally, what behavior of yours will support your intentions for the day? Specifically, what tangible actions can you plan to take? Put these on your to-do list along with your regular tasks. Articulate your goals for the win. Phrase them so that they’re positive, meaningful, feasible, and situation-specific. • Create “approach” goals. Make sure your goals are about doing desirable things, or doing more of them, rather than avoiding bad things happening. If they’re negative in tone,
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techniques that will help you stay true to your good intentions as you tackle the most important or elusive of your priorities. The three tools are mental contrasting, priming, and mind’s-eye rehearsal.
MENTAL CONTRASTING An excellent way to reinforce your positive intentions, strangely enough, is to make sure you spend a little time on the negatives.
Gabriele Oettingen and Peter Gollwitzer, experts on the psychology of motivation at New York University, discovered that people are far more likely to achieve their goals if they think hard about both the outcome they want and the obstacles they’re facing, and plan for both. Their twenty years of research have found this to be true across multiple spheres of life, including professional endeavors, academic test scores, and even romantic relationships.
What’s most likely to get in the way of you succeeding in meeting your goals for today? What’s your “when-then” contingency plan to prevent that obstacle from getting in the way?
PRIMING THE PUMP
Seeing a fire engine might unaccountably make you feel like buying cherries. A thought like this can pop into your consciousness seemingly out of nowhere, if you encounter a cue that your brain somehow associates with that specific thought—a phenomenon known to scientists as the spreading activation effect.
There’s a great deal of research confirming the power of this kind of mind’s-eye rehearsal.
REINFORCING YOUR INTENTIONS Consider taking a moment now to revisit your intentions and goals for the day ahead. For the most important of them: Mental contrasting. What’s most likely to get in the way of you achieving what you hope to do? What can you do to reduce the chance that this obstacle derails you—ideally by making a specific “when-then” plan? Priming. What cues can you use to remind yourself to stay on track today? Are there words or phrases that will help remind you of your intentions? How can you make your surroundings a good metaphor for your intentions? Mind’s-eye rehearsal. Take
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