Self help: ignore positive thinking, try positive action
Meaning Of Life
For years self-help masters have preached the same basic mantra: if you wish to enhance your life then you need to change how you believe. Force yourself to have favorable ideas and you will become better. Imagine your dream self and you will take pleasure in increased success. Think like a millionaire and you will magically grow rich. In concept, this concept sounds perfectly reasonable. However, in practice it typically proves inadequate.
Take visualisation. Hundreds of self-improvement books motivate readers to close their eyes and picture their best selves; to see themselves in a huge workplace at the top of the corporate ladder, or drinking a cocktail as they feel the warm Caribbean sand in between their toes. Regrettably, research study recommends this method does not work.
In one research study led by Lien Pham at the University of California, trainees were asked to spend a couple of minutes each day imagining themselves getting a high grade in an approaching test. Although the daydreaming exercise just lasted a few minutes, it triggered the trainees to study less and acquire lower marks. In another experiment led by Gabriele Oettingen from New York City University, graduates were asked to note down how frequently they fantasised about getting their dream task after leaving college. The trainees who reported that they frequently fantasised about such success received fewer task offers and ended up with substantially smaller wages.
Why should this be so? Perhaps those who fantasise about a fantastic life are ill-prepared for setbacks, or end up being hesitant to put in the effort required to achieve their goal. In any case, the message is clear-- picturing the best you is not good for your life.
However, when it pertains to change, the message is not all gloom and doom. Decades of research reveal that there is undoubtedly a basic but highly reliable method to change how you believe and feel. The strategy turns good sense on its head but is grounded in science. Oddly, the story begins with a world-renowned Victorian thinker and an fictional bear.
Working at Harvard University in the late 19th century, William James, bro of the novelist Henry James, was brought in to the non-traditional, typically walking around school sporting a silk hat and red-checked pants, and explaining his theories using amusing prose ("As long as one bad cockroach feels the pangs of unrequited love, this world is not a moral world"). This non-traditional approach paid off. First published in 1890, James's two-volume magnum opus The Concepts of Psychology is still needed reading for students of behavioural science.
For years self-help masters have preached the same basic mantra: if you wish to enhance your life then you need to change how you believe. Force yourself to have favorable ideas and you will become better. Imagine your dream self and you will take pleasure in increased success. Think like a millionaire and you will magically grow rich. In concept, this concept sounds perfectly reasonable. However, in practice it typically proves inadequate.
Take visualisation. Hundreds of self-improvement books motivate readers to close their eyes and picture their best selves; to see themselves in a huge workplace at the top of the corporate ladder, or drinking a cocktail as they feel the warm Caribbean sand in between their toes. Regrettably, research study recommends this method does not work.
In one research study led by Lien Pham at the University of California, trainees were asked to spend a couple of minutes each day imagining themselves getting a high grade in an approaching test. Although the daydreaming exercise just lasted a few minutes, it triggered the trainees to study less and acquire lower marks. In another experiment led by Gabriele Oettingen from New York City University, graduates were asked to note down how frequently they fantasised about getting their dream task after leaving college. The trainees who reported that they frequently fantasised about such success received fewer task offers and ended up with substantially smaller wages.
Why should this be so? Perhaps those who fantasise about a fantastic life are ill-prepared for setbacks, or end up being hesitant to put in the effort required to achieve their goal. In any case, the message is clear-- picturing the best you is not good for your life.
However, when it pertains to change, the message is not all gloom and doom. Decades of research reveal that there is undoubtedly a basic but highly reliable method to change how you believe and feel. The strategy turns good sense on its head but is grounded in science. Oddly, the story begins with a world-renowned Victorian thinker and an fictional bear.
Working at Harvard University in the late 19th century, William James, bro of the novelist Henry James, was brought in to the non-traditional, typically walking around school sporting a silk hat and red-checked pants, and explaining his theories using amusing prose ("As long as one bad cockroach feels the pangs of unrequited love, this world is not a moral world"). This non-traditional approach paid off. First published in 1890, James's two-volume magnum opus The Concepts of Psychology is still needed reading for students of behavioural science.
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