Whenever
I talk to people about how they set goals for themselves, the first barriers
they cite to progress are often their own mental roadblocks. They start off too
optimistic, or too pessimistic. They put themselves down, or they forget to
plan out the next steps in their head. Mostly, they forget to adequately
prepare their mind for taking action.
There
are various ways for tackling mental blocks and drains on motivation, but from
my experience there are a few simple, straightforward tools that can help just
about anyone overcome those mental blocks, if implemented properly. The
following was inspired by Caroline Webb’s recent book ‘How to Have a Good Day’.
Here are the
three mental tools that you can use to help destroy mental roadblocks and
tackle your top priorities in less time:
1. Create mental
contrasts
James
Stockdale was a US prisoner of war in Vietnam for 7 years. During that time, he
described the fact that prisoners who were overly optimistic about their
chances or too pessimistic were less likely to survive than those who were able
to balance their focus on the end goal while having a deeper appreciation of
the challenges they would face.
As
he puts it, “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the
end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most
brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” This philosophy
of duality has come to be called the Stockdale Paradox.
To
this end, consider the value of creating mental contrasts in your daily life.
Sure, you likely won’t be facing hardships like those faced by James Stockdale,
but you may very well find opportunities to balance both a positive outlook on
future goals with a realistic understanding of the challenges you will face.
“The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.” – Moliere
One
way of making sure you spend enough time focusing on strategic tasks which
support your long term objectives is to balance positive thinking with
negative. This means thinking about what is likely to get in the way of you
achieving your goals so that you can address those issues head on without being
blindsided by them.
This
technique is called mental contrasting, and it requires holding both a positive
outlook for the future of a task or activity while simultaneously looking
holistically at the challenges and potential obstacles that stand in your way
and will prevent you from reaching your goals.
You
must balance faith that you will reach your goals in the end with the facts of
the current (and often brutal) reality of the challenges you will face on a
daily basis. Realistic idealism of this kind is important to drive action and
help people achieve their goals. What’s important is that people simultaneously
work to envision the goals they are striving for and the obstacles they are
facing. The key is to plan for both so that you can weather any storm.
2. Prime your
actions with the right thoughts and stimuli
Have
you ever listened to a song that put you in a good mood which carried on
through the day? Perhaps it made you feel more productive, more energetic, more
likely to start a conversation with your colleague or that stranger down the
hall.
What
you associate with productivity and success can often be
manipulated. Once one small part of your brain is activated
in a positive way, you may be able to drive productive thoughts and activities
throughout the day. This is often referred to by scientists as the spreading
activation effect.
One
way to drive your ability to tackle priorities is to prime your actions with
the right thoughts and external stimuli. Consider the way your brain associates
certain feelings with specific thoughts, images, ideas, etc. If you experience
one positive emotion or sensation based on a certain stimuli (e.g. sitting in
your favorite seat at your favorite coffee shop), you will subconsciously be
more productive and more energised to take action and do more efficient work.
Unfortunately,
this won’t happen every single time, but the more frequently you make these
connections, the more likely it will be that these strong bonds are created.
Neuroscientists say that “neurons that fire together, wire together”. Take this
to heart as you consider which stimuli to expose yourself to as you consider
the best way to stay motivated and focus on your objectives.
“The biggest obstacle to wealth is fear. People are afraid to think big,
but if you think small, you’ll only achieve small things.” – T. Harv
Eker
3. Conduct a
mind’s eye rehearsal
Think
about the last time you got ready to do something that was stressful or
difficult. Perhaps it was preparing for a presentation or a speech or maybe you
were psyching yourself up for a big race or a competition.
Research
suggests that our brains activate in much the same way when we visualise
something happening as when we experience it for real. If we visualise a speech
going horribly wrong, or we envision ourselves tripping up at the starting
block, chances are we won’t perform to our highest level when the time comes.
Practice
makes perfect, and the more you visualise an activity in the way you would like to accomplish that
activity,
the more likely it will be that you can make that thing happen. Interestingly,
the same neural pathways that are created when we repeat activities over and
over again in the physical world are also created when we visualise those
activities.
So,
next time you want to get something done, consider rehearsing in your minds eye
exactly what you want to get done, including every detail of the activity, and
exactly what you want it to feel like when you accomplish your goal
successfully.
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