#dailynl

We all have so many plans and aspirations. So much to do, so little time, we sigh. But what if I told you, you could take the first step to achieve your dreams with 3, simple, actionable steps? Read on to know more!

Do not fantasize too much

Don’t go wild with your fantasies. Being optimistic and being realistic at the same time, is a fine balance you must maintain. While being negative is likely to make you not try at all, constantly visualizing your dreams come true sends the wrong signal to the emotional side of your brain. The emotional side of your brain cannot distinguish between the high of actually achieving something and the high you get by simply visualizing all your dreams come true; so if you keep imagining that all your dreams have come true, your brain tends to think that all your desires have already been achieved and this makes you less motivated.

As author Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation Gabrielle Oettingin says in her book, says, “Dreaming about a positive future seemed to protect against sadness in the short term but promote it over the long term. It coincided with a short-term hit of pleasure that ultimately wore off and predicted increased depression.”

Preempt your obstacles

Author Gabrielle Oetting in calls this ‘mental contrasting’. Mental contrasting is actually sitting down and thinking about every single thing that can go wrong and having a plan of action for each contingency. Think through how to overcome these obstacles, and don’t concentrate on just the negatives. Have a plan in action for all the obstacles you may face.

There could be 2 outcomes out of mental contrasting, you could feel prepared and motivated or you could feel utterly disheartened. But if you feel disheartened, it probably means your goal was not realistic in the first place, so mental contrasting helps you decide which of your goals are actually do-able.

As author Ryan Holiday explain, “…we look to envision what could go wrong, what will go wrong, in advance, before we start. Far too many ambitious undertakings fail for preventable reasons. Far too many people don’t have a backup plan because they refuse to consider something might not go exactly as they wish.”

 Don’t tell yourself, instead, ask yourself a question

Do not declare to yourself that you can do something. Instead, frame it as a question. So, instead of thinking, “I will be great”, your thought should be, “Can I be great?” Remember Bob the builder? The cartoon? Before a project he used to ask the children, ‘Can we build this?’ Well, author Dan Pink in his book says we should approach our dreams with the Bob-the-builder style questioning. But our tip is to not stop there, go a step further and ask yourself, ‘How?’ And then plan it out.

In his book To Sell is Human, author Dan Pink says,“Those who approached a task with Bob-the-Builder style questioning self-talk outperformed those who employed the more conventional juice-myself-up declarative self-talk.”

This is a 3 step process to get you started! Do try it out and let us know if it works.

I hate her. I really do! She was my college mate and it wasn’t like I was particularly fond of her in college, I mean she had her own set of friends and I had mine. But we were the only two in the whole college to crack the written test and we both made it through the subsequent rounds as well. As I said, I didn’t really know her too well in college, but I kind of liked the fact that I’d have a known face in office, and wouldn’t be all alone. But she is just such a, such a, such a kiss ass!

I mean, the way she nods her curly, little head like a doll and giggles at every stupid joke our boss makes! It gets on my nerves! And my boss totally loves it! They have this whole bond – they eat lunch together and even take their coffee breaks together. I feel so left out!

I had this whole plan of confronting my boss today. I wanted to barge into her cubicle, rest my palms on her desk and say, “Why do you pick her over me?” And I am not unjustified. I am just as smart as her, and I do an equally good job. But I didn’t go and confront my boss because I sort of panicked in the last minute. But I guess, it worked out for the best. Because I decided to read up on this – not being the boss’ favourite, and I was approaching it all wrong!

Firstly, it is okay if this is a big deal to you. Karen Dillon, author of HBR Guide to Office Politics, agrees that it is painful and deflating when your “star isn’t shining the way you thought it was.”  She further adds that it affects your psychic and drains you of your emotional energy. Susan Heathfield, writer at about.com says that the relationship you share with your boss at work is the most important one, and is a relationship you should work on.

We combined what Susan Heathfield and Karen Dillon had to say about how to react if you’re not the boss’ favourite and came up with this actionable list:

Have a sounding board: A person who is in no way related to your work, so you definitely don’t get to choose a colleague, however tempting that might be! It has to be a rational person, who will tell you if you feeling the way you are is justified, or someone who will snap you back to reality.

Do not make the boss’ favourite your punching bag: It is not his/her fault that they are the favourite. And of course he/she enjoys the adulation, wouldn’t you if you were in his/her place? Instead of misdirecting all your anger, what you could do is:

Emulate the behaviour of the boss’ favourite: Don’t mimic him/her, but try and inculcate the good qualities of the boss’ favourite. Make a note of how he/she starts a conversation and writes emails, and if being the boss’ favourite is really that important you, try and do things  in a similar way.

Establish a relationship: Be outgoing and seek the boss and the favourite out and engage them in conversation. Maybe you can’t replace the favourite, but you could become part of the gang!

Talk it out: Well, don’t go and accuse your boss of having a favourite. But instead, ask for advice and feedback. Most importantly, be earnest when you ask your boss where you can improve and really work on those areas. 

Find a place where you are appreciated: If things are supremely unfair and you don’t see any room for growth in the company, it’s time you start looking for a new job.

The point of this article is this, you think you exert more control in a situation than you actually do. Don’t agree? Let me explain.

You eat a delicious orange, you tend to think that you are exceptionally skilled at picking oranges, while in reality, you had no control and you were just lucky to have got a delicious, juicy orange.

Another example could be winning the lottery. Winning the lottery is the most random thing, but if you win, you tend to think that it is because you somehow knew which token to pick!  

In fact, in one study conducted by Pronin et all (2006), people were shown clips of basketball players trying to shoot a hoop. The observers were asked to either will the players to make the shoot or not make the shoot. At the end of the study, most participants thought or believed that what they willed the player to do actually had an influence on whether the player shot or not! This is how deluded we are about the amount of control we think we exert.

And we’ve all done it! We press the elevator button multiple times, just to make it come ‘faster’, though we just know that it has no control over the speed of the elevator arriving.(Keeping the illusion of control under control) This is our illusion (delusion) of control! Or as demonstrated by Ellen Langer’s research, players in a casino throw the dice harder when they want higher numbers and softer when they want lower numbers.

There are certain advantages to this illusion of control. For instance, if you are diagnosed with a disease, you may want to take control or responsibility for the situation and change your diet, exercise regularly and even take your medication properly. Similarly, we think that by rehearsing our opening statements we can make a good impression on the person interviewing us and hence, we polish our skills and put our best foot forward in an interview.

However, the illusion of control has negative aspects as well.

It may lead us to believe that we are smarter or more capable than we actually are. This is called the illusory superiority effect. It could also lead to optimism bias, which is when people believe they are more immune to bad things happening to them, than others.

Of course, this all boils down to our innate need to control. This need is stronger in some, and a little less pronounced in others. It could be at another extreme, where you do not give yourself credit for anything (as happens in imposter syndrome and depressed people).

So the next time you get lucky (pun unintended!) take it down a notch, it was probably just that – luck. There are things out there that you can’t control, despite the fact that you feel you are in control.

I was once asked if I liked what I wrote. I said I have different phases, I like my writing in some phases and don’t like my writing in some phases. Huh? Let me explain.

I’m working on this children’s book, a series of short stories for children. In the beginning, as I was writing the first few stories, I was mentally rehearsing my Booker Award Speech, and I was all like, “Wow, this is going to be SO great!” I’d given myself a deadline of September, I actually stuck to my deadline and was almost done with my book by September, but as I wrote that last story, I felt like I’d wasted so much time and energy on something so DUMB! I hated every word and almost didn’t send it out to any editors, I panicked at the end. I bet you’ve felt the same way about something.

In psychology, we call this the ‘Sobering effect’

We tend to be optimistic in the beginning, but with time, we become pessimistic about the results of a project. This is what was found in research conducted by Kate Sweeny and Zlatan Krizan (2013), published by American Psychology Association.

Sweeny and Krizan (2012) believe it is true in the case of any kind of results.  For instance,students tend to think their marks will be better a week before their grades are posted, than 20 minutes before they are put up. Similarly, patients tend to think their test results will be positive a few weeks prior to the report coming out but tend to think negatively while waiting at the counter, just before the results are handed over to them.

Also, the more importance and significance we attach to the event, the stronger the sobering effect. So when something really matters to us, we become that much more pessimistic! 

Why do we do this?

According to Sweeny and Krizan there are 4 main reasons,

We want to exert control on our emotions. This perhaps boils down to our innate need to control, including our need to control how we feel. So, if you want an A grade, but expect a C, but then end up getting an A anyway, you feel happier than when you get an A when you expect an A. Get it?

We want the outcome to be better than our expectations. Since we can seldom control the outcome, we tend to control our expectations instead.

Our thinking transforms from abstract in the beginning, which tends to be optimistic and concrete later on, which tends to be pessimistic.

Also, we feel accountable for our actions, as the result approaches, so we worry that we over-estimate our abilities. This can be related to the importance we attach to others’ perception of us.

So that’s what the Sobering effect is! The next time you are overcome with negative thoughts and pessimism, know that it is just your mind playing games on you. Your mind is just trying to prepare you for the worst and you are not making a realistic evaluation of the situation.

You want to motivate your child to do well in his/her 12th standard exams. How do you think you should do it? Should you tell your child how difficult life will be without a good education, or how great things can be with a good education? Many parents (and bosses and teachers and people in general), tend to take the first approach, but here is research that says the first method might actually be more effective.

Did you just read that paragraph again to check what the first approach was? (Yup, I can tell! Haha!) Did you think scaring people is more effective than trying to allure them? Well, you’re not alone. After all that is what governments across the world are doing, to curb smoking. They put scary images and clips of cancer on cigarette boxes and at the start of movies, to scare people that smoking is really bad for them. But, how well has that worked? On the other hand, what if the government spoke about how your teeth would be whiter, your breath would smell better and you’d be more fertile if you didn’t smoke?

While initial research suggested that disturbing images and news were more effective, there is also research that points to the contrary.  A meta-analytic review by Daniel J. O’Keefe & Jakob D. Jensen (2008)shows that there were positive effects of positive messages. For instance, we are more likely to wear sunscreen if you tell us that it will give us spotless skin than if you tell us that it will cause sunburn.

The logic behind these findings is that we don’t like to be morally policed or bullied into doing something, even if it is good for us. Or it is simply that we like thinking about pleasant things than preparing for doomsday.

This finding can have other real life implications. For instance, according to research conducted by Kahneman and Tversky, popularly known as the Kahneman and Tversky experiment, doctors who want to ‘sell’ a particular form of treatment are better off telling their patients the survival rate, than the death rate. So if the survival rate is 40%, you are better off saying 40 people will survive than 60 people will die.

This seems to be in conflict with the ‘common sense’, marketing approach that you must tell people what they are losing out on if they aren’t buying your product. But hey, why does it have to be an either or approach? The simple solution offered by author of Roger Dooley, ‘Brainfluence: 100 Ways to Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing, is to present the loss in negative and the gain in positive. So, you can say this many phones break if dropped, but this many phones are saved by our phone covers. Get it?

I don’t understand how some people don’t think birthdays are a big deal! What is wrong in earmarking a day, just to celebrate the fact that you were born? It requires no achievement, no sacrifice, all we are talking about is reveling in the fact that you came into the World, and that is enough reason to celebrate!

So we all go out of our ways to make our partners’ and friend’s birthdays special. At times, we extend the same courtesy to our parents, especially for milestone birthdays like 50 and 60. But here we are talking of a guy who throws birthday parties for street children of Delhi, and many have taken a cue from him and do the same in cities like Pune and Bengaluru.

Meet Avijit Bajpai, a 31-year-old marketing professional. It all started one day when a few kids approached him at a signal to ask for money.

He noticed that a few of the children had discarded birthday party accessories with them. Avijit couldn’t get this image, and the thought that so many children aren’t even aware of their birthdays, out of his head.

Image Source: Linked

So he decided to tweet about it, and to his pleasant surprise, there were many people out there who came forward and supported him. And then, just like that, they arranged a birthday party at Connaught place. About 15-20 of them got together, each pitched around Rs. 600 and yeah, they had a party and have had one every Wednesday since then, organized by different groups of people, of course.

And when we say birthday party, they go the whole nine yards – with cakes, birthday caps, chocolates, activities and birthday gifts. Once a birthday gift they were asked for was  a week worth of ration, while another time, it was the school fees for a kid’s younger sister.

Avijit, who was taken by surprise by the traction of this movement and noting the fact most of the volunteers are working professionals, is seeking to collaborate with NGOs and other organizations to keep the momentum going.

To Avijit and the whole team – we think you’re doing a great job and wish you the very best!

Story Source: The Better India

Dear Dad,

Thank you.

For lifting me in your strong wide arms and enveloping me in the tightest hug possible. It gave that 1-year-old me the confidence, that there will always be one man I can unhesitatingly take refuge in.

For practising your photography skills on me. You captured beautiful childhood memories of mine in that camera of yours, which the 2-year-old me will grow up to cherish for a lifetime.

For narrating mythological stories and reciting the prayers from the religious scriptures. The 3 year old me was enamoured by the concept of spirituality and God, thanks to your wise words.

For buying me my enormous collection of board games and encouraging me to play with them. When you lost on purpose, it taught that 4-year-old me the feeling of competitiveness. When you won on purpose, it taught me sportsmanship.

For dropping me off to school and letting go of my tightly held hand. Your smile and cheerful words taught the 5 year old teary eyed me, to walk ahead towards new beginnings without wavering.

For making me listen to evergreen songs of talented artists like Kishore Kumar, RD Burman, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and renowned bands like Modern Talking, ABBA, Boney M and many more. The 6-year-old me learnt the art of culminating a good taste in music from you.

For helping me complete my elaborate school projects. Your tireless efforts and creative ideas taught that 7 year old me to think outside the box.

For taking me outdoors to the beach, garden, mountains and even the desert. The 8 year old me learnt to love, respect and cherish Mother Nature.

For uplifting my spirits in spite of my poor marks in Mathematics. You conquered my hatred for Maths with your love for it. It taught the 9 year old me to face my fears.

For sponsoring the education of numerous children anonymously and helping the unprivileged whenever possible. The 10 year old me realised the value of charity and the importance of actions over mere words.

For urging me to pursue my hobbies be it writing, art or dance with at most passion and vigour. It taught the 11 year old me to be multifaceted.

For being such a wonderful welcoming host to my friends of different genders, religions and even nationalities. The 12 year old me observed the significance of acceptance of people across boundaries.

For being critical and careful with your praises towards my high grades and other successes. It helped the 13 year old me to stay grounded and humble.

For cracking all your never ending series of poor jokes, puns and situational humour. The 14 year old me inculcated a good sense of humour thanks to her Daddy Cool!

For always giving me a little extra pocket money than what I ask for, yet teaching me the importance of using it wisely. An introduction to financial management and generosity were two topics the 15 year old me learnt at a steady pace.

For setting the clocks in the house at least fast minutes late. The 16 year old disorganised me, learnt her lesson in punctuality in this way.

For rolling your eyes and increasing the volume of your voice as the only forms of punishment to reprimand me. The 17 year old me learnt to be disciplined and obedient, but most importantly she learnt nonviolence.

For encouraging me to commute on my own be it walking, using a cab or auto. The 18 year old me realised that when she leaves for college, you won’t be there to drop her off to college unlike school.

For motivating me to choose my own stream of education, to walk in the opposite direction of the crowd if need be. It gave the 19 year old me the freedom of making her own choices and taking responsibility for them.

For nagging me to read the newspaper and to brush up on my current affairs. The 20 year old me knows the importance of your words but still prefers to hear the same news narrated to her in detail by YOU.  

For holding my hand while crossing the road, in spite of my adulthood. It reminds me that I will always be My Daddy’s Little Princess.

For asking me to teach you few tricks on using the social media and other gadgets. It taught me that there is no end to learning, be it from someone older or younger than you.

There is no end to the values, skills and knowledge you have consciously or subconsciously taught me. And there will be no end. A handsome, tall man walked into my life when I could barely crawl and he will be there no matter what. His presence and aura need not be always be seen, but will always be felt.

Yes Papa that is the significance you have in my life.

And no amount of gratitude or thanks can be a suitable form of payment for all what you have done, are doing and will continue to do for me.

Behind every great daughter or son, is truly an amazing father.

So, thank you.

Love,

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could foresee or control your mood? We present you with 3 hacks to predict and understand the moods of others. We are positive that you will be impressed.

  Singing in the rain? Yeah, not so much.  

Research points that the sunnier and more pleasant a day is, the more pleasant your mood will be. It’s not really that hard to believe, you wake up in the morning, open the blinders and the beautiful Sun is shining down on you. The trees look greener and the sky looks bluer. You tend to think that nothing will go wrong and hence, your mood is manipulated.

Research by the APA quotes an example of how 122 students were approached about ideas for how to conduct an examination, on either sunny days or days with gloomy weather. The results were that students approached on days with pleasant weather were more easily persuaded by weak arguments.

 Money on your mind? It could bum you out.

When you think about money, your mind tends to gravitate towards the thought of how less of it you have. How you need so much more, and you don’t know where to get it from. Just the thought of money makes you depressed and the thought of compromising on your values for a bit of extra cash will cross your mind – and you will consider it. We have research that says so!

Research published in marketwatch.com reveals that, just the sound and sight of money related words and images of money increases your chances of committing petty theft.

 Go green, literally

We’ve previously spoken about how looking at nature or even pictures of nature can have a calming effect on your mind. But here we are talking about the fascinating psychology behind the effect of different colours on minds. While the effects of the colours red and blue are fairly well documented, here is a lesser known fact about the colour green – it boosts creativity!

According to research published in Sage Journals,  participants who were shown glimpses of the colour green, even briefly, outdid the participants who were shown other colours when it came to creative tasks.