Some Quick Thoughts: The Mind

The mind is a fascinating thing that is little understood and often ignored.

We believe we have mastered it like we've mastered walking, or playing an instrument, or typing, or speech. But it is fundamentally uncontrollable and has a "mind of its own". Har har.

Making the fundamental error of announcing your plans before you implement them can cause your brain to reward you before you've accomplished anything, and therefore leads you to not accomplish those plans at all:

Research conducted by Peter Gollwitzer has shown that individuals feel closer to having achieved their identity goals when their identity-relevant activities (e.g., attending medical school) are noticed by others. On the basis of this work, Gollwitzer and his colleagues hypothesized that even if others notice only our plans for identity-relevant activities, we might also feel closer to having achieved our identity goals. Because we then feel closer to having achieved our identity goals, we may feel less of a need to actually enact those behaviours

I'm finding out first hand how frustrating this can be, at the moment.


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