Delayed Gratification Leads to Success

Last year I blogged about delayed gratification and the Marshmallow Experiment conducted by a Stanford professor (http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2015/01/the-marshmallow-experiment-delayed.html).  The professor selected a group of children who each were given a marshmallow.  He told them that he had to complete a small errand and would return shortly.  If they delayed eating the marshmallow until he returned, they would received a second marshmallow.  However, if they ate the marshmallow right away, they would not.  Follow up studies that he conducted showed that those who waited until he returned and received a second marshmallow completed college at higher rates and earned higher incomes.

I did nor realize that the Stanford professor conducted a second study.  This time, he offered the children a marshmallow with the promise of a second one upon his return.  However, he had control groups as well.  Group 1 was to imagine that the marshmallow was like a cloud:  round, white and puffy.  Group 2 was to imagine how sweet and chewy and soft the marshmallows were.  Group 3 was to focus on another tasty treat:  crunchy, salty pretzels.  Picturing the pretzels produced the longest delay in gratification.  The professor concluded that the most effective way to delay gratification is to focus on another pleasure (unavailable at the time).

Regardless of how you delay gratification, the point is that high-delay children lead to happier, more successful adults.  In this instant gratification society, it is difficult to resist the urge to go for the quick fix.  Learn how to control your impulses.  Remember:  "Good things come to those who wait".

Note:  Read The Undefeated Mind by Dr. Lickerman.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/must-22/?_r=0

Live in Harmony with Your Values

"For what [has] a man profited if he shall gain the whole world but lose his soul?" (Mark 8:36)

Brian Tracy says:  "Any attempt to live on the outside in a manner that contradicts the values you hold on the inside will cause you stress, negativity, unhappiness, pessimism, and even anger and frustration."   You must clarify your values before you set out to achieve your goals.  Think of yourself as a mountaineer setting out to climb a mountain.  First, you must collect your array of tools that you must take with you in order to make the summit.  If you go without these tools, you will not make it very far up the mountain.  Similarly, if you don't identify your values, you will not make it very far in your conquest of your goals.

The Bible says:  "For what [has] a man profited if he shall gain the whole world but lose his soul?" (Mark 8:36)  The happiest people are those living in harmony with their beliefs and values; the unhappiest people are those who live in discord with their beliefs and values.  No amount of pills or alcohol or food can make it all right if you are living a lie.  "Your goals must be congruent with your values and your values must be congruent with your goals." 

"You demonstrate your values in your actions, especially your actions under pressure," explains Brian Tracy.  One of my favourite movies, Leap Year, demonstrates this truth.  Amy Adams plays a woman who is torn between two men, an American and an Irishman.  The former, played by Adam Scott, is a successful cardiologist who lives in a beautiful condo in Boston.  The latter, played by Matthew Goode, is a down on his luck tavern owner from Dublin.  On a trip to Ireland, the American finally proposes to Amy.  She returns to Boston to live in the condo with her fiance.  However, shortly after, the fire alarm goes off and Amy's fiance is scrambling to find his laptop.  He doesn't even make sure that Amy is safe.  The cardiologist's actions under pressure reveal his true values.  Amy has her answer and takes the first flight back to Ireland where she gets a proposal from the Irishman (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1216492/).

Mark 8:36 courtesy https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Mark-8-36/. 

Great Strides, Great Sacrifices

"Every step towards the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering and struggle..." 

(Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Stride Toward Freedom:  The Montgomery Story)

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. knew that if he were to make strides in his cause of Civil Rights, he would have to sacrifice.  His followers knew they would have to sacrifice.  For every gain there is a loss.  When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus in 1955, her stance sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.  Rosa paid a price:  she spent a night in jail; she received so much scorn that she and her husband moved to Detroit about a year later.  But the boycott worked and in 1956, the busses were desegregated. (http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2015/09/rosa-parks-writes-about-her-arrest.html)

David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil and Ezell Blair Jr. knew they would have to sacrifice when they took their seats at a Greensboro lunch counter.  What they ordered was a cup of coffee and a donut; what they received was a peppering of hate by the surrounding crowd.  Their dignity was stretched to the limit.  But the Greensboro Four sparked sit ins in 55 other cities in 13 states.  Because of their stance, lunch counters became integrated across the country. (http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2016/02/the-greensboro-four.html)

James Peck knew that he would have to sacrifice when he joined the Freedom Riders in 1961.  A radical journalist, Peck was one of the white protesters campaigning for equal rights for blacks.  If racist whites treated blacks poorly, they treated whites even worse since they were considered traitors to their race.  At the Birmingham Trailways Bus Station, Peck and his fellow Freedom Riders were surrounded by an angry mob.  A riot broke out, led by the Ku Klux Klan, and Peck was beaten to within an inch of his life, sustaining severed injuries to his head and face.  Peck waited for an hour for an ambulance willing to take him to the all-white Carraway Methodist Hospital where they refused to treat him.  His price for supporting the Civil Rights cause was 53 stitches which he received at Jefferson Hillman Hospital.  In November of 1961, the interstate bussing laws changed allowing blacks and whites to sit together. (http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2016/02/the-freedom-riders.html)

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. paid the price in many ways for his Civil Rights movement.  He spent many nights in jail for his protests.  He paid the ultimate price with his life, gunned down by an assassin in 1968.  "Every step towards the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering and struggle..."

http://www.scoopnest.com/user/JMitchellNews/548866173559775232

The Fosbury Flop: How You Can Win Gold By Doing Things Differently

"Be clear about your goal, but be flexible about the process of attaining it.' 

(Brian Tracy)

American high jumper Dick Fosbury's dream was to win an Olympic medal.  Fosbury had struggled with the belly roll, the accepted technique used by high jumpers at the time.  He didn't like the scissors technique either.   While his results were mediocre, he wasn't prepared to give up on his dream.

One day he decided to shake things up.  The 6 foot 4 inch athlete approached the bar, and then turned his back to it, vaulting over the bar and arching his back, and landing on his neck and shoulders.  While the high jumper touched new heights, his unconventional technique met with much criticism.  The Medford Mail-Tribune ran a photo with the caption:  "Fosbury Flops over Bar".   Another newspaper claimed that Fosbury resembled "a fishing flopping in a boat".  A third called him the "world's laziest jumper".  Even Fosbury's coach told him to use the technique only as Plan B.

However, the Fosbury Flop had been born.  With his new form, Fosbury reached 6 foot 10 inches, and broke the school record.  He went on to win the NCAA championship.  In 1968, he wasn't the favourite heading into the Olympic Games in Mexico City; in fact, he was the last to be picked for the team.  On game day, Fosbury used his flop and vaulted over the bar at 7.35 feet, earning him an Olympic record and a place at the top of the podium.  (http://www.hindustantimes.com/other-sports/olympic-legends-fosbury-the-man-who-changed-high-jump/story-x3cSJiS2Dcd11wBoY2uR6K.html)

Dick Fosbury never gave up on his dream.  He simply tweaked the process.  Are you trying to achieve a goal?  Try coming at it from another angle.  You, too, might invent a Fosbury Flop.

Dick Fosbury wins gold in Mexico City Olympics circa 1968 courtesy https://thesportsmarketingplaybook.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/dick-fosbury.jpg.

Momentum: Taking Action Leaves Procrastination in the Dust

"Use momentum to overcome procrastination.  Taking action leaves procrastination in the dust." 

http://sites.psu.edu/mattbeckersblog/posts/

Brian Tracy says that some people never reach their goals because they take a vacation to "Some Day I'll".  They have good intentions, but they never launch.  If that is you, vote yourself off of the island and push the start button.  "Start moving and keep moving at a steady rate."

"Momentum is the principle that the linear momentum of a system has constant magnitude and direction if the system is subject to no external force." (Law of Physics)  For instance, if you let a snowball roll down the hill, it gathers momentum and size as it goes; however, if someone stops the snowball on the way down, it loses momentum.  "We don't always need to launch into action like a rocket, but we do need to start moving so we can build some momentum." (http://advancedlifeskills.com/blog/the-power-of-momentum-2/)

I think about when I put together a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle.  At first, I struggle to assemble all of the flat sided pieces to construct the frame.  It's slow going work.  I am tempted to gather up the pieces and put them back in the box.  Then I concentrate on a corner.  It's still tedious work.  However, as I find more and more pieces, the puzzle becomes easier to figure out.  The work starts to move faster and more easily.  There's no turning back.  Before I know it, I've completed the puzzle.

Look at the list of goals you have written for 2017.  Have you launched your goal?  If so, are you working on your goal daily?  Or have you stopped halfway down the hill?  Are you looking at the edges of a puzzle?  "Use momentum to overcome procrastination.  Taking action leaves procrastination in the dust.  If you do something every day that moves you towards your goals, you'll be too busy to think about making excuses."

Lunch Atop a Skyscraper jigsaw puzzle courtesy 

http://www.puzzleando.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=4290.

Curiosity Won't Kill You But It Will Make You Smarter

"I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on.  Life was meant to be lived.  Curiosity must be kept alive.  One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life." (Eleanor Roosevelt)

Dr. Matthew Gruber conducted a University of California in which he posed a series of trivia questions to his test cases.  Each question was followed by a 14 second delay and then he showed the test cases a neutral, unrelated picture of a face.  Later he gave each test case a recognition test of the trivia as well as the faces.  During the study, the test cases' brains were scanned.  The results revealed that:

1.  For those test cases who were highly curious, they retained more trivia and showed more face recognition.

2.  When their curiosity was stimulated, their brain circuits showed increased activity related to the reward area of the brain. The study showed that intrinsic motivation recruits the same areas of the brain as extrinsic motivation.

3.  Curiosity motivated learning increased activity in the hippocampus, the small part of the brain that looks like a seahorse (the French word is "hippocampe").  The interaction between the brain's rewards system and the hippocampus puts the brain in an alert state.

Dr. Gruber concluded:  "Curiosity may put the brain in a state that allows it to learn and retain any kind of information like a vortex that sucks in what you are motivated to learn and also everything around it." (http://theantimedia.org/curiosity-fix-enhancing-memory-intellect/)

A healthy curiosity sets the stage for lifelong learning and learning can bring us closer to our goals. Eleanor Roosevelt was a champion of learning.  While many First Ladies were content to sit back and let their husbands take centre stage, Eleanor Roosevelt was heavily involved in political life.  She held her own press conferences.  A champion of literacy, for almost three decades she contributed to a daily (except Sundays) newspaper column called "My Day" on weighty issues like Prohibition, World War II and race relations.  She worked tirelessly for various charities.  Eleanor explained: 

"I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on.  Life was meant to be lived.  Curiosity must be kept alive.  One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life." (http://www.ineedmotivation.com/blog/2008/04/22-great-quotes-on-curiosity/)

One of Eleanor Roosevelt's goals was to draft a Charter on Human Rights, a goal which she met in 1948 when she served as the United States Delegate to the United Nations.

Note:  Read "Ten Ways to Foster A Culture of Creativity in Your Learning Organization" at http://etale.org/main/2015/06/22/10-ways-to-foster-a-culture-of-curiosity-in-your-learning-organization/.

http://izquotes.com/quote/262762

What Gets Measured Gets Done

"What gets measured gets done." (Peter Drucker)

If you want to learn how to learn how to measure your success on the way to achieving your goals, visit http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2015/01/measure-your-success.html.  One strategy you can use to measure your success is to join an online group.  Such a group may keep you accountable for the steps you have promised to take to achieve your goals.

43 Things (https://43things.com/until_the_ny.php) offers dozens of goal setting suggestions with a space to write your own personal goals ex. In 2017, I want to _____________.  The site offers a small reward each time you reach a milestone ex. if you achieve 15 goals, you have your name mentioned in the credits.

Another site is StickK (https://www.stickk.com/tour).  StickK is a free goal setting platform which presents you with the statement I commit to _________ (enter goal here).  You are asked to sign a commitment contract with yourself.  If you wish, you can receive notification e-mails to help you stick to your goals.  Created by a Yale Economics professor, this website raises the ante by saying that if you don't reach your goal, you pay so much money to a charity.

Various software is available to help you set and commit to your goals.  Goals on Track (http://www.goalsontrack.com/) offers a seven step template, also available as an app, to lead you to your goals:

• Set Goals
• Take Action
• Visualize
• Track Time
• Success Habits
• Goal Journal
• Review & Restart

http://quoteaddicts.com/topic/measuring-success/