Читать книгу Trust the Grind - Jeremy Bhandari - Страница 10

Chipper Jones finished his MLB career with 2,726 hits, 468 home runs, a .303 batting average, and an on-base percentage of .401. Only three other players in the history of the sport have assembled those numbers: Babe Ruth, Mel Ott, and Stan Musial.

When you think about Chipper Jones, appreciate the outlandish numbers, but try to zone in on the approach he has when it comes to setting goals. Throughout his life, he was never afraid to set colossal objectives. Even if they seemed unattainable to most and hadn’t been accomplished in over a hundred years, Jones pursued his goals with persistence. By focusing on the immediate, on a game-to-game basis, Jones was able to do things on the diamond that we simply have never seen.

So be like Chipper. Set goals as high as humanly possible. Wake up each day with an approach. Block out any negative energy that might be in your way. Don’t back down from the best. Appreciate those who are there to support you on your journey, and pass along what you have learned to the next ones in line.

If you want to be successful in life, saying your goals out loud or writing them down will automatically give you a better chance of achieving them.

Jack Canfield (author, motivational speaker, corporate trainer, and entrepreneur) dedicated an entire blog to the power of sharing your goals with others. Canfield references studies that investigated people attempting to shed a few pounds. The research revealed that the individuals who publicly mentioned their weight loss goals lost more weight than those who kept their aspirations to themselves.

So be like Chipper, and speak those ambitions into existence. A study conducted by Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences concluded that basketball players who said motivational affirmations to themselves in the middle of games performed better than those who stayed silent. Gary Lupyan, researcher from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, asked individuals to rummage through a bunch of photos and look for an assigned one. According to the New York Times, “if they said the name or whatever object [was on the photo] out loud while looking, they tended to find the image faster.” When talking to ourselves, we are internally improving our focus, which leads to better decision making, which will allow us to reach our goals at a faster rate.

This principle stands true with anything in life. The more we say out loud whatever it is we want, the better our chances become of achieving the said task.

You see, saying your goals out loud provides you with three things you otherwise would not have had if you kept them to yourself. Number one, the simple act of telling a friend, family member, or, in Chipper’s case, a reporter, will give you more confidence. Second, you automatically become more accountable. People who you told will most likely follow up with you on the goal you promised to achieve, which, in turn, will cause you to internally work harder toward it. Third, you will have a better understanding of what you wish to conquer. Sometimes, we think we want something but are unsure exactly what that something entails. Often, people wish for more money, a nicer car, the ability to take a vacation, a better job, etc. By describing out loud the Lamborghini we want to drive, the managerial job we strive for, or even the beaches in Punta Cana, we signal to our brain exactly what we wish for our reality to look like.

Mark Murphy, bestselling author and founder and CEO of the research and consulting firm Leadership IQ, conducted a study of 4,690 men and women. In his findings, Murphy concluded that fewer than 20 percent of the participants said their goals were “always” written down vividly. People who vividly wrote down their goals, or were able to picture them with ease, were reported to be 1.2 to 1.4 times more likely to fulfill their intention.

In another study, Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at the Dominican University in California, divided 267 men and women into two groups. One group consisting of individuals who wrote down their goals, and the other group was made up of those who did not. No shocker here—those who scribbled down their objectives were 42 percent more likely to achieve them.

Scientifically speaking, all of our brains have a left and right hemisphere. When you ponder something that you desire, you turn on the right hemisphere. However, when you think about this desire and scribble it down, you also activate your left hemisphere—the logic-based side of your brain. Simply writing down your goals activates a logical part of your brain that otherwise would not have been tapped into had you only thought about those goals.

New York Times science writer John Tierney and psychologist Roy F. Baumeister researched the success rate of when our unconscious mind propels our conscious mind to make an agenda or set a future intention.

Whether it is a to-do list or a catalog of goals and aspirations, if we physically draw up a course of action, we will naturally get an inkling of achievement, even if the goal or task has not been met. In Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, Tierney and Baumeister note that our brains are naturally wired to continuously berate our conscious thoughts with any unmet endeavors that we set for ourselves. This idea is known as the Zeigarnik effect, which is, by GoodTherapy’s definition, a psychological phenomenon describing a tendency to remember interrupted or incomplete tasks or events more easily than tasks that have been completed. However, that definition was created in the 1920s. Further research on the Zeigarnik effect by Tierney and Baumeister inferred that our unconscious mind cannot develop “a plan” on its own, which is why it begs our conscious mind to do so. Once we set up a future opportunity and pair it with a fixed deadline, we will instinctively get a sense of attainment.

Even if we have yet to reach our objectives, scribbling them down will force our brains to focus on them until they are reached. I am going to say this again: please write down the goals and tasks you want to achieve as clearly as possible.

Jot them down, share them with others, and constantly chat with yourself about whatever it is you yearn for. Doing one or all three of these methods is scientifically proven to improve your chances, so give it a try.

Paramount Points

•Set all types of goals (ex. daily goals, short-term goals, and long-term goals). Creating goals gives you a reason to get up every day and seek greatness.

•Have the valor to speak your goals out loud, no matter how superlative they appear.

•Writing down your goals and aspirations will help you stay focused and internally put you in a good position to be successful.

•NEVER shy away from those who are willing to help you while you are on your mission. Be extremely cognizant if another individual chooses to take time out of their own life to assist you.

•Wake up each day and remind yourself of your goals. Writing them down has proven to help, so take ten seconds and jot down exactly what you want. Be precise and include every single detail.