You Can Do It! You Change More than You Think [VIDEOS]

Share with your friend!

With time you can do anything you want. Even if you do not believe in it.

Here’s how.

When you say you can’t

When you don’t believe you can do something, then most likely you will not even try. But when you try half-heartedly, then you won’t reach into all of your reserves to give it your all.

You will see every failure as proof that you can’t do it. The failures will reinforce your beliefs, and you will move further away from the goal.

Also, check out the six rules of success from Arnold Schwarzenegger that help you fulfill your dreams.

If you think you can do it, or you think you can’t do it, You are right ~ Henry Ford

When you say you can

If you think you can do it, then you will put more effort into your actions. You will also experiment and keep at it for a longer time. When you fail, you will take the failure as just another step in the process.

The optimism and repetitions will train your brain and body. You will get better with each attempt, each failure.

Then suddenly you can do it.

Of course, there are simpler things. Let’s take Benji jumping. There’s practically no skill involved. It’s only your decision to do it or not. The same goes for asking for help. Talking to that gorgeous crush, you have been having.

Just say, “yes!”

When you don’t believe, just grind

Let’s assume you have a dream. It’s not a goal because you don’t really believe that you can achieve it.

You just daydream.

If you want it. Start taking small steps. The steps can be as small as you like. If you keep at it you will get there.

Just grind your way to your goal.

There are two important aspects at play here.

First, use an input goal. Set a goal, what and how much you will do every day to move towards your dream. And then increase the effort by a ridiculous amount every day or week.

Second, you don’t worry about when you get there. Just keep grinding.

If you can follow these two steps, then there’s almost nothing you could not achieve given enough time. Behind every overnight success, there’s 10 years of grinding.

All overnight success takes about 10 years. ~ Jeff Bezos

Daniel Gilbert: Change is possible!

Here is a short TED video from Daniel Gilbert. It explains how we think about the change in ourselves. We look into the past and see that change happens, but looking into the future, we think about ourselves as finished products.

The key takeaway from this video is that we change a lot more than we think. And… If change is possible, then I would suggest that we can steer it in a direction we like!

Maybe we are not able to steer it in a completely predictable way, but we can make decisions that move us in the direction we prefer. So in light of this research:

Make a decision who you want to be, and start steering!

Do something to improve yourself every day, and you will change a lot more than you think. Small, consistent steps five, you exponential results over longer periods of time.

“Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.” Daniel Gilbert shares research on a phenomenon he calls the “end of history illusion,” where we somehow imagine that the person we are right now is the person we’ll be for the rest of time.

Daniel Gilbert is a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He is a social psychologist known for his research on affective forecasting, with a special emphasis on cognitive biases such as the impact bias.

He is the author of the international bestseller Stumbling on Happiness, which won the 2007 Royal Society Prizes for Science Books.

Bringing to life scientific research in psychology, cognitive neuroscience, philosophy, and behavioral economics, Stumbling on Happiness reveals what scientists have discovered about the uniquely human ability to imagine the future, and about our capacity to predict how much we will like it when we get there.

People want to be happy, and all the other things they want are typically meant to be a means to that end. ~ Daniel Gilbert

Steven Pinker’s book The Blank Slate argues that all humans are born with some innate traits. Here, Pinker talks about his thesis and why some people found it incredibly upsetting.

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker

In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker, one of the world’s leading experts on language and the mind, explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings.

With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits – a doctrine held by many intellectuals during the past century – denies our common humanity and our individual preferences. This view replaces objective analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans and distorts our understanding of politics, violence, parenting, and the arts.

Injecting calm and rationality into debates that are notorious for ax-grinding and mud-slinging, Pinker shows the importance of an honest acknowledgment of human nature based on science and common sense.

______________________

Image credit: Portrait of man showing emotions VisualHunt
Image credit: Composite image depicting Henry Ford and Ed ‘Spider’ Huff driving Ford ‘Sweepstakes’ Racer, 1901 by The Henry Ford.
Image: Steven Pinker 2005 by Rebecca Goldstein

Share with your friend!