Motivational Monday: To Be Successful Be A Realistic Optimist

There are many motivational speakers and self-help books out there with a surprisingly simple message: believe that success will come easily to you, and it will.

There is one small problem in this argument, it is utterly false.

Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to stop anyone from continuing to perpetuate this myth.

In fact, not only is visualising “effortless success” unhelpful, it is disastrous.

Only give this good advice if you are trying to sabotage the recipient.

It is a recipe for failure.

But how can this be? Isn’t optimism a good thing? Yes it is. Optimism and the confidence it creates are essential for creating and sustaining the motivation you need to reach your goals. Albert Bandura, one of the founding fathers of scientific psychology, discovered decades ago that perhaps the best predictor of an individual’s success is whether or not they believe they will succeed. Thousands and thousands of experiments later, he has yet to be proven wrong.

But there is an important caveat: to be successful, you need to understand the vital difference between believing you will succeed, and believing you will succeed easily. Put another way, it’s the difference between being a realistic optimist and an unrealistic optimist.

Realistic optimists (the kind Bandura was talking about) believe they will succeed, but also believe they have to make success happen — through things like effort, careful planning, persistence, and choosing the right strategies. They recognise the need for giving serious thought to how they will deal with obstacles. This preparation only increases their confidence in their own ability to get things done.

Unrealistic optimists, on the other hand, believe that success will happen to them — that the universe will reward them for all their positive thinking, or that somehow they will be transformed overnight into the kind of person for whom obstacles cease to exist.

One of the clearest illustrations of the dangers of unrealistic optimism comes from a study of weight loss. Psychologist Gabriele Oettingen asked a group of obese women who had enrolled in a weight-loss program how likely they felt they were to reach their goals. She found that those women who were confident that they would succeed lost 26 pounds more than self-doubters, as expected.

But Oettingen also asked the women to tell her what they imagined their road to success would be like — if they thought they would have a hard time resisting temptation, or if they’d have no problem turning down free doughnuts in the conference room and a second trip to the all-you-can-eat buffet. The results were astounding: women who believed they would succeed easily lost 24 pounds less than those who thought their weight-loss journey would be no walk in the park.

She has found the same pattern of results in studies of students looking for high-paying jobs after college, singles looking to find lasting love, and seniors recovering from hip replacement surgery. Realistic optimists send out more job applications, find the courage to approach potential romantic partners, and work harder on their rehabilitation exercises — in each case, leading to much higher success rates.

Believing that the road to success will be rocky leads to greater success because it forces you to take action. People who are confident that they will succeed, and equally confident that success won’t come easily, put in more effort, plan how they’ll deal with problems before they arise, and persist longer in the face of difficulty.

Unrealistic optimists are only too happy to tell you that you are “being negative” when you dare to express concerns, harbour reservations, or dwell too long on obstacles that stand in the way of your goal. In truth, this kind of thinking is a necessary step in any successful endeavour, and it is not at all antithetical to confident optimism. Focusing only on what we want, to the exclusion of everything else, is just the kind of naïve and reckless thinking that has landed industry leaders (and at times entire industries) in hot water.

Cultivate your realistic optimism by combining a positive attitude with an honest assessment of the challenges that await you. Don’t visualise success — visualize the steps you will take in order to make success happen.

The Story: Two Frogs And The Moral of The Story is One Encouraging Word ...

A group of frogs were travelling through the woods. Two of them fell into a deep pit. When the other frogs saw how deep the pit was, they told the two frogs that they were as good as dead.

The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit with all their might. The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead. Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up. He fell down and died.

The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and just die. He jumped even harder and finally made it out. When he got out, the other frogs said, “Did you not hear us?” The frog explained to them that he was deaf. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time.

Moral of the story: An encouraging word to someone who is down can lift them up and help them make it through the day. One encouraging word can go a long way.

Blindingly Obvious(BO): Google Glass

Google Glass and the Blindingly Obvious

Apparently, if you stick something in front of your eye, it will limit your field of vision.

Isn’t that fascinating?

Who would have guessed that?

Researchers have discovered that wearing Google Glass will produce a significant blind spot which could negatively impact on driving, pedestrian safety and sports.

I need to sit down!

In some ways I am glad that those glasses only produce a blind spot. If that is all they do?

But think not just about the device that obstructs the users field of vision but about the use of the device itself.

Do we need to worry about drivers being distracted because they are reading emails or making video conference calls?

That guy who walks out in front of a bus he just didn’t see, and it was nothing to do with him booking concert tickets on-line while he happily stepped off the pavement. 

And the daredevil who was making a video of his downhill mountain bike ride, and who lies concussed on the ground just didn’t see the tree branch because it was in his blind spot.

I am so relieved.

You can read the details of the study here:

Lead resarcher Tsontcho Ianchulev, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of California, San Francisco, and his team note that the findings are worrying because peripheral visual field is a main component of vision and essential for daily activities such as driving, pedestrian safety, and sports.

The study revealed that wearing Google glass produced significant scotomas (blind spots) in all the participants while wearing the device, creating a clinically meaningful visual field obstruction in the upper right quadrant. The findings will be published in the journal JAMA.

Blindingly Obvious: An adjective describing something that is so plain to see that it is easily overlooked.

Note: Not to be confused with someone who's obviously blind!

Motivational Monday: Embrace Monday

Don’t show your hands

Meet Billy. Billy lives in Roaring Creek, in the Cayo District of Belize. 

Billy is a parrot and Billy has a bad attitude when it comes to hands. 

Place your hands behind your back, and you can put your face right up to Billy’s face with no problem. He will actually rub his head against your head, as long as he can’t see your hands. Do NOT let him see your hands. Keep them behind your back.

Because … if Billy sees your hands, Billy FREAKS OUT.

Show your hands, and suddenly your friendly neighbourhood parrot starts screaming at you. Billy will peck you, bite you, flap his wings hysterically and attack you if he sees your hands. Billy hates hands.

It’s impossible to know why, because, well, Billy is a parrot.

People hate Monday

People treat Monday like Billy treats hands … people don’t like Monday. It’s impossible to know why, because, well, people have been hating Monday forever. 

Most other days of the week are fine. There’s Tuesday, a perfectly cool day. Then Wednesday, such a groovy day it has its own nickname, “Hump Day.” Thursday comes along and men, women and children get downright giddy. Why? Because it comes just before Friday. 

Glorious Friday. A day with a grooviness quotient eclipsing Wednesday. We know this because the grooviest things in life don’t just have nicknames, they have acronyms … like TGIF. Regardless of religious beliefs, background, or affiliation, we all “THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY!” And, of course, Saturday and Sunday are at the top of the menu. They’re like a super-sized combo day we simply call “The Weekend.” We work for it, bask in its sunshine and party in its wee hours.

If we could, we would rub our head against “The Weekend.” What’s not to love about “The Weekend?!?!” “The Weekend” is lovely.

But do NOT mention Monday. Because you mention Monday, and people FREAK OUT. 

Fear grips, outlooks dim and anxiety levels climb. It’s so bad that if another day of the week is going poorly, people say they “have a case of the Mondays.” Monday is like a disease. No, really – it’s a killer. Research tells us people are more likely to have a heart attack on Monday morning than at any other time. Yikes! No wonder people hate it. 

But I’d like to challenge you to love, Love, LOVE Monday! Monday is life giving. It’s a sparkling horizon and a budding flower. It has the potential to be the launch pad to a great week.

We study, attend seminars, training classes and work our butts off in order to be as smart as possible in our chosen field. However, only 20% of success is a result of our aptitude, while 80% can be attributed to our attitude. As a result, we need to launch into Monday with an attitude that is counter to the cultural norm. We can’t dread Mondays. We need to bring an attitude of excitement and gratefulness! Do you want to stand out to your clients, boss, in the classroom, the office or the boardroom?  Roll in on Monday with an “I’m going to rock the world” attitude!

Choosing joy on Monday, the greatest day of the week, will allow you to catapult into each week like Charlie walking into Chocolate Factory. You will cruise into Monday wide-eyed, whimsically and ready for adventure.

My bird-buddy, Billy, pecks, screams, and attacks hands as if they are his enemy. And he misses out on a lot of love that folks would like to show him. Monday has a lot of love to show us if we just embrace it. 

No matter what you are facing in the coming weeks, fall in love with Monday! 

Because changing a day can change your week. 

Changing your week will change your month. 

And before you know it, you’ve changed your life.

Life is Sweet.