Amazingly, how many examples of psychology studies can improve our lives? Nowadays, psychology can offer easy strategies for people to reach their goals, strengthen relationships, learn to make better decisions, and simply become happier. In the post below, we prepared simple examples of psychological studies you can apply in your life.
How to Motivate Ourselves
The common approach to how people motivate themselves is by using fantasies about their future. The core idea here is that if humans dream about positive futures, it helps him or her become motivated toward goals.
However, recent psychology studies have found that while you are fantasizing about your future success, it kills your motivation. Therefore, while you’re getting a taste of the future now and here, it reduces the motivation to achieve it. Fantasies also disturb us from the problems we could possibly face on the way to our goals.
So, what way can you achieve your goals? Instead of only fantasizing, you can use the practice of mental contrasting. Your positive fantasies about your future purposes should come first, but they should be followed by the realization of negative aspects of reality. Additionally, it is important to think attentively about the difference between fantasy and reality. According to Oettingen & Gollwitzer, if you don’t contrast your fantasy with reality, then the technique of mental contrasting will not work.
Breaking Bad Habits
If you are attempting to stop smoking, cursing, or gnawing your nails, you have perhaps already tried to distract yourself by clearing your mind from everything you are trying not to do. Most probably, you have already realized by now that it doesn’t help. Instead of a distraction, you should try to focus on preventing the habit before it starts. According to resent psychological studies, the best strategy for overcoming an unnecessary habit is constant monitoring. So, you should concentrate your attention on unacceptable behavior to check out if you’re involve in it.
Learn to Manage Your Time Better
In order to manage your time better, you should determine exactly what tasks you need to complete, and how long each will take. The thing is, people often fail in estimating the time they need to complete any task. Modern psychologists call this phenomena, “planning fallacy.” This kind of mistake can ruin all our plans and hinder us from achieving our goals. Nevertheless, you can learn to exactly predict how long something will take and become a better strategist. All you need to do is think about two major factors: (1) all the components that make up your goal and (2) your own experiences.