08.08.2024

SUCCESS DOESN'T LIKE IF. IMAGINE IT IN "TOWEL TIED"

The first condition to win is to enter the game. But the bitter truth of life is that not everyone who plays wins. New research suggests what else you can do to grab the prize.

Big bet - big stress

You have an important project to present or report to your superiors and colleagues. The stake is high - it depends on your persuasiveness whether the work done will be evaluated as a success. From this assessment follows a reward for you - a higher salary, a bonus, a promotion.

Of course you are tense. You are even afraid that you might fail in the performance. Then the enormous efforts you have made for a long time will remain unappreciated and unrewarded. This uncertainty is able to fail even the most capable professional. Especially if he is one of those people who are not very played and charming in public appearances.

Therefore, scientists and specialists in applied psychology do not stop looking for techniques for success - how to make yourself exert maximum effort in the event of a big bet and at the same time control stress so that it does not sabotage you.

An American study gives interesting results, and based on them, psychologists offer useful tips on how to manipulate your mind.

A bird in the hand and an eagle in the sky

Researchers from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine observed volunteers who were assigned to solve computer problems. Their success always led to cash prizes, and the situations changed.

In the first round, scientists acted according to a scenario familiar from life. With each subsequent task, the amount to be won increased. And surprise - the tasks did not become more difficult, but nevertheless the performance of the participants worsened. The reason is that the mechanism was involved in which the big bet led to high tension and then to little success.

Similar results are known from a lot of research, and everyone knows from their own experience that overextending to grab the prize often ends in failure.

American researchers, however, turned the point of view. In the second round, when solving each subsequent task, the participants were not supposed to earn more money. The bet was different - to keep what they had already won. After this change in condition, they began to make significantly fewer errors than in the first part of the study with the escalating sums.

After analyzing the achieved results, the researchers organized a new experiment. Its purpose was to test whether participants would achieve better results if they learned to change the way they viewed high stakes.

There was no initial task at all, the solution of which earned a cash prize. The scientists made the volunteers only imagine that they had already won it. Now their only job is to save her.

The results of the experiment were conclusive - and only with suggestion, the participants did significantly better with the tasks than in the situation with the escalating sums.

"Our research shows that you can reduce the negative impact of stress at work by reframing the way you look at high stakes," the scientists commented.

Two psychological factors seem to be involved here. On the one hand, a person feels less tense, thinking that the prize he is trying to win is already his. On the other hand, his will becomes stronger when he can lose something he already has than when he imagines something he can gain. One is real, the other is highly desired but imaginary. Something of that philosophy expressed by the saying "Better a bird in the hand than an eagle in the sky". Some practicality works, but to get there you must first stretch your imagination to self-manipulate.

Self-suggestion with a limit, though

The technique of imagining the prize in order to get excited and put effort into achieving it has been known for a long time. What is new in the American study, however, is that you have to stretch your imagination in a different direction - not to "if" and "when", but to something "tied in a towel".

If you think that the prize you are trying to win is already yours and that it depends on your current efforts to be able to keep it, you will be successful, psychologists assure.

You should notice the key point in this sentence - your self-suggestion should not go so far as to stop you from making an effort. Its purpose is to remove your fears and tensions, to increase your self-confidence, so that it does not prevent you from presenting yourself in the best way. However, if you decide that the victory has really been achieved and start lazing around, there will be no point in your psychological exercise, experts warn.