Stinkin’ Thinkin’: 37 Mental Mistakes, False Beliefs & Superstitions That Can Ruin Your Career & Your Life by Gary S. Goodman

Author:Gary S. Goodman [GOODMAN, GARY S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gildan Media Corporation
Published: 2017-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

#22 Monitor Your Short Term & Long Term Thinking

Psychologist Philip Zimbardo of Stanford has done extensive research on people that succeed and those that fail. One of his findings is that those that succeed are at least slightly more future time oriented than present time oriented. For example, he studied children that were offered a choice between taking one marshmallow right away, or if they would wait a few minutes, they would receive two. Two-thirds of these kids grabbed that first marshmallow, foregoing the pleasure of getting two. When the one and two marshmallow receiving kids were later studied as adults, it was determined that those that waited to get two treats, the one-third of participants, were far more successful in life than the two-thirds that could not resist temptation.

It has been well established that postponement of gratification is an essential ingredient in achieving worldly success. One needs to be able to forego short-term pleasures to gain disproportionate satisfactions later on. The expression, “No pain, no gain” nicely sums up this proposition. As some pundits joke, “Success only comes before work in the dictionary.” There is something happening in the minds of those that are able to wait for their goodies. They are able to imagine or at least to infer a desired future state, in other words, a larger goal than what the present is providing. That goal must seem attainable, though it may be difficult to pursue or to ultimately grasp. The two-marshmallow folks are also able to sense the unforeseen consequences of their current behaviors. “If I don’t stop texting my friends or commenting at these web sites I’ll never get this homework done, and I’ll get a bad grade. That will keep me out of graduate school, so I had better buckle down, now.” This seems perfectly normal to some of us. I earned five college degrees, including two very difficult ones, a Ph.D. and a Juris Doctor degree. I could not have done either if I had not resolved to turn off the TV and keep it in repose for years at a time.

Zimbardo speaks of his impoverished upbringing in New York. He learned the necessity to postpone gratification from a few influential teachers. If he had not, he would not have amounted to very much.

It is not enough to fashion and to maintain our long-term goals. We need short-term reinforcement thinking to assist.

The motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, wrote in his book, SEE YOU AT THE TOP, that those who want to lose weight cannot do it all of a sudden.

We need reduce the same way we put the weight on: One bite at a time.

By repeatedly doing small things, we reach our largest goals. I discuss this at length in my bestselling audio seminar, “The Law of Large Numbers: How to Make Success Inevitable.” This means we need to do a lot of what we hope to master in order to become a master of whatever that is.

My daughter asked me yesterday whether she could publish her poetry.

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