Tag Archives: build self confidence

Improve Test Scores with a Single Letter

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Just seeing the letter "A" before an exam can significantly improve a student's results.

Just seeing the letter “A” before an exam can significantly improve a student’s results.

Just seeing the letter “A” before an exam can significantly improve a student’s results. Contrarily, exposure to the letter “F” may make a student more likely to fail. A study by Dr Keith Ciani and Dr Ken Sheldon at the University of Missouri, found: “The letters A and F have significant meaning for students, A represents success and F, failure. We hypothesized that if students are exposed to these letters prior to an academic test it could affect their performance through non-conscious motivation.”

“Non-conscious motivation,” huh? Awesome! Do they mean to say that I (you) can be influenced by sub-conscious external motivator cues? Who’d a-thunk it?

Although the number of test subjects was small – only 131 students took part in three experiments – I like their hypothesis. The results were interesting, too.

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How to Set Goals?

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How to set goals? First of all, don’t confuse wishes or desires with goals. Often, people want things, situations or accomplishments, and call these goals. Then they’re disappointed when they don’t get them. Just naming your desires isn’t effective goal setting. Good goals have some or all of the following:

1. Good goals are specific. A goal like, “I want to be healthy” is too general. “I want to lose weight and walk three times a week,” is better.

2. They’re realistic. Unfortunately, even if it is possible that you could become an astronaut, if you’re already 55, you better try to become a pilot for now. Unrealistic goals set you up for failure.

3. They’re written down. Writing down your goals is a way to make them more real, and this influences your subconscious mind, especially if you review the goals regularly.

4. They’re measurable. Exactly how many pounds do you want to lose? How much money do you want to make? How will you know if your relationship is better?

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Simple Awareness

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For just a moment, sipping on a cuppa staring out the window, I noticed!

For just a moment, sipping on a cuppa staring out the window, I noticed!

I was just standing there with coffee cup in hand staring out the window at the back yard – a behavior I’ve practiced thousands of times over many years. Suddenly and without warning, my mind focused on the amazing feat I was performing. I was aware that I was paying attention to life as it was occurring.

In all the universe, as far as I know, there is only one consciousness that I can identify as ME, experiencing what I am experiencing.

For a VERY short number of years, my life will have flashed upon the stage and gone. In geological time scales, I hardly exist at all – micro-time in comparison. Yet in that relative instant of time, everything that ever was or ever will be exists for me.

During my instant of time, I enjoy relationships with so many wonderful people I care about so deeply; I breathe, see, feel, move, emote, and so much more; I feel so grateful to be alive, to have experiences, to relate to others, and to enjoy some awareness now and then. It may be only a tiny instant in time, but it is everything – 100% of all time – to me.

For just a moment, sipping on a cuppa staring out the window, I noticed!

I’m still awed by it.

Posture Makes a Difference

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Open or closed body posture makes a difference.

Open or closed body posture makes a difference.

NLP trainers have known for some time and common sense tells you that posture plays an important role in determining whether people act as though they are really in charge. Research from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University confirms that “posture expansiveness,” or positioning yourself in a way that opens up the body to take up more space, creates a sense of power that produces behavioral changes in a person independent of their actual rank or hierarchical role in an organization. Indeed, these study findings demonstrate that posture may be more significant to a person’s psychological manifestations of power than their title or rank.

“Going into the research we figured role would make a big difference, but shockingly the effect of posture dominated the effect of role in each and every study,” Kellogg PhD candidate Li Huang said.

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10 Cognitive Thinking Errors

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One of 10 Cognitive Thinking Errors?

One of 10 Cognitive Thinking Errors?

And what to do about them. Based on the work of Aaron Beck and others, in Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, David Burns outlines 10 common mistakes in thinking, which he calls cognitive distortions.

  1. ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING – Also called Black and White Thinking – Thinking of things in absolute terms, like “always”, “every” or “never”. For example, if your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure. Few aspects of human behavior are so absolute. Nothing is 100%. No one is all bad, or all good, we all have grades. To beat this cognitive distortion:
    • Ask yourself, “Has there ever been a time when it was NOT that way?” (all or nothing thinking does not allow exceptions so if even one exception can be found, it’s no longer “all” or “nothing”)
    • Ask yourself, “Never?” or “Always?” (depending upon what you are thinking)
    • Investigate the Best-Case vs Worst-Case Scenario NLP Meta program Continue reading →