Psychology

In this article, I discuss what you should focus on in your visualizations when your goal is to succeed at an endeavour. Visualization is a widely used strategy for people whose goal is to achieve success in an endeavour. Sports, finances, career, and relationships are just a few of the domains in which this strategy has been used to facilitate success. Although visualizing has been found to facilitate success in achieving goals, it is important to spend most of the time visualizing in a manner which is most conducive to success and spend less time visualizing in a manner which is less conducive to success. In the following sections, I will explore this topic...[more]

In this article, I discuss why motivation combined with self-regulation is necessary to achieve your goals. Recent research indicated that only nine percent of the population who make New Year’s resolutions stick to them throughout the year. Given that many people who make such resolutions begin with high levels of motivation, the statistic indicates that motivation by itself is typically insufficient for people to achieve their goals. The missing ingredient to success in achieving goals is often self-regulation. The importance of this factor in goal achievement is discussed in Motivation Myth Busters by Drs. Wendy Grolnick, Benjamin Heddy and Frank Worrell. In the following sections, I will discuss how you can use self-regulation to complement motivation to achieve your goals...[more]

In this article, I discuss how recording details of incidents involving behaviours can help you to cultivate good habits and break bad habits. There are many tools which I offer my clients when their goal is to cultivate good habits and break bad habits. Although I encourage my clients to use as many such tools as possible, one tool is so simple and effective that I typically offer it early in therapy. I have also used this tool successfully when my goal has been to cultivate good habits and break bad habits such as practicing piano for 75 minutes each day. The tool is called habit tracking and it is discussed in Atomic Habits by James Clear. In the following sections, I will discuss how you can use habit tracking to your advantage...[more]

Using the United States presidential campaign as an example, in this article I discuss the challenges politicians face in balancing between behaving as a high self-monitor and a low self-monitor. In my education as a psychologist, I was taught about a personality characteristic known as self-monitoring. It refers to the extent to which people keep track of the impressions they are making on others in social situations. High self-monitors do more of this keeping track than do low self-monitors. The benefit of self-monitoring is that it makes it easier for the person to fit into various social situations and get along with the people in them because the person regularly monitors and adjusts their behaviour to give off a positive impression. Low self-monitors tend to fit in less well than do high self-monitors but they enjoy the benefit of acting consistently with their attitudes, values and principles more than do high-self monitors. High self-monitors and low self-monitors are often referred to as ‘pragmatic’ and ‘principled’ respectively. Although there are individual differences in whether someone leans toward being a low self-monitor or a high self-monitor, there is an ongoing attempt by most people to balance the two ways of thinking, feeling and behaving to gain the benefits of being a low self-monitor while also enjoying the benefits of being a high self-monitor. That is, people attempt to fit into social situations while also trying to behave consistently with their attitudes, values and principles.’ Balancing these two elements of self-monitoring is easier said than done. The challenges inherent in the balancing act are evident in politics. Politicians are faced regularly with the goal of being principled on the one hand while being pragmatic on the other hand. The current United States presidential campaign features many examples of these challenges faced by Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump. I will discuss these in the following sections...[more]