It always fascinates me how much of this research is restricted to the ability to think better logically. Rarely does it cover the impact on our self-esteem or sense of self-efficacy. I have not the slightest doubt that while learning new complex computer games does not aid our our overall thinking ability, it has a dramatic effect on the way we think and feel about oursleves.
Doubts we we could have nursed about our ability to master computing skills could be banished and could leave us much more willing to try new tasks with the belief we can master them too.
Another feature of computer games rarely referred to is the need for sustained concentration. One of my grandsons has had reports of limited concentration at school. Yet put him in front of a computer game and he demonstrates powers of concentration second to none!
We can learn to live happier and more effective lives based on how we think about ourselves
GN
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
New eBook On Goal-setting to be published by Gerry Neale
An eBook is due out within the next four weeks, providing a Seven Day Tutorial on Goal-setting and making things happen. It will be hosted by Psychology Simplified and be available via ClickBank.
Helpful Articles
Most weeks, new articles are written by Gerry Neale. These are mostly on Cognitive Thinking issues and are submitted to the principal article directories. If you would like these emailed to you, there is an Ezine Articles box which when completed will cause the articles submitted to them to be sent to you automatically. You may also find interesting additional material on a sister blog, which seeks to simplify Psychology for easy application in every day life. http://psychologysimplified.blogspot.com
If you want to learn more about the art prints, more information is available by clicking on them.
If you want to learn more about the art prints, more information is available by clicking on them.
Author Ranking on Ezine Articles
Gerry Neale is now ranked in the top 40 article authors on Psychology on Ezine Articles. Currently he is ranked in the top 50 on Achievement and in the top 60 on Goal-setting. He has focussed mainly on Cognitive Thinking issues but has writtten articles on starting an on-line business, on success, on painting mixed media ink pointillism and watercolour picures. Some of his art prints are featured on this blog and by clicking on them you can obtain more detail on how they are created, if you wish to discover.
Wednesday, 7 April 2010
Psychology Simplified About The Sub-conscious Mind And Making Our Future by Gerry Neale
All manner of accounts have been written over time about the nature of our sub-conscious mind. Distil any five articles or descriptions into one and there is no doubting the result comprises an extraordinary picture of this feature of human beings. Among the almost unbelievable complexities thrown up by research are some simpler truths available to us. They shine out like gold nuggets in the dim light. And they point to equally simple actions we can take for our own benefit.
Let’s try to contemplate the future for a moment, and our own future within it.
Do we instinctively view it with dread or with excitement? If we are normal, we would almost inevitably say, some of both. If one was pressed more and asked what proportion of both, what would be our response?
My first guess is that most people would have to think about the question for more than a moment or two. My second guess is that in so doing, anyone looking to answer the question would become clearer on how our picture of The Future and of our own future within it can affect our confidence, our aspirations and our happiness.
If The Future looks terrifying to us, seems to be devoid of any certainty, chaotic and full of dread, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell us just how defensive and reclusive that thinker could become.
Equally, suppose the view of The Future was the opposite, wouldn’t our suspicions be aroused by such a thinker? I have in mind someone who sees life ahead as amazing, fantastic, a wonderful and exciting dream, an absolutely perfect place to be and certainly way, way better than where we are now or have ever been before! Again we’ve no need for the rocket scientist to be able to see that such a thinker has little likelihood of realistic and practical roots in their present or the past.
Yet in both cases the sub-conscious has been asked and has responded with a picture. So what does that mean for us? Where is our sub-conscious mind trying to position us as we contemplate our own future?
With a little too high a dose of doom and gloom, won’t we shrink back and become mildly defensive and even a little reclusive ourselves?
If we then try to compensate for this stance, sub-consciously or consciously, don’t we need to start constructing control systems to reduce the chaos we perceive ahead? Won’t doing this perhaps fool ourselves into believing that we are managing our lives well. Won’t this authorise our subconscious to contrive and invent on-going control systems which will rule out and all but smother chance encounters and opportunities?
On the other hand, what happens if consciously we increase the dose of Optimism? Immediately we trigger within us more positive perceptions of the future.
Let’s agree with ourselves that we have done pretty well to get to this point in Life. Let’s further agree that here in our own present moment, we can claim justifiably to have learned a lot from our past which equips us for our future. There is much to be positive about!
Now! Can the World around tap into this private, more positive, upbeat but practicable approach forming in our mind? Personally I believe it can and does. But what does undoubtedly tap in this new view of ourselves and our future is our sub-conscious mind! Feed ourselves with more upbeat messages, assessments and aspirations and our sub-conscious goes into overdrive to find even more.
The simple truth is our sub conscious does not have, and is not, a mind of its own. Its resource base is the sum total of all that we have fed it since birth. But feed it with a different diet of information, and yes, the nature of its resource changes.
And Yes! Yes! Yes! Its extraordinary creative powers are fired into action, causing us to behave to our new view of the future.
“Learned Optimism” is a skill! Read the book of that title!
Good luck but remember we can also create our luck!
Let’s try to contemplate the future for a moment, and our own future within it.
Do we instinctively view it with dread or with excitement? If we are normal, we would almost inevitably say, some of both. If one was pressed more and asked what proportion of both, what would be our response?
My first guess is that most people would have to think about the question for more than a moment or two. My second guess is that in so doing, anyone looking to answer the question would become clearer on how our picture of The Future and of our own future within it can affect our confidence, our aspirations and our happiness.
If The Future looks terrifying to us, seems to be devoid of any certainty, chaotic and full of dread, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell us just how defensive and reclusive that thinker could become.
Equally, suppose the view of The Future was the opposite, wouldn’t our suspicions be aroused by such a thinker? I have in mind someone who sees life ahead as amazing, fantastic, a wonderful and exciting dream, an absolutely perfect place to be and certainly way, way better than where we are now or have ever been before! Again we’ve no need for the rocket scientist to be able to see that such a thinker has little likelihood of realistic and practical roots in their present or the past.
Yet in both cases the sub-conscious has been asked and has responded with a picture. So what does that mean for us? Where is our sub-conscious mind trying to position us as we contemplate our own future?
With a little too high a dose of doom and gloom, won’t we shrink back and become mildly defensive and even a little reclusive ourselves?
If we then try to compensate for this stance, sub-consciously or consciously, don’t we need to start constructing control systems to reduce the chaos we perceive ahead? Won’t doing this perhaps fool ourselves into believing that we are managing our lives well. Won’t this authorise our subconscious to contrive and invent on-going control systems which will rule out and all but smother chance encounters and opportunities?
On the other hand, what happens if consciously we increase the dose of Optimism? Immediately we trigger within us more positive perceptions of the future.
Let’s agree with ourselves that we have done pretty well to get to this point in Life. Let’s further agree that here in our own present moment, we can claim justifiably to have learned a lot from our past which equips us for our future. There is much to be positive about!
Now! Can the World around tap into this private, more positive, upbeat but practicable approach forming in our mind? Personally I believe it can and does. But what does undoubtedly tap in this new view of ourselves and our future is our sub-conscious mind! Feed ourselves with more upbeat messages, assessments and aspirations and our sub-conscious goes into overdrive to find even more.
The simple truth is our sub conscious does not have, and is not, a mind of its own. Its resource base is the sum total of all that we have fed it since birth. But feed it with a different diet of information, and yes, the nature of its resource changes.
And Yes! Yes! Yes! Its extraordinary creative powers are fired into action, causing us to behave to our new view of the future.
“Learned Optimism” is a skill! Read the book of that title!
Good luck but remember we can also create our luck!
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Self-Talk Part 1: Be Your Own Best Friend:
This is an aspect of goal setting and resolution-making we need to take head on, but few people do! This is the Joker in our personal cognitive pack of cards housed in our minds. Just like the Joker on the card table, in cognitive terms our self-talk can count as a beneficial high value card, or - just as easily - a devastatingly low card!
I am assuming that you are disconcerted by your self-talk, for if you were not, why read this article.
So then, we need to apply some real self-discipline at this point. We need to work together to create the most effective strategy for you to harness this feature of ourselves so it works for you rather than against you.
Let’s put Self-Talk in a clear context for a moment. Clearly you have noticed the incessant chatter going on in your head! What is actually going on, you ask? And whose opinion is this inner voice expressing?
The part of you that wants to achieve the goal you have set for yourself, is quietly convinced you can attain it and remains quiet about it..But the other part of you, the part that is certain you will fail or at least is far less convinced of your success, won’t shut up!
But why does part of you think that? And why does it drip feed your mind with these incessant negative messages?
Almost certainly it is because your sub-conscious mind remembers that you have failed before and has never forgotten it! Or maybe it cannot find any evidence you have not done anything similar before and it could simply be because your sub-conscious is not comfortable with your intention to stretch yourself so far. Therefore it tries to discourage you in order to protect you against the risk of failure and disappointment
. ”Ah! My Dad always said I would always buckle under a challenge”. Or “ My English Teacher always said etc etc.”
Yet not a single word has been uttered by you out loud! All this goes on merely in your head, re-playing these thoughts the moment your mind falls idle.
The lesson to be learned from Part 1 is we need to accept that everyone has this type of conversation going on inside their heads. It is not just you that has this problem! We all have it, but what separates the successful from the less so, has a lot to do with the way they manage their self-talk.
We all know how helpful self-talk can be sometimes and yet how parallelising, insidious and de-motivating it can be at other times. Controlling it and directing it is vital for us to be more effective. We need to learn how to think of ourselves as our best friend
I will get on to that in Part 2.
I am assuming that you are disconcerted by your self-talk, for if you were not, why read this article.
So then, we need to apply some real self-discipline at this point. We need to work together to create the most effective strategy for you to harness this feature of ourselves so it works for you rather than against you.
Let’s put Self-Talk in a clear context for a moment. Clearly you have noticed the incessant chatter going on in your head! What is actually going on, you ask? And whose opinion is this inner voice expressing?
The part of you that wants to achieve the goal you have set for yourself, is quietly convinced you can attain it and remains quiet about it..But the other part of you, the part that is certain you will fail or at least is far less convinced of your success, won’t shut up!
But why does part of you think that? And why does it drip feed your mind with these incessant negative messages?
Almost certainly it is because your sub-conscious mind remembers that you have failed before and has never forgotten it! Or maybe it cannot find any evidence you have not done anything similar before and it could simply be because your sub-conscious is not comfortable with your intention to stretch yourself so far. Therefore it tries to discourage you in order to protect you against the risk of failure and disappointment
. ”Ah! My Dad always said I would always buckle under a challenge”. Or “ My English Teacher always said etc etc.”
Yet not a single word has been uttered by you out loud! All this goes on merely in your head, re-playing these thoughts the moment your mind falls idle.
The lesson to be learned from Part 1 is we need to accept that everyone has this type of conversation going on inside their heads. It is not just you that has this problem! We all have it, but what separates the successful from the less so, has a lot to do with the way they manage their self-talk.
We all know how helpful self-talk can be sometimes and yet how parallelising, insidious and de-motivating it can be at other times. Controlling it and directing it is vital for us to be more effective. We need to learn how to think of ourselves as our best friend
I will get on to that in Part 2.
Self Talk Part 2, Be Our Own Best Friend
We may indeed have decided that we really do want to achieve our stated goal. But unprepared, the self-talk going on in our head can still blast us out the moment we hit the first obstacle. But it can be changed!
All too often we can hear not one but two voices within us arguing with each other, particularly when our dilemma over something is acute! If the negative voice wins out, the speed with which the doubt created by our self-talk can strike is both formidable and of crippling effect.
Even suppose our picture of our goal is vivid, convincing and carries our over-riding commitment. Unless we keep telling ourselves that it is definitely and totally what we want and that we are up to the challenge, our ship is cognitively holed below the water line by the inner voice!
Now try this exercise! Make time to listen to people talk around you and you can hear so often the same dilemma you have within, being discussed by them out loud. You can hear family members, friends or employers talking up those around them and encouraging the best in them. Or you may hear the same people talking apparent opportunities down, and worse, talking others down and reinforcing the worst in them.
The truth is we each already know instinctively the part we can play so easily in this. We can help a conversation to become positive or negative. Surely one mini goal we should all have is never knowingly to talk anyone down, least of all ourselves.
It is a fact that the more that we talk others up, the more we are likely to talk ourselves up too. It is a frame of mind! Just reflect on some of the damning things you know you say to yourself about you under your breath sometimes. Imagine!
If a friend said the same things to you about you with the same conviction and out loud, just how long would you stay friends with them! Not a minute longer! So why do we do it?
But what is happening inside our heads when this is all going on under our breath.
Each time we do it, we feed the same deep-seated, damaging self-image of ourselves. Instead of feeding it, we should be killing it off by starvation!
So be your own best friend in terms of everything you say to yourself.
Stop maligning yourself, doubting yourself and undermining constructive moves you make.
If you want to look for example of how to do this, again you have to look no further than sports stars in the top echelon of their sport. Interviewed after a below average performance, they never run themselves down and they are already reflecting positively in regard to their next encounter.
The greater, the more complex and challenging your goal is, then be prepared to be even more of close friend to yourself Why, because the sheer scale of the challenge can make it more likely that it is the self-doubt that will kick in and set the negative self-talk in motion. The key to this is finding and directing our preferred mental mind game to fend off the negative messages, neutralise and even silence them.
So now you know, will you just go and do it? If only if it were that simple! You will need to practise and practise. I am afraid it is a skill to be acquired as well as understood.
Try it before reading more in Part 3
All too often we can hear not one but two voices within us arguing with each other, particularly when our dilemma over something is acute! If the negative voice wins out, the speed with which the doubt created by our self-talk can strike is both formidable and of crippling effect.
Even suppose our picture of our goal is vivid, convincing and carries our over-riding commitment. Unless we keep telling ourselves that it is definitely and totally what we want and that we are up to the challenge, our ship is cognitively holed below the water line by the inner voice!
Now try this exercise! Make time to listen to people talk around you and you can hear so often the same dilemma you have within, being discussed by them out loud. You can hear family members, friends or employers talking up those around them and encouraging the best in them. Or you may hear the same people talking apparent opportunities down, and worse, talking others down and reinforcing the worst in them.
The truth is we each already know instinctively the part we can play so easily in this. We can help a conversation to become positive or negative. Surely one mini goal we should all have is never knowingly to talk anyone down, least of all ourselves.
It is a fact that the more that we talk others up, the more we are likely to talk ourselves up too. It is a frame of mind! Just reflect on some of the damning things you know you say to yourself about you under your breath sometimes. Imagine!
If a friend said the same things to you about you with the same conviction and out loud, just how long would you stay friends with them! Not a minute longer! So why do we do it?
But what is happening inside our heads when this is all going on under our breath.
Each time we do it, we feed the same deep-seated, damaging self-image of ourselves. Instead of feeding it, we should be killing it off by starvation!
So be your own best friend in terms of everything you say to yourself.
Stop maligning yourself, doubting yourself and undermining constructive moves you make.
If you want to look for example of how to do this, again you have to look no further than sports stars in the top echelon of their sport. Interviewed after a below average performance, they never run themselves down and they are already reflecting positively in regard to their next encounter.
The greater, the more complex and challenging your goal is, then be prepared to be even more of close friend to yourself Why, because the sheer scale of the challenge can make it more likely that it is the self-doubt that will kick in and set the negative self-talk in motion. The key to this is finding and directing our preferred mental mind game to fend off the negative messages, neutralise and even silence them.
So now you know, will you just go and do it? If only if it were that simple! You will need to practise and practise. I am afraid it is a skill to be acquired as well as understood.
Try it before reading more in Part 3
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