How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life pdfdrive com

PICTURE THE BENEFITS

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UCLA psychologist Hal Ersner-Hershfield has thought a lot about what it
requires for us to take actions that don’t pay off immediately—in particular, how
to get people to save more for their future. He and his team found that we feel
quite different about saving when we’re shown photographs that make our future
self more real. In a series of four experiments, he and his colleagues showed that
when people saw a picture of themselves digitally aged, they saved more than
twice as much ($172 vs. $80) when asked how much they would choose to save
out of $1,000.
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“To people estranged from their future selves, saving is like a
choice between spending money today and giving it to a stranger years from
now,” Ersner-Hershfield says. But seeing a picture of their age-progressed self
seemed to help their brains conceive of that future person as real.
It’s relatively easy to apply this technique to the task on our to-do list that
we’ve been avoiding. If we can paint ourselves a vivid mental picture of the
future benefits of getting it done, we’ll be more motivated to get started. Elta
certainly finds it motivates her to think about the way it will feel to have aced the
presentation. “It’s helpful to think about the fact that people in the audience will
remember me if I do well,” she says. “And then my advice will be more
respected whenever they next see me, because they know that I have sensible
things to say. I’ll feel more credible, and that’s important to me.” Imagining
these benefits feels good, she says, and immediately makes her feel more drawn
to the task.
Elta also takes careful note of any positive feedback she receives, since she
knows it will help her visualize the benefits the next time she has to prepare a
talk. “When someone in the audience tells me they liked what I said, I don’t just
smile and thank them. I really pay attention, and ask what made it useful for
them, if I can. For example, someone once said they liked that I’d put the key
message of each slide in a box. The next time I didn’t feel like bothering with
preparing my slides, it was helpful to remember that.”
This “picture the benefits” approach helps with the many tinier moments of
procrastination, too. When there’s a call you’re avoiding making or an email
you’re putting off replying to, you give your brain a helping hand by imagining
the virtuous sense of satisfaction you’ll have once it’s done—and perhaps also
the look of relief on someone’s face as they get from you what they needed.