Mindset : The New Psychology of Success pdfdrive com

Plans That You’ll Carry Out and Ones That You Won’t
The  key  part  of  our  applicant’s  reaction  was  her  call  to  the  school  to  get  more
information. It wasn’t easy. Every day people plan to do difficult things, but they
don’t do them. They think, “I’ll do it tomorrow,” and they swear to themselves
that  they’ll  follow  through  the  next  day.  Research  by  Peter  Gollwitzer  and  his
colleagues  shows  that  vowing,  even  intense  vowing,  is  often  useless.  The  next
day comes and the next day goes.
What  works  is  making  a  vivid,  concrete  plan:  “Tomorrow  during  my  break,
I’ll get a cup of tea, close the door to my office, and call the graduate school.”
Or, in another case: “On Wednesday morning, right after I get up and brush my
teeth, I’ll sit at my desk and start writing my report.” Or: “Tonight, right after the
dinner dishes are done, I’ll sit down with my wife in the living room and have
that discussion. I’ll say to her, ‘Dear, I’d like to talk about something that I think
will make us happier.’
 ”
Think  of  something  you  need  to  do,  something  you  want  to  learn,  or  a
problem you have to confront. What is it? Now make a concrete plan. When will
you  follow  through  on  your  plan?  Where  will  you  do  it?  How  will  you  do  it?
Think about it in vivid detail.
These concrete plans—plans you can visualize—about when, where, and how
you  are  going  to  do  something  lead  to  really  high  levels  of  follow-through,
which, of course, ups the chances of success.
So the idea is not only to make a growth-mindset plan, but also to visualize, in
a concrete way, how you’re going to carry it out.

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