Brain Happiness: Small Successes

[Think_n_See]

I think that the single most important reason why people succeed is
that THEY BUILD INTO THEIR LIVES SMALLER INCREMENTAL WAYS IN WHICH THEY
CAN SUCCEED.

I think that those people that most succeed are those that build in
(and really build in) to their subconscious minds that they can only
win. That they can't do anything but win.

Rosabeth Moss Canter in the book "Confidence" talks about people being
on a roll - e.g., a winning streak that continues to win. My
hypothesis is that those people who (even if artificially) build in to
their lives small ways to win - those people win the big things more
often. I would love to see some studies along these directions, and
will look for studies about this in literature on goal-setting,
streaks, winning, succeeding. If you have other suggestions for
sources, please let me know!

[Think_n_See]

p.s. da5zeay has mentioned this before - small steps, and had tied it
also with the idea of momentum, a nice combination.
LoveBelief has mentioned this before: small steps as incremental wins.

Also Wall_Of_Optimism, whereever he may be playing these days, has
mentioned using small steps frequently in his work to build up products
incrementally.

[da5zeay]

I was just thinking about this, and here's an insight that goes with
this:

For small successes / small steps to really work for you, you have to
learn how to appreciate smallness! I think we're conditioned in the USA
to appreciate largeness...just look at how big the portions are! The
news media constantly blare on about how tall, fast, expensive,
etc...it's a culture that emphasizes the MORENESS.

Of course, all those things got to be big by being collected first from
smaller things.

So find a small step, and then enjoy it! And do it again! And
appreciate that such a small step is nevertheless such an integral part
of getting to something bigger. Once things get moving, the
exhiliaration of taking small steps really comes into its own.

[CarmenSunshine]

After all, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!
And a journey opf a thousand miles starts with one step...
Which then leads to the next. And the next. No one can run a marathon
without learning how to walk first. Then how to jog. Then run a mile,
then 2, then 5...

So to me, the path to an extraordinarily joyful life is one smile at a
time!

[smilingbear]

In Brian Tracy's book "Goals!", he sites a study which might apply.

Diane Tice, a psychologist at Case Western University, asked 400 men
and women about strategies they used to escape bad moods and the
success tactics involved. She noticed a cognitive approach to
mood-lifting that involves engineering a small triumph; i.e. an easy
success. She called the small success orchestration Cognitive
Reframing. And it kept people feeling happy.

Also, she studied groups of business people and asked some of them to
adopt something called Blue Sky Thinking - the philosophy that there
are no limits and anything is possible. She found that the people who
switched to this philosophy were immediatly more successful in
bussiness. They broke away from the average perfomer. And the change
started the day they switched to Blue Sky Thinking.

I guess you could say Cognitive Reframing works slowly and Blue Sky
Thinking works right now.

[Think_n_See]

How interesting, smilingbear! Thank you!

[LoveBelief]

Awesome post. Great insight. I love Brian Tracy and those other guys.
(Ziglar is my favorite... "I come from a small town called Yazoo,
MS...")

This "Blue Sky Thinking" is also a form of cognitive reframing, but at
a more macro level. You cognitively (with thoughts, not feelings or
movements) tell yourself that things are limitless. This is in complete
oppostion to our normal deeper schemas that believe there are limits to
things, and so we don't even try.

All reframing is cognitive. Emotional and behavioral "reframing" would
be either 'replacement' or 'distraction.' (just to be technical :) )

Cheers!

[Think_n_See]

More on Small Successes...

There's a good book called "Personal Best" by David Rock.
(David Rock is a very good presenter by the way - he puts about two
words per slide, and makes it fun to listen to him).

Here are some small successes ideas from his ch 7 and ch 8:
1) get support - friends, colleagues, groups
2) get clear - be very specific about what you want so that you
recognize it when it's near
3) get on time - i.e., do the top priorities first! they go first on
your calendar
4) get your physical environment ready for success - clear, clutterfree
5) look out for success, not failure - look for those things that can
go right, expect them!
6) get educated - look for books classes, ask mentors, create mentors
to ask
and

actions speak louder than everything (which I'll summarize as "GET
GOING")

[Think_n_See]

I really like the last part of this quote. Just saw it for the first
time ever. Talk about a good small success - planning something out.

"...to determine upon attainment is frequently attainment itself."

Here's the entire quote:
"Where there is a will there is a way." is an old true saying. He who
resolves upon doing a thing, by that very resolution often scales the
barriers to it, and secures its achievement. To think we are able, is
almost to be so - to determine upon attainment is frequently attainment
itself.
~Joan Rivers

[da5zeay]

That's really cool...especially apropos because I have been extremely
lazy today. I have felt the urge to do something half a dozen times,
but ended up falling asleep. Rainy rainy rainy blah, no where to go,
don't want to go buy anything and waste money.

I will determine to go through my mail and vacuum the floor!