Your Weekly Dose of #5ThoughtsFriday: A description of what we think is important at BIAMD
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#5Thoughts Friday
The
Edition
1/06/2023
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It’s that time of year again. Champagne bottles have been popped, balls have dropped, and now your friends, family and colleagues are starting to ask, “What’s your New Year’s resolution?”

Some people love the tradition of setting a goal each January 1. Others argue it’s a waste of time since most resolutions fail by mid-March. But there is actually a logic to jumping on the New Year’s resolution bandwagon, despite the grim numbers.

My collaborators and I have shown that on new beginnings — dates like New Year’s Day, your birthday and even Mondays — you’re extra motivated to tackle your goals because you feel like you can turn the page on past failures. Maybe you meant to quit smoking, get fit or start going to bed at a reasonable hour last year and didn’t. A fresh start like New Year’s lets you relegate those missteps to a past chapter and tell yourself, “That was the old me, but the new me will be different.”

It might sound delusional, but it’s quite handy to be able to let go of failures and try again. After all, you can’t accomplish anything if you don’t attempt it, and a lot of goals worth achieving can be tricky to nail the first time around.


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Long-term success is based on leveraging and maximizing things you can control. Like effort. Perseverance. Surprisingly (at least to some), being nice.

But most important, leveraging and maximizing what you know -- and what you do with what you know.

Since that makes learning faster, and retaining more, a career superpower, here are seven science-backed ways to learn more quickly and better remember what you learn:

1. Constantly test yourself.

A classic study published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest shows self-testing is an extremely effective way to speed up the learning process.

Partly that's because of the additional context you create. Test yourself and answer incorrectly and not only are you more likely to remember the right answer after you look it up, but you'll also remember the fact you didn't remember. (Especially if you tend to be hard on yourself.)

So don't just rehearse your sales pitch. Test yourself on what comes after your intro. Test yourself by listing the four main points you want to make. Test your ability to remember cost savings figures, or price schedules, or how you will respond to the most common questions or types of customer resistance.

Not only will you gain confidence in how much you do know,

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Neuroscientists have discovered a set of brain cells that influence the motivation of mice to perform tasks for rewards. Increasing the cells’ activity makes a mouse work harder or more vigorously. The neurons come with a feature that prevents the mouse from overdoing it and becoming addicted to the reward. The findings reveal new possible therapeutic strategies for treating mental illnesses like depression that impair motivation.

A characteristic of depression is a lack of motivation. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Professor Bo Li, in collaboration with CSHL Adjunct Professor Z. Josh Huang, discovered a group of neurons in the mouse brain that influences the animal’s motivation to perform tasks for rewards. Dialing up the activity of these neurons makes a mouse work faster or more vigorously—up to a point. These neurons have a feature that prevents the mouse from becoming addicted to the reward. The findings may point to new therapeutic strategies for treating mental illnesses like depression that affect motivation in humans. 

The anterior insular cortex is a region of the brain that plays a critical role in motivation. A set of neurons that activate a gene called Fezf2(Fezf2 neurons) in this area are active when mice are doing both physical and cognitive tasks. Li and his lab hypothesized that these neurons do not affect the mouse’s ability to do the task; rather, the brain cells influence the mouse’s motivational drive.

CLICK HERE and to read more about this study.
A great deal of ink has been spilled on the subject of motivating and influencing others, but what happens when the person you most want to influence is you? Setting and achieving goals for yourself—at work, at home, and in relationships—is harder than it seems. How do you know where to start? How do you carry on in the face of roadblocks and distractions? How do you decide which tasks and ambitions to prioritize when you’re faced with more responsibilities, needs, and desires than you can keep track of?
 
In Get It Done, psychologist and behavioral scientist Ayelet Fishbach presents a new theoretical framework for self-motivated action, explaining how to:
  • Identify the right goals
  • Attack the “middle problem”
  • Battle temptations
  • Use the help of others around you
  • And so much more...

CLICK HERE to see more.
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1) Quote We are Contemplating
“You can find inspiration in everything. If you can’t, then you’re not looking properly.”
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 Thanks for reading! Have a wonderful weekend.