Learn the science behind personal growth, and how to start your growth journey in 6 simple steps, despite the pandemic lockdown. This is Part 2 of two articles.
Last week, we covered the first three steps of how to science your way to personal growth. These are:
- Adopt beliefs conducing to personal growth, in particular, a growth mindset and pronoia;
- Frame life-changing questions; and
- Develop your capacity to act, both directly and enhancing your potential for serendipity.
In this week’s post, we move on to the next three steps.
4. Act
To act or not to act?
The most lucrative outcome from a course of deliberate action is probably Jeff Bezos starting Amazon. Leaving a well-paying job at hedge fund D.E. Shaw at the age of 30 in 1994 to set up Amazon, Bezos has a net worth of US$196 billion by 2020 July. His Regret Minimization Framework is now widely cited:
“I knew that when I was 80 I was not going to regret having tried this. I was not going to regret trying to participate in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried.” ~ Jeff Bezos
Then again, Kahneman and Tversky (1982) found that people feel a more poignant emotional reaction to bad outcomes that result from action relative to otherwise identical outcomes that result from inaction.
So, what do we do? To act or not to act, that seems to be the question.
The science behind a bias towards action
To answer this question, I refer to a separate paper by Zeelenberg, Van den Bos, Van Dijk, and Pieters (2002). They argued that such feelings of regret is highly sensitive to prior outcomes and that these prior outcomes signal the need for action or inaction. My own take is that in novel situations where no prior outcomes are available, such as that Bezos faced with the internet, evidence would suggest action is more profitable than inaction.
At Stanford University’s d.school, which helps people develop their creative abilities, a basic principle is a bias towards action. According to Bernard Roth, one of its founders:
“It is better to start to do something and fail than it is to do nothing and wait for the correct path of action to appear.” – Bernard Roth, The Achievement Habit
In case you need yet further convincing on the benefits to your well-being of a bias towards action, make a visit to The VIA Institute on Character. The institute claims “people who use their [character] strengths a lot are 18x more likely to be flourishing than those who do not use their strengths.”
Not sure if this would apply to you? There’s only one way to find out – act on it.
5. Keep sowing
Often, actions may not bear fruits for a long time. This is when perseverance gets tested. Hence I consider this the toughest amongst the 6 science-backed steps to personal growth.
Grit
Angela Duckworth, Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, popularised the idea of Grit. She defines this as passion and perseverance for long-term goals. Her research led her to conclude that grit is a common factor among high-achievers. Echoing Carol Dweck, she also believes that “grit is mutable, not fixed,” and she has “insights from research about how to grow it.”
Along the marathon of life, setbacks are guaranteed. We get to choose how we respond to them. Kahneman proposed the following approach:
“… see each of these gambles as part of a bundle of small gambles and rehearse the mantra that will get you significantly closer to economic rationality: you win a few, you lose a few. The main purpose of the mantra is to control your emotional response when you do lose.” ~ Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow
No bad beats
In the book The Biggest Bluff, writer and psychologist Maria Konnikova learnt to play poker from Erik Seidel. After hearing Konnikova’s reflections on one of her earlier games, Seidel offered the following advise:
“Bad beats are a really bad mental habit. You don’t want to ever dwell on them. It doesn’t help you become a better player…Focus on the process, not the luck. Did I play correctly? Everything else is just BS in our heads…You know about the randomness of it but it doesn’t help to think about it”. ~ Eric Seidel to Maria Konnikova, The Biggest Bluff
Konnikova drew the following lesson from her own plays and from observing other top poker players:
“If you keep thinking correctly, eventually it will even out. These are the seeds of resilience.” ~ Maria Konnikova, The Biggest Bluff
A recent personal story about perseverance and keep sowing is more quotidian. I had been trying to interest my wife to get more organised about stuff around the apartment. When I first read about Marie Kondo a few years ago, I bought two of Kondo’s books – The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and Spark Joy – to try to inspire her to tidy up. Nothing happened for years. I kept up persuading, however, using my own actions. A few weeks ago, she finally got excited about taking stock. She had found an app on the iOS platform that helps her track her stock of pasta, canned food, tissue paper, bottled water etc. Whether or not the actions were borne out of the Kondo-seed I planted years ago, it is a desirable outcome.
6. Give
Give thanks
The first aspect of giving is to give thanks, commonly known as gratitude. I recently signed up for a Coursera course, The Science of Well-Being by Prof. Laurie Santos of Yale. In the course, Prof Santos has the following definition of gratitude:
“Graditude is a positive emotional state in which one recognizes and appreciates what one has received in life.” ~ The Science of Well-Being by Prof. Laurie Santos, Yale University
Some of the research that support the positive effects of gratitude includes:
- McCullough et al. (2002), who found that highly grateful people, compared to their less grateful counterparts, tend to experience positive emotions more often, enjoy greater satisfaction with life and more hope, and tend to experience less depression, anxiety, and envy;
- Watkins et al., (2003), who found undergraduates’ scores on a self-reported Gratitude, Resentment, and Appreciation Test were positively related to satisfaction with life.
You can also learn more about gratitude from Robert Emmons here.
The gratitude journal is a popular tool to improve the practice of gratitude. In Prof. Santos’ coursework, learners are encouraged to write a gratitude journal every night. These could be about big things or little things. The emphasis is to actually write them down, and reflect on the person or thing we’re grateful for.
Give of your time and money
The second aspect of giving is to give of one’s time or money. In a 1988 study, Allan Luks described the “Helper’s High”— the powerful physical feelings people experience when directly helping others — to explain the real benefits to volunteers’ physical and emotional health. More recently, Cassie Mogilner, Zoe Chance and Michael Norton (2012) found that “spending time on others increases one’s feeling of time affluence”. In a 2008 study, Prof. Elizabeth Dunn of the University of British Columbia, together with co-authors Lara Aknin and Michael Norton posed the question: “Can money buy happiness?”. They found that spending money on others have a more positive impact on one’s happiness than spending on oneself.
Even in the midst of pandemic, there are multiple ways to give of our time and money. The gifting of masks to family and friends in places where there are shortages comes to mind. We can also donate to or volunteer at organizations that help the under-privileged members of our society.
Closing
There you have it, all 6 steps to science your way to personal growth:
- Adopt beliefs conducing to personal growth, in particular, a growth mindset and pronoia;
- Frame life-changing questions;
- Develop your capacity to act, both directly and enhancing your potential for serendipity;
- Act;
- Keep sowing; and
- Give.
Personal growth is a way of life – we don’t arrive at a predetermined point and declare “I’ve made it!”. For inspiration, look no further than the journey of the Sun around the Milky Way. As the planets in the solar system oscillate around the Sun, the Sun itself is moving at a speed of 200-220 km per second around the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way in its turn is moving towards the closest galaxy, Andromeda. At 4.5 billion years old, our Sun still keeps up with its motion. We have a lot to live up to! I hope the 6 steps outlined above helps you in your journey of personal growth!
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