Transcripts
Slideshow – Are you in control? When we think about the future, we can think either short or long term. Short-term goals are things like ‘I’d like to save enough to go on holiday in the summer’, or ‘I want to get fit’. Long-term goals are things like ‘I want to go to a good university’, ‘I’d like to start a family’ or ‘I want to qualify as a doctor’. Research shows that people who can think long term are more successful in achieving their goals. But how can we measure this? One way is the marshmallow test. A child is put in a room with a marshmallow. She is told: ‘Go ahead, eat the marshmallow. But if you can wait for 15 minutes, you can have two.’ Can you guess what usually happens? The marshmallow test shows how much self-control someone has. Or doesn’t have. Children and adults aren’t that different. Another way to think about your self-control is to ask yourself: ‘When do I do the jobs I dislike, like the washing-up?’ ‘Do I do them straight after dinner? Or do I do other things first? The things I enjoy, like watching TV?’ How often do you say, ‘I’ll just watch this, and then I’ll do the washing-up’? Sometimes we ignore tasks or problems altogether. We try our hardest not to think about them. We call this ‘sticking your head in the sand’. Got a deadline coming up? You ask yourself: ‘When should I start my assignment?’ Often, you answer: ‘Well, there’s no hurry. The deadline’s not till next week. I think I’ll go shopping’. But, at the back of your mind, you know it’s time to start work. The Pomodoro Technique was invented to overcome this problem. Many successful people find it very helpful. This is how is works. First, set a stopwatch or kitchen timer to 25 minutes. That’s the longest most people can concentrate. Now, start working on your assignment. If the phone rings, ignore it. If you feel like checking your emails, don’t. Be strict with yourself. For 25 minutes, do nothing but work. But when the alarm rings, it’s time for a break. Wherever you are: stop! Take five minutes off. Return that call, or check your emails. Go for a walk, or make a hot drink. When the alarm rings, it’s back to business for 25 minutes. And so on, throughout the day. Every four rounds you should take a longer break. The technique can be hard to start with, but most people get there in the end. And you’ll be amazed how much you can do in a day! Planning ahead is also an important part of being successful. Generally, animals don’t plan ahead much. Squirrels hide food to eat in the winter. But this is instinct more than planning. On the other hand, chimpanzees can think ahead. If you offer a chimp a banana, he will eat it. Obviously. Chimps love bananas. But what if you offered him a choice between one banana and a tool to get lots of bananas? A stick to reach fruit from higher in the trees, for example. Which would he choose?
The chimp chooses the stick. The chimp has self-control. He can look into the long-term future and imagine a better result. In this case, lots of bananas. What a clever chimp! How about humans? When we are younger we don’t think too far ahead. We are too busy having fun. When we are older we need to look further ahead. One way to do this is to decide on some ‘desired outcomes’. Is our desired outcome to be rich, to have a family, a fast car, travel round the world? All of these? Or none? Once we have decided on our desired outcome, we can look into the future and imagine how success feels. Isn’t it great? (This idea comes from neuro-linguistic programming.) And then we can decide how we are going to reach our goal. It’s not going to be easy. Are we willing to take risks? Are we motivated enough? Are we good enough? What obstacles might come our way? Can we control our fear of failure? Or should we just watch another episode of our favourite TV series?
English for the 21st
Century • Transcripts
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