【英语语言学习】守护好自己的目标

 Everyone, please think of your biggest personal goal. For real -- you can take a second. You've got to feel this to learn it. Take a few seconds and think of your personal biggest goal, okay? Imagine deciding right now that you're going to do it. Imagine telling someone that you meet today what you're going to do. Imagine their congratulations and their high image of you. Doesn't it feel good to say it out loud? Don't you feel one step closer already, like it's already becoming part of your identity?

 

Well, bad news: you should have kept your mouth shut, because that good feeling now will make you less likely to do it. Repeated psychology¹ tests have proven that telling someone your goal makes it less likely to happen. Any time you have a goal, there are some steps that need to be done, some work that needs to be done in order to achieve it. Ideally, you would not be satisfied until you had actually done the work. But when you tell someone your goal and they acknowledge² it, psychologists have found that it's called a "social reality." The mind is kind of tricked into feeling that it's already done. And then, because you felt that satisfaction, you're less motivated to do the actual hard work necessary. (Laughter) So this goes against the conventional wisdom that we should tell our friends our goals, right -- so they hold us to it.

 

So, let's look at the proof. 1926, Kurt Lewin, founder³ of social psychology, called this "substitution." 1933, Vera Mahler found, when it was acknowledged⁴ by others, it felt real in the mind. 1982, Peter Gollwitzer wrote a whole book about this and in 2009, he did some new tests that were published.

 

It goes like this: 163 people across four separate tests -- everyone wrote down their personal goal. Then half of them announced their commitment to this goal to the room, and half didn't. Then everyone was given 45 minutes of work that would directly lead them towards their goal, but they were told that they could stop at any time. Now, those who kept their mouths shut worked the entire 45 minutes, on average, and when asked afterwards, said that they felt that they had a long way to go still to achieve their goal. But those who had announced it quit after only 33 minutes, on average, and when asked afterwards, said that they felt much closer to achieving their goal.

 

So, if this is true, what can we do? Well, you could resist the temptation to announce your goal. You can delay the gratification that the social acknowledgement brings, and you can understand that your mind mistakes the talking for the doing. But if you do need to talk about something, you can state it in a way that gives you no satisfaction, such as, "I really want to run this marathon, so I need to train five times a week and kick my ass⁵ if I don't, okay?"

 

So audience, next time you're tempted⁶ to tell someone your goal, what will you say? (Silence) Exactly, well done.

1 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

2 acknowledge   

vt.承认...的权威，告知，收到，报偿

参考例句：

• With so much evidence against him he had to acknowledge his error.在这么多的证据面前，他不得不承认错误。
• It is ungracious of me not to acknowledge your help.你大力帮助而我尚未表示谢意，十分失礼。

3 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

4 acknowledged   

adj.公认的v.承认( acknowledge的过去式和过去分词 )；鸣谢；对…打招呼；告知已收到

参考例句：

• He acknowledged publicly that he might have made a mistake. 他当众承认自己可能犯了个错误。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The police acknowledged that three police vehicles were damaged. 警方承认有三辆警车被毁。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 ass   

n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人

参考例句：

• He is not an ass as they make him.他不象大家猜想的那样笨。
• An ass endures his burden but not more than his burden.驴能负重但不能超过它能力所负担的。

6 tempted   

v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词）

参考例句：

• I was sorely tempted to complain, but I didn't. 我极想发牢骚，但还是没开口。
• I was tempted by the dessert menu. 甜食菜单馋得我垂涎欲滴。