CHICAGO–What is it this year? Plan to spend less. Save more. Exercise and lose weight? Travel? It’s New Year’s, and that means resolutions, nearly all of which won’t be kept. But how can you keep resolutions and really follow through on the changes you would like to make?
Here are four TED talks designed to motivate you to see your resolutions through, as assembled by Entrepreneur.com
Here is a brief overview of each:
Emily Balcetis: Why Some People Find Exercise Harder Than Others
Social psychologist Emily Balcetis points out in a thought-provoking talk why so many people never make their weight loss goals. Then they feel defeated and give up. You might think people don’t attain their ideal weight because they fail to plan and execute effective diet and exercise regimes. Or maybe it seems as though they’re too lazy and to get up off the couch and move. But Balcetis posits out that perhaps they simply harbor the wrong view of exercise. The less in shape a person is, she says, the more likely he is to perceive exercise as difficult. The trick is to change your attitude about exercise and to “keep your eyes on the prize.” Hyper focus on the goal in front of you, Balcetis suggests, not on how hard it is to achieve. Your attitude could really determine your altitude.
David Steindl-Rast: Want to Be Happy? Be Grateful
No matter who you are or where you are, everyone in the world wants the same thing: to be happy. But there’s no magic pill or foolproof recipe for happiness, and even some of the richest people often aren’t happy. In his moving speech, Catholic Benedictine monk Brother David Steindl-Rast offers a different path to happiness, one that can be patiently drawn from the simple yet potent daily practice of being grateful and sharing your gratitude with others. In his view, happiness is yours if you’re mindful in the moment and “stop, look, go.”
Carol Dweck: The Power of Believing That You Can Improve
Believe and you will achieve. It’s more than just psychobabble. In her uplifting talk, Stanford University psychology professor Carol Dweck explains that mind over matter is real and really works. Indeed we can grow our brain’s ability to learn and solve problems, Dweck says, even those that are extremely challenging for us to unravel. If you make a mistake along the way -- and we all do -- simply process it, learn from it, correct it and move on.
Angela Lee Duckworth: The Key to Success? Grit.
Grit -- the elbow grease of motivation -- is undying determination in the face of obstacles, perhaps even those intimidating resolutions we create year after year for our own good. It’s also the single personality trait psychologist Angela Lee Duckworth says separates the successful from the unsuccessful, not one’s I.Q., good looks or charm.
All of the TED Talk videos can be found here.