Motivational psychology literature is packed with great tips for improving motivation and sustaining effort during demanding exam time and many other activities that require sustained attention. Interestingly literature on startup analytics are also concerned with how individual founders build and maintain motivation, especially during tough times. In recent decades analysts have focused on refining and indexing some of the factors that help improve mental health and agility which are of great value in any settings, especially during tough university years, exam time and business endeavors. French scientists have addressed these topics from an interesting angle, namely, is mental agility trainable. that is, can a set of strategies be deployed to improve mental agility. Their research findings are very promising and are briefly highlighted here.
Writing in the context of business activities and mental training D’Intino, Goldsby, Houghton and Neck (2007) demonstrate that focusing and composing cognitive and behavioral activities can be effectively trained and deployed. Research findings of these authors demonstrate that composing oneself toward specific objectives, such as a business endeavor consist of a trainable sets of cognitive and behavioral strategies. According to these authors these strategies are generally clustered into three categories, namely, (1) behaviour-focused strategies, (2) natural reward strategies, and (3) constructive thought pattern strategies.
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Behaviour focused strategies are all about goal setting and changing behaviors to achieve goals. The initial steps in this process involve self-observation and recording of ineffective behaviors, that is, behaviors that do not comply with the goals. One strategy here is to make a list of all ineffective behaviors detrimental to achieving objectives and then using notes, screensaver, posters and reminders to constantly monitor current behavior against the desired behavioral goals.
The second main strategy is all about reward while striving toward objectives. Natural reward strategies cluster into two types of reward strategies. These are creating as many pleasant features into daily routines as possible and making monotonous activities challenging by introducing enjoyable activities into routine tasks. Making sure to expand constructive thoughts and enhancing optimism while working toward objective are essential to sustaining effort. Constructive thought patterns involves developing strategies for disposing of negative thoughts. These strategy also works to better focus on positive performance-rewarding thoughts.
The overall message that comes across from a reading of D’Intino and colleagues’ article (2007) is to create as much logical-optimism as possible. Logical-optimism is precisely all about reducing unnecessary, detrimental thought patterns that work against objectives. One of the most important aspects of these researchers’ finings is certainly that higher level of optimism exists in many successful people. This optimism is not to be confused with over-optimism. In fact over-optimism and illusion of control have to be carefully examined and redirected toward logical-optimism to more effectively move toward objectives.
Work of D’Intino et.al., can be found in the Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies.
D’Intino, R.S. Goldsby, MG., Houghton, JD and CP. Neck (2007). Self-Leadership: A Process for Entrepreneurial Success. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies; 2007; 13, 4, 105-120