Motivation is something that a lot of people, including myself, lack. It doesn’t come easy and it is something that can hold us back from achieving our true potential. I am often in awe of the few students at university who sit at the front of the lecture theatre, record all the lectures, attend all the tutorials, and have their assignments finished a week early. But how do they do it and how do I become just as motivated as them? It’s that time of semester where I should be working on assignments but I just can’t seem to motivate myself to do some work. So in the name of self interest, I asked my friends what motivates them and here I have comprised a list of their responses.... Read More

Do you ever walk down the street and wonder about all the people walking past you? Why are they all here and where have they come from? What is their life story? I often do. I try to figure people out in my head; what makes them tick? Each person is different and that’s what makes it exciting. Thinking about other people and watching them live their lives is something i do to escape from the reality of my own life. I use it as a technique to unwind and release myself from anything that troubles my mind. Occupying my mind with something totally unrelated to my own life, is surprisingly refreshing. But why?... Read More

A mental health charity, called Mind, has released a statement claiming that our goals for the New Year could actually do us more harm than good. How could that possibly be the case? Setting goals are a good thing, right? According to Mind, it depends on what we make our new years resolutions about. There are a lot of different types of goals such as those that focus on physical things or goals that aim for personal development. Have you ever wondered why making your goals have made you feel worse than you felt before they made them? Perhaps you have been focusing on the wrong type of goals.... Read More

Since the stockmarket began crashing and people starting stressing about the world financial crisis; it has made me think about the position of money in our lives and how it has become such a driving force for us all. But are we really striving for something that will end up making us happier? Or do we just keep on wanting more and more, waiting for it to make us more satisfied with our lives, only to find that it just never comes despite there being a considerable amount of money in our banks? So does money really make us happy or are we all just being fooled by this motivation to want more and more.... Read More

Are you addicted to chocolate? New research conducted at the University of Exeter has found that cravings for chocolate can be literally walked off. Research has already established the benefits of exercise on cravings for nicotine and drugs, but now they have found that exercise can help reduce cravings for chocolcate.... Read More

It’s getting closer to my end of semester exams and i know that i need to start studying.  But it’s a lot harder than it sounds. With almost three weeks to go before my first exam, i’m finding it hard to sit and start learning my notes.  I’ve become the ultimate procrastinator.  I became curious about procrastination and what leads people to do it, and what can prevent it….So i decided to leave my study for another day and to look into the topic in more detail. I found this funny video on procrastination….... Read More

A lot of us have many goals that we want to achieve in life. We seem to be good at deciding what it is we want to achieve but a lot of us have trouble creating an action plan, or turning our goals into behaviour.  According to Gollwitzer, creating goals involves two stages. The first is the deliberation phase that involves deciding what our goals are and exactly what it is we want to achieve. Second is the implementation stage where we create a plan on how to execute our goal.  According to Gollwitzer, the way to translante our goals or thoughts into behaviour is by focusing on the implementation stage.  This is because during the deliberation phase, we are open to different alternatives or strategies that deter us from executing our goals.  What we need to do is to execute one goal and stick with one strategy, rather than going for many goals.  The best way to do this is by creating an implementation intention.  This is a step by step plan on how to execute the goal. It specifically sets out that when X happens you will do Y, so that it becomes an automatic process.  For example, when the sun comes up, you will go for a 20 min run, when you get home from school you will study for 2 hours, after dinner you will sit down and organise your next day. These implementation intentions allow us to pick our target goal and helps us to become oblivious to other goals or strategies… we become numb to our thoughts, desires or temptations that contradict our goal.... Read More