Have you ever found yourself attracted to someone who initially didn’t float your boat?
A recent study at the University of Texas explores the science underlying a change of heart and how perceptions of attractiveness change over time. Students were asked to rate the romantic appeal of their opposite-sex classmates. At the start of the semester the students pretty much agreed on who in their class was most desirable. When they were asked again three months later, after a semester in a small classroom setting, their judgments varied widely on who was hot and who was not.
As the students got to know each other, perceptions of “hotness” shifted. According to researchers, this gradual change in feeling occurs often.
Here is a snapshot of some of the results of one survey where 33 percent of the men and 43 percent of the women said they had fallen in love with someone they initially did not find attractive. Main explanations for this change of heart included:
“Great conversations”
“Common interests”
“Came to appreciate his/her sense of humor”
Indeed, looks aren’t everything. Audrey Hepburn said it best:
“Make-up can only make you look pretty on the outside but it doesn’t help if you’re ugly on the inside. Unless you eat the make-up.”
The next time you need a boost of creativity, whether embarking on a creative project or struggling to solve a problem big or small, try staring at something green. A granny smith, some trees, anything.
That’s what scientists in Germany had test subjects do. Two groups stared at green and white triangles respectively, then completed creativity tasks. The green group was rated as more clever, inventive and better able to solve problems than the white.
Historically, the color green has been associated with life, nature, fertility, growth and hope, so perhaps it’s no surprise that green, in some sense, inspires us. Whether the power of color is based in some innate hardwiring in our brains, or a cultural phenomenon, the reality is that color affects us.
We hear ad nauseam that practice makes perfect. And yet… Consider typing. You spend at least an hour or two typing each day. That’s 730 hours of “practice” in the last year alone. Has your typing significantly improved? Probably not.
This is because of how we learn. When acquiring a new skill, as soon as we become good enough, we turn on our inner autopilot. It’s what journalist Jonathan Foer calls the “OK plateau.” Unlike the beginning stage of learning something new, which requires a great deal of attention and conscious control, the “OK plateau” is automatic. It is coasting—the equivalent of senioritis when students don’t care about their grades because they have already been accepted into college. All they have to do to is show up.
Contrary to the 10,000-hour rule popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, if you are on the “OK plateau,” no matter how many hours you spend doing something, like typing, you won’t get better.
So how does one move the needle and push past autopilot? To answer this question, Foer studied what experts do-
1. Step Outside the Comfort Zone:
Avoid practicing what you already know how to do. True experts push past the “OK plateau” by constantly challenging themselves. As Angela Duckworth, professor of psychology and leading researcher in gritand self-control says:
“They work on weaknesses, not strengths. They’re comfortable being uncomfortable. They’re falling down a lot. They’re playing things that are too hard. They’re attempting challenges that are too high. They’re getting feedback.”
Studies show that the best figure skaters spend more time working on challenging jumps they don’t always land, versus less accomplished figure skaters who spend their time practicing jumps they do well. The best spelling bee champions spend their time learning new words instead of reviewing the words they already know.”
2. Learn from the Best:
Spend time learning about greatness from masters who excel in their field. In chess, the amount of time spent studying the games of grand masters is a better predictor of skill than sheer number of hours played. In other words, master the masters.
3. Analyze This:
In addition to working harder, work smarter. Experts use science and technology to enhance training. Consider the New Yorker article on performance improving strategies. Gold medal-winning cyclist Chris Hoy employed an army of scientists, nutritionists and engineers who wired his body with biofeedback sensors to perfect his performance. Hoy, like super stars in other fields, formulates theories, test new strategies, collects data and pays meticulous attention to details. Most importantly, he and his team learn from their failures and see it as a necessary part of the learning process.
As the article concludes:
“High performance isn’t, ultimately, about running faster, throwing harder, or leaping farther. It’s about something much simpler: getting better at getting better.”
If you want to improve your ability to read someone else’s mind, stop thinking about yourself. Research shows that engaging with fictional characters through literature and on screen is a great way to boost emotional intelligence. Stories help us better understand the inner lives of others and offer an alternative narrative to our own. As Atticus Finch, observes in To Kill a Mockingbird:
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
High-quality stories on screen or on the page requires us to stretch beyond ourselves and to imagine what it is like to be someone else. In relating to these characters and reflecting on their choices, we learn about them and, in the process, gain some insight about ourselves and the people we meet in real life.
A magnificent speechby Tom Hanks highlights how stories expand our world and stretch our minds:
That fantastic, glorious effort that goes into capturing moments in time that are real and accurate and make audience members think, “That’s like me! I wonder what I would do in those same circumstances?” As a little kid in the movie theater and as a 60-year-old man now, when I sit down in front of the screen and see it happening before me, I always ponder that question: “What would I do if I was in the circumstances of that man, that woman, that child, that android?”
Every time we read a work of literary fiction or watch a character on the screen, a little door opens within us and we get to pretend we are someone else. “Be yourself” is well-intentioned advice, but bear in mind that, at times, the best version of yourself may be when you are inspired by a character or, may I add, a spider, in a story. I just read Charlotte’s Web to my children and her dying words to Wilbur are everything:
“After all, what’s a life anyway? We’re born, we live a little, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows, anyone’s life can stand a little of that.”
The more time you spend working, the more you get done. Right? Wrong. The 60-hour work week might be the norm but that doesn’t mean it is optimal. In fact, studies showthat productivity plummets when workers put in more than 50 hours per week and falls off the cliff beyond 55 hours.
In the same way that computers become sluggish or crash when overloaded when too many applications and programs are running simultaneously, we similarly experience data overload and system failure when we spend too much time trying to get more done.
Overwork leads to burnout—that toxic trio of exhaustion, resentment and apathy.
Here are 5 ways to prevent burnout from getting the better of you:
1. Work smarter: Measure productivity in terms of results not hours logged.
2. Your plate if full: Say no to new projects. Prioritize what you want to get done and be realistic about what you can do.
3. Turn off: Don’t let work bleed into your personal life. Make the most of your “off” hours by spending time doing things you enjoy and with the people you love.
4. Get Physical: Move more. Take the stairs. Get up from your desk and walk for a few minutes at the end of each hour. You don’t need to go to a spinning class every day to get the benefits of increased movement.
5. Uni-task: Focus on one task at a time. The more your multi-task, the less you get done. Trust me on this. As a reformed multi-tasker, I assure you this works.
6. Take a break: Go for a walk around the block, take a nap, eat lunch outside the office, chat with a co-worker. If you need a boost, studies show that morning breaks are better than afternoon breaks.
