Determination

I just learned something that is actually pretty obvious, you just never really see it that way until you realise it. Haven't you ever wondered why you always skip doing stuff? For example, people, especially friends who aren't extremely close, always say like "we should hang out sometime", but how often does that lead to actually spending time together? The answer is implementation intention. Kind of a word-monster, especially since my native language is Finnish and while studying for entrance exams I read dozens of similar, complex-sounding scientific English terms. I'm not going to explain the theories I read since I just read them once and probably don't master them so well that I should teach them to anyone. But this one is so practical that I think I couldn't get it wrong. 

This particular example I just told to my friend when she was telling me how she just can't make herself study for the entrance exams as much as she maybe should. It is easy to recognise the goal: I need to study for the exam. However, executing that intention happens much more easily when you officially make the decision. Instead of thinking "I should study" you should think "I will study tomorrow morning after breakfast for an hour" and that way it is much more probable that you actually do it. Simple, isn't it? The way I see it, this explains a lot of my laziness. I could have been far more productive had I known I can make myself do things by making accurate decisions. Though, at times the decision of not making the decision hasn't been completely subconscious...

Executing an intention requires more than capability to do it. It is not enough if you know you can do it, you need to want it or try it. Based on what I read, these two together (capability and trying) are the key to turning the intention into action. Neither alone will be sufficient, you can want to do something so badly but the cruel truth is that if you don't know how to speak Spanish, it is impossible to read Don Quijote in Spanish no matter how much you want to. (The example stolen directly from the book, I don't own the rights to this creative thought.) 

So, to sum up this mini-lecture of social psychology, you, my friend, are the key to success. The title of this post is where it all starts. You will never hang out with that friend unless you make a plan. Or, you might, if it should happen that you both end up stuck in an elevator at the same time and are forced to spend time together, which isn't so probable. I don't really know if this helps anyone at all, but for me it was an eye-opener to realise how much power can one decison have.

Since I spend my time preparing for the future university studies and becoming an adult, here's a song to balance it a little bit.