Our overconfidence increases especially when we receive assistance from others immediately as we perform a task or when we receive help by default, without having to ask for it. In other words, we can reduce the danger of feeling overconfident when we receive help from others by taking a short pause before receiving help, or by attempting the task without any help first, then asking for help if needed.

In an experiment, people were divided into three groups. Group One was asked to solve trivia questions completely on their own; Group Two received help where they were always given the first letter of correct answers for every question; Group Three received help as well but only after 7 seconds since each question was presented. After the three groups completed the trivia, they were asked to predict what percentage of questions they would answer correctly if they were given a similar set of questions without any help.

The results showed that groups that received help became more overconfident that they would correctly answer more questions on their own than Group One that received no help at all. However, Group Three that was given a short delay before receiving help predicted a lower percentage of correct answers compared to Group Two that received help without any delay. In other words, having a short pause before receiving help reduced their overconfidence.

In another experiment, people who had to click the button “HINT” in order to receive help became less overconfident than those who received help without having to click the button.

Life is full of tasks, activities and problems that require us to seek help from others. Unfortunately, we often become overconfident in our own abilities when we receive help, making us less effective. However, when we give ourselves a short delay before receiving help or when we attempt the task before receiving help can reduce overconfidence, helping us to be more effective.

Be quick to listen to others, but slow to speak or act especially when we receive help from others. This will keep our overconfidence down and help us remain humble and effective in our pursuits.

Fisher, M., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2021). Harder than you think: How outside assistance leads to overconfidence. Psychological Science, 32(4), 598-610.

The research reanalysed the data from a previous study that found the harmful effects of TV exposure on attention (Christakis et al., 2004), and found that this finding is not supported by more reliable statistical methods. For example, other factors such as family income, parents' highest level of education, and the child's energy levels and the ability to regulate attention were included in the analyses. Also, missing data were estimated and included in the analyses rather than removing them. Other variations in the methods yielded a total of 848 different ways of analysing the data, among which only 166 resulted in a significant relationship between TV exposure and attention problems. This shows that there is not enough evidence to conclude that TV watching causes attention problems.

McBee, Matthew T., Rebecca J. Brand, and Wallace E. Dixon Jr. "Challenging the Link Between Early Childhood Television Exposure and Later Attention Problems: A Multiverse Approach." Psychological Science 32, no. 4 (2021): 496-518.

In an experiment, people were divided into two groups. Group One was given difficult multiple questions, after which they were given 5 euros as a bonus for their performance no matter what they actually answered correctly. Group One was also told that another participant who was paired with them in the experiment did not receive the bonus. This was done so that Group One could feel the fear of being envied by the other participant. Group Two was also given 5 euros as a bonus but was also told that another participant did receive the bonus as well. After this, both groups were given another set of seven multiple choice questions, but this time, a preprogrammed computer robot, which was described as another participant in the experiment, sent a message asking for their help with each of the seven questions. Both groups could either help the other participant by sharing their answer to each question, say that they do not know the answer, or decide not to help at all.

The results showed that Group One that was made to feel the fear of being envied by the other participant, helped the other participant more than Group Two.

When we feel the fear of being envied by others after achieving more successes than others, we tend to spend more effort to help them to maintain better relationships with them. When we need a boost in our motivation to work to help others, we can think about our current successes that we have achieved, and see that others might be envious of our achievements. This fear of being envied by others will give us a motivational boost to work harder to help others more.

Van de Ven, Niels, Marcel Zeelenberg, and Rik Pieters. "Warding off the evil eye: When the fear of being envied increases prosocial behavior." Psychological Science 21, no. 11 (2010): 1671-1677.

In an experiment, people were divided into three groups. Group One was shown the action related words including “action”, “go”, “fast” and “run” for 52 milliseconds each,  which is too fast for most people to even realise that those words were shown. Group Two was shown inaction related words including “sleep”, “slow”, “passive” and “stop”, while Group Three was shown words that do not exist such as “tcaoin” and “pslee”.  Next, all groups were given a task whereby a string of four letters were shown for three quarters of a second (750 milliseconds), and they had to correctly guess whether another letter was part of the string of four letters that were shown previously. For example, XHGT is shown for 750 milliseconds. Then letter G is shown next. People had to correctly indicate whether G was indeed a part of the four letter string. This task was repeated 32 times. Throughout this experiment, people’s shortened cardiac preejection period was measured, which is the time the clean, oxygenated blood sits in the heart before being pumped out to the rest of the body. This is a direct measurement of how much effort we are putting to carry out a task. The shorter the prevention period, the more effort we are expending.

The results show that Group One that was shown action related words completed the task fastest and spent the most amount of effort, while Group Two that was shown inaction related words completed the task slowest and spent the least amount of effort.

It’s amazing that we put more effort in a task when we are exposed to action related words so fast that we do not even recognise them. In other words, certain words like “action”, “go” fast” and “run” can make us work harder while other words like “sleep”, “slow” can make us lazy.

Indeed, words can change our motivation. So surround yourself with action related words when performing a task to increase your level of effort and motivation.

Gendolla, Guido HE, and Nicolas Silvestrini. "The implicit “go” masked action cues directly mobilize mental effort." Psychological Science 21, no. 10 (2010): 1389-1393.

In an experiment, 36 people were divided into three groups. Group One used handwriting to learn Arabic letters and words; Group Two used typing a keyboard to learn; Group Three used visual learning by matching letters and words on a screen. Finally, all three groups were given an identical test to evaluate how much they memorised letters and words.

The results showed that Group One that used their hand to write and produce letters and words themselves enabled them to learn more effectively than simply pressing a key on the keyboard or simply learning by looking at them.

We can be more effective at learning by actively using handwriting. Use a pen on a paper or a tablet when studying literacy. This will help you learn faster and more effectively.

Wiley, Robert W., and Brenda Rapp. "The Effects of Handwriting Experience on Literacy Learning." Psychological Science 32, no. 7 (2021): 1086-1103.

In an experiment, people were given stress on either day one or day two by making them prepare and deliver a speech on why they are the best candidate for a job in front of two judges who remained unresponsive throughout the speech. To further increase stress, they were also asked to calculate and speak out the answers to subtraction questions for five minutes in front of the judges. The participants’ saliva samples were taken at various times throughout the experiment, and indeed their cortisol levels increased from 25 minutes after doing the speech and calculation tasks. 40 minutes after these tasks, people were given a task where they could choose to do either a more difficult task or an easier task.

The results showed that after experiencing stress, people chose the easier task more frequently. Stress makes us want to avoid tasks that require more effort. This shows that in order to nurture and maintain high levels of motivation, we need to be better at managing our stress, and nurturing our mental health.

Bogdanov, Mario, Jonas P. Nitschke, Sophia LoParco, Jennifer A. Bartz, and A. Ross Otto. "Acute Psychosocial Stress Increases Cognitive-Effort Avoidance." Psychological Science(2021): 09567976211005465.

A survey of 150 professors from a large public univeristy in a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) course measured their beliefs about whether intelligence can increase over time (e.g., “To be honest, students have a certain amount of intelligence, and they really can’t do much to change it."). The survey data was matched with 15,466 students' course grades.

The analyses revealed that students, who were taught by professors with a growth mindset, had higher grades than those who were taught by professors with the belief that intelligence is fixed and cannot increase over time. Also, students of a minority race such as Black, Latino or Native American had much lower course grades compared to White or Asian students when they were taught by professors who held the belief that intelligence is fixed and cannot increase over time. In other words, when professors hold a growth mindset, not only do students' motivation and performance increase, the difference in academic performance between minority and majority racial groups becomes much smaller.

When we become leaders, managers, mentors or instructors, the belief we hold about whether our intelligence can be nurtured can significantly affect the motivation and performance of our followers or students. As students, we should seek out teachers who believe that our intelligence and abilities can grow in order for us to maintain high levels of motivation and performance.

Canning, Elizabeth A., Katherine Muenks, Dorainne J. Green, and Mary C. Murphy. "STEM faculty who believe ability is fixed have larger racial achievement gaps and inspire less student motivation in their classes." Science advances 5, no. 2 (2019): eaau4734.

The researchers collected 136 peer-reviewed journal articles, 11 doctoral theses, and 2 unpublished datasets which collectively examined 23,414 children (10,937 bilinguals and 12,477 monolinguals).

The analyses found that learning a second language does not increase cognitive abilities when taking into account the children’s socioeconomic factors such as their parents’ income and education. Also, published articles have a greater bias in their results as many studies that report a strong positive effect of learning a second language on cognitive abilities were found to have more imprecise results. After adjusting for this publication bias, learning a second language did not increase cognitive abilities.

Learning a new language certainly has its benefits but evidence suggests that we cannot conclude that learning a new language improves our cognitive abilities.

Lowe, Cassandra J., Isu Cho, Samantha F. Goldsmith, and J. Bruce Morton. "The Bilingual Advantage in Children’s Executive Functioning Is Not Related to Language Status: A Meta-Analytic Review." Psychological Science 32, no. 7 (2021): 1115-1146.

The research surveyed 454 people over five days, and asked them to report whether they had compared themselves with another person and whether they saw themselves to be worse, similar or better than the other person. The participants also answered how much motivated they felt to improve themselves, and how much positive and negative emotions they felt.

The results show that comparing ourself with others who are more successful than us can boost our motivation and effort, but at the expense of greater negative emotions. Also, comparing ourself with those who are extremely better than us backfires and damages our motivation.

The key to increasing and sustaining our motivation is to be inspired by others who are moderately more successful than us. But don’t compare ourself with those who are extremely successful as this will take away our motivation. Having the humility to count others more significant than us will give us an effective dose of motivation and effort.

Diel, Kathi, Sonja Grelle, and Wilhelm Hofmann. "A motivational framework of social comparison." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2021).

When all students submitted their assignment, the results showed that Group One that was encouraged to set a self-transcendent goal performed better than Group Two. More importantly, students in Group One who were also given the note that encouraged them to work to develop skills that can improve the lives of other people scored the highest marks for the assignment. In other words, people who set a transcendent goal perform best when their social environment encourages them to work to improve the lives of other people.

Setting a higher purpose can help us work harder but  ensuring that the people around us encourage and challenge us to make a difference in the world is also critical for sustaining our motivation and performance. Use your gift to serve others, and surround yourself with people who will challenge you to server others. This will help sustain your motivation.

Reeves, Stephanie L., Marlone D. Henderson, Geoffrey L. Cohen, Rebecca R. Steingut, Quinn Hirschi, and David S. Yeager. "Psychological affordances help explain where a self-transcendent purpose intervention improves performance." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2020).

In an experiment, people were divided into two groups. Both groups were asked to do a task of moving disks placed in a peg to one of the other two pegs. The disks were arranged in the order of size with the largest disk on the bottom and the smallest on the top and the rule is to move one disk at a time but never place a larger disk on top of a smaller disk. After completing the task, they were asked to use hand gestures to explain how they solved the task. Next both groups were asked to do the same task again. Here, Group One was given a different set of disks where the smallest disk was the heaviest disk that required two hands to move it while the largest disk was the lightest disk. Group Two was given the same disks as before.

The results showed that Group One that was given a different set of disks solved the task faster when they used more two-hand gestures when explaining the task than those who used more one-hand gestures. In other words, our hand gestures improve our performance in a task when the gestures are compatible with the task.

Use your hand gestures when you explain or present your ideas or when you are simulating something in your mind to practise a task, actively use hand gestures. This will help improve your performance in the same task.

Beilock, Sian L., and Susan Goldin-Meadow. "Gesture changes thought by grounding it in action." Psychological science 21, no. 11 (2010): 1605-1610.

In a field study, 5740 students who were enrolled in an online course completed an essay writing assignment, and assessed three other students’ essays.

Students who assessed very high quality essays of other students were less likely to complete the course than those who assessed lower quality essays. Being exposed to peer excellence discouraged them to continue with the course. 

The research suggests that when you are exposed to excellence by your peers, you should not think of your peer as a typical example, but rather a very unusual, exceptional case. This can prevent you from feeling discouraged by your peer’s achievement and believing that you are not capable of achieving the same level of performance.

So focus your attention on your own work, taking confidence in your own capabilities, rather than comparing yourself with someone else. Indeed, envy rots the bones, and jealousy kills your self-worth. 

Rogers, Todd, and Avi Feller. "Discouraged by peer excellence: Exposure to exemplary peer performance causes quitting." Psychological science 27, no. 3 (2016): 365-374.

In an experiment, people were randomly divided into two groups. Group One read an article that explained that we can develop our own interests that can change over time. The emphasis was that we can develop our own passion that we choose to pursue. Group Two read an article that explained that we are born with certain interests that are stable over time. The emphasis was that we need to find our hidden passion that we were born with. Next, both groups watched a video on black holes, and only the people who found black holes to be fascinating and important were asked to continue with the experiment.

Finally, both groups were given a very challenging technical article about black holes, and were asked whether they thought that black holes are fascinating and important. Group One with the belief that passion can be developed remained highly interested about black holes even after reading a very difficult article. Group Two lost their interest in black holes after reading the difficult article. 

If you believe that you need to find your interests and passion that are hidden within you and that interests are fixed rather than malleable, you tend to believe that you will have limitless motivation and strength to do anything if only there is passion. With this belief, when a difficulty strikes, you are more likely lose interest, thinking that this may not have been your “real” passion. But if you believe that you can develop interests of your own choice, you are more able to protect your passion when you face a difficulty.

To improve grit, don’t find your passion but rather develop your passion. 

O’Keefe, Paul A., Carol S. Dweck, and Gregory M. Walton. "Implicit theories of interest: Finding your passion or developing it?." Psychological Science 29, no. 10 (2018): 1653-1664.

In an experiment, people were divided into two groups. Group One was presented with two puzzles side by side on the same page. They were told that the two puzzles were required for two different experiments. The two puzzles were separated by a vertical line in the middle, and had two different background colours to make the puzzles seem like two separate tasks. The aim was to make the Group One to feel like they were multitasking. Group Two was also presented with the same two puzzles but they were told that they were required for a single experiment. The two puzzles were not separated by a vertical line and both had the same background colour in order to make them feel like they are working on a single task.

Group One that was made to feel like they were multitasking performed better and longer than Group Two that was made to feel like they were completing a single task.

We can apply this whenever we are working on a task. For example, when you are writing a report, you can think of it as doing a single task of writing a report or as doing multiple tasks including reading, summarising, brainstorming, structuring arguments etc. This perception that you are indeed multitasking enables you to focus more on the task and achieve better outcomes.

Tricking your mind that the task you are performing involves multitasking can help increase your focus and effort on the task. 

Srna, Shalena, Rom Y. Schrift, and Gal Zauberman. "The illusion of multitasking and its positive effect on performance." Psychological Science 29, no. 12 (2018): 1942-1955.

Their experiment recruited people who were struggling to save money, control their temper, lose weight or find a job. They were asked to write their advice on saving money, controlling their temper etc which was to be shared with others who are struggling with the goal, and to read the written advice given by experts. Next they were asked to choose which of the two activities made them feel more motivated to pursue their goal. Compared to reading experts’ advice, the act of giving advice to others increased the confidence in their own ability to achieve the goal, which in turn, increased their motivation.

Try to keep a notebook that records all the advice you could give someone in different domains where you want to improve further. This will boost your confidence that will enable you to work harder. So give, and the strength will be given to you. 

Eskreis-Winkler, Lauren, Ayelet Fishbach, and Angela L. Duckworth. "Dear Abby: Should I give advice or receive it?." Psychological science 29, no. 11 (2018): 1797-1806.

The research surveyed people about their different goals like improving health, saving money, learning something new etc. Next the survey asked for their immediate rewards like how enjoyable and engaging the pursuit of goal is, and their future rewards like how useful and important their goal is.

The more people thought about their immediate rewards of pursuing a goal, the more successful and persistent they have been working toward the goal. But thinking about future rewards did not help much. 

When you have big dreams that you want to achieve, try to focus your mind on how fun and enjoyable the process is (immediate rewards) rather than focusing on how important your dreams are (delayed rewards). For example, think about how much you enjoy a workout, eating vegetables, or reading a textbook rather than how important becoming healthy or successful is.

Focusing on the immediate rewards over delayed rewards will give you stronger fuel. Do not be anxious about tomorrow. We are a mist that appears for a little time then vanishes. So find the joy in what you do now. 

Woolley, Kaitlin, and Ayelet Fishbach. "Immediate rewards predict adherence to long-term goals." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 43, no. 2 (2017): 151-162.

In an experiment, people who have just achieved a goal were randomly divided into two groups. Group One was asked to think about achieving their goal as having completed a journey whereas Group Two was asked to think about achieving their goal as having reached a destination.

Group One that was asked to use a journey metaphor exercised more effort in behaviours that helped to achieve the goal than the second group that used a destination metaphor.

After achieving your goal of losing weight or getting the academic grade you always wanted, you may have fallen back to gaining the weight you lost or getting a lower grade in the next exam. When you think of achieving a goal as reaching the end of a destination, you are more likely to think of the present success and less likely to reflect on your personal growth. This is not ideal for sustaining your effort after having achieved a goal. Instead, think of achieving a goal as completing a path or a journey, a part of the process or a stepping stone, and this will help you to reflect on how much you have grown, learnt and changed during the journey. You will also reflect on all the actions that helped you to achieve the goal. These thoughts will help you continue to work hard and not fall back after achieving the goal.

To get all the mental “juices” out of achieving a goal, think of achieving the goal as completing a journey. When you reach a goal, don’t think it’s the end. Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you! 

Huang, Szu-Chi, and Jennifer Aaker. "It’s the journey, not the destination: How metaphor drives growth after goal attainment." Journal of personality and social psychology 117, no. 4 (2019): 697.

In an experiment, people were divided into two groups. Group One was asked to imagine that they had just moved to a new apartment for the first time in 9 years. Group Two was asked to imagine that they just moved to a new apartment for the 9th time in 9 years.

Group One that was asked to imagine that this is a new beginning for them was more motivated to achieve their personal goal than the second group. 

People are more likely to start a new goal when it’s the beginning of the new year, the first day of Spring or summer holidays, or the first time to move into a new apartment. This is because we are more likely to detach our current self from our imperfections, mistakes and failures of the past, and feel more confident to achieve a new goal. We can use this to our advantage. Before we explore how we can sustain effort to better achieve our goals, we first need to muster the strength to set a goal by creating a sense of new beginning in our life. Put off your old self with all of your past imperfections, and put on the new self. 

Dai, Hengchen, Katherine L. Milkman, and Jason Riis. "Put your imperfections behind you: Temporal landmarks spur goal initiation when they signal new beginnings." Psychological science 26, no. 12 (2015): 1927-1936.

In an experiment, people were divided into two groups. Group One was asked to think about how to make the world a better place. They were presented with survey findings that most students are motivated to gain skills that can benefit others, and were asked to write about how learning can help them make a positive impact on other people. Group Two was asked to write about how high school was different from middle school.

Later, the first group that was asked to write about goals that benefit others performed much better in academic tests than Group Two. Also, people who previously had a bad academic performance benefited significantly more from the exercise of writing about goals that benefit others. 

If you feel frustrated about not having the motivation or the energy to keep working on achieving your goal, redefine your goal to be about helping others and making a positive impact on the world. For example, if your goal was to get a better grade, redefine the goal to "learn to make a positive contribution to the world".

Rather than trying to achieve greater success in life, make your goal about improving the lives of others. When you switch your mindset to focus on serving the interests of others and to “love your neighbour as yourself” through your work, you will experience the power of your effort increasing.

Yeager, David S., et al. "Boring but important: A self-transcendent purpose for learning fosters academic self-regulation." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 107.4 (2014): 559.

In an experiment, children were divided into three groups. Group One was asked to think about and pretend to be like a hero who works really hard. Group Two was asked to think about their own thoughts and feelings. Group Three was asked to think about themselves as a third person.

The results showed that Group One that pretended to be a hero increased their grit the most when working on a long and boring task. The research explains that self distancing by pretending to be our personal hero can help us identify with our hero’s powerful features and characteristics, imitating their power and strength.

Some of us might rely on God’s power and strength and others might rely on their father or mother, a great historical heroic figure. Indeed, science tells us that if we lay down our old self, and put on a new self that is in the likeliness of our hero by acting like our hero, pretending to be a hero who is greater than us, we can temporarily extract the power and strength of our hero, and use them to overcome major challenges. 

Pretend that you are more powerful and strong like your hero to distance yourself from the problems you face. This will give your mind the power and strength of your hero, and help you focus on achieving your goals with more grit. 

Who is your personal hero that you want to imitate?

White, R. E., Prager, E. O., Schaefer, C., Kross, E., Duckworth, A. L., & Carlson, S. M. (2017). The “Batman Effect”: Improving perseverance in young children. Child development, 88(5), 1563-1571.