59 Seconds shows you several self-improvement hacks, grounded in the science of psychology, which you can use to improve your mindset, happiness and life in less than a minute.
Richard Wiseman isn’t your average researcher. The English psychologist has a Youtube channel with over 2 million subscribers about magic, is the only professor of Public Understanding of Psychology and created an app that helps you influence your dreams.
He loves to debunk paranormal phenomenons and has published over ten books. He’s also one of the few sources where you can learn something faster than on Four Minute Books, thanks to his 59 Seconds concept, which also gave name to this book.
Most self-improvement books lay out big plans and long journeys of transformation. Richard thinks there’s no need for that, when there’s so much you can do that takes less than a minute.
Here are 3 lessons from 59 Seconds to improve your life quickly:
- Ask yourself what you want your speaker to say at yourfuneral to make sure you go for your long-term goals.
- When you have a brilliant thought, jump right into executingit and skip the brainstorming.
- Whenever you point out a flaw in someone, use “but” tosmooth out the negative.
Ready to improve your life in three ways in just three minutes each? Let’s look at some 59 second hacks!
Lesson 1: Think about your own eulogy to align your actions with your long-term goals.
One of the most popular techniques in self-improvement is visualizing your goals. You sit down, close your eyes, and imagine yourself achieving your dreams, as well as doing the things necessary to get there. I’ve done it for a while as part of my Miracle Morning and found it to be helpful.
However, there’s also some opposing evidence to this with some studies finding people tend to work less for their goals if they visualize them.
One thing that’s timelessly been proven to work is this: having a step-by-step plan. When Richard examined the New Year’s resolutions of 5,000 people, he found that planning and breaking down goals made all the difference.
But to do that, you first have to know what your high-level goals even are. A great 59-second exercise to get clarity on that is to just think about your own eulogy. What do you want the speaker to say about you at your funeral? If you want to be thorough, you can even write it down.
Similar to the funeral test, this’ll show you what’s really important to you and help you align your daily actions with your biggest dreams.
Lesson 2: Skip the brainstorming and go right from eureka to execution.
You know what ruins a great idea? Thinking about how to implement it. Brainstorming is supposedly this creative process, but it really suppresses ideas, because it creates delay and friction between having an idea and getting to work.
This is especially true for groups, where people often refrain from even voicing their ideas, because they fear the judgment of their peers. But don’t lie to yourself, you can just as well spend forever in “brainstorming hell” all by yourself – I know I have.
Instead of procrastinating by deliberating, what if you went immediately from distracted to doing, from eureka to execution?
Salvador Dalí had the perfect technique for doing so: He sat in a chair, holding a heavy key right above an upside down plate on the floor, waiting until he dosed off. The second he did, the key’d slip out of his hands, hit the plate and wake him up with a loud noise. Right on the verge between sleep and consciousness, he’d instantly start sketching the images in his mind.
This is called a hypnagogic nap, and the same principles apply any time you’re distracted and let your subconscious go to work. Right when you have a brilliant insight, drop everything and start executing it.
This’ll save you plenty of planning time and make you loads more productive, keeping the ideas flowing as you need them.
Lesson 3: Use “but” every time you point out something negative in another person.
When following couples around for a year to determine what makes some relationships successful while others break, researchers Sandra Murray and John Holmes found one word to be particularly useful: “but.”
Imagine you make your sweetie dinner, she twists her mouth upon first bite, grins and says: “You’re such a horrible cook!”
Supposedly cute, but still stings, right?
Now, imagine instead, she’d say: “You’re such a horrible cook…but at least you’re funny!”
Feels entirely different, doesn’t it? That’s because using “but” after any negative statement allows you to smooth out the minus with a plus, get the other person to focus on the upside and view your relationship in a different light.
However, it’s probably a good idea to extend this practice beyond your significant other and adopt it in any relationship, as I can easily see this greatly improve our communication with co-workers, family and friends.
My personal take-aways
This was refreshing! Interestingly, a topic that makes for so many bad blog posts (“10 Confidence Hacks To Make Yourself Look Better In Front Of Your Boss”) can actually be engaging, helpful and properly argued for, if given the right amount of time. By not rushing this out the door and giving us his ideas in book-form, Richard has done the self-improvement community a great service. Thanks for that. It allows us to get some quick, yet still efficient wins. Which one will you get next?
The Book in Three Sentences
Many people are interested in self-help because it offers quick and easy solutions to various issues in their lives.
The problem is most self-help techniques are ineffective.
The most effective techniques come straight from the scientific community.
The Five Big Ideas
“When people can afford the necessities in life, an increase in income does not result in a significantly happier life”.
“To encourage people to do more of something they enjoy, try presenting them with the occasional small surprise reward after they have completed the activity, or praise the fruits of their labour”.
“To increase the likelihood of someone liking you, get them to do you a favour”.
“Fantasizing about your perfect world may make you feel better but is unlikely to help transform your dreams into reality”.
“Some research suggests that eating more slowly helps people eat less, perhaps because it fools our brains into thinking that we’ve eaten more, and allows extra time for the body to digest food”.
59 Seconds Summary
“Happiness doesn’t just flow from success, it actually causes it”.
“When people can afford the necessities in life, an increase in income does not result in a significantly happier life”.
“Materialism takes root in early childhood, and is mainly driven by low self-esteem”.
“Want to buy happiness? Then spend your hard-earned cash on experiences”.
“When it comes to happiness, remember that it is experiences that represent really good value for money”.
“If you want to cheer yourself up, behave like a happy person”.
“To maximize happiness, choose intentional over circumstantial change”.
“If you set children an activity they enjoy and reward them for doing it, the reward reduces the enjoyment and demotivates them”.
“To encourage people to do more of something they enjoy, try presenting them with the occasional small surprise reward after they have completed the activity, or praise the fruits of their labour”.
“It seems that presenting weaknesses early is seen as a sign of openness”.
“From assessing the effects of a bad-hair day to performing badly in a group discussion, those who feel embarrassed are convinced that their mistakes are far more noticeable than they actually are. Why? It seems we focus on our own looks and behaviour more than others, and so are likely to overestimate their impact”.
“If you want to increase your chances of making a good impression in a meeting, sit towards the middle of the table”.
“To increase the likelihood of someone liking you, get them to do you a favour”.
“When you gossip about another person, listeners unconsciously associate you with the characteristics you are describing, ultimately leading to those characteristics being ‘transferred’ to you”.
“We like people who are like us, and find them far more persuasive than others”.
“The more people who are around when a person is apparently in need of assistance, the lower the likelihood of any one person actually helping”.
“Favours have their strongest effect when they occur between people who don’t know each other very well, and when they are small but thoughtful”.
“Fantasizing about your perfect world may make you feel better but is unlikely to help transform your dreams into reality”.
“Some research suggests that eating more slowly helps people eat less, perhaps because it fools our brains into thinking that we’ve eaten more, and allows extra time for the body to digest food”.
“If you want to reduce your drinking, stay away from short, wide glasses, and stick to tall, narrow ones”.
“Research shows that just placing food or drink out of sight or moving it a few metres away can have a big effect on consumption”.
“To cut intake, make sure that tempting foods are out of sight, and in a place that is difficult to access, such as a top cupboard or basement”.
“People eat significantly more when they are distracted at mealtimes and therefore not paying attention to their food”.
“Try cutting down on your eating by replacing your crockery and cutlery”.
“Research conducted by the Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Health Research suggests that making a note of how much you eat can help you lose weight”.
“Research conducted by Charles Abraham and Paschal Sheeran has shown that just a few moments thinking about how much you will regret not going to the gym will help motivate you to climb off the couch and onto an exercise bike”.
“Christopher Peterson from the University of Michigan believes encouraging people to consider how they would like to be remembered after their death has various motivational benefits, including helping them to identify their long-term goals, and assess the degree to which they are progressing towards making those goals a reality”.
“To prime your mind into thinking creatively, spend a few moments describing a typical musician or artist. List their behaviours, lifestyle and appearance”.
“According to work conducted by psychologist Stephen Worchel from the University of Hawaii at Hilo, biscuits taken from a jar that is almost empty taste significantly better than identical cookies taken from a full jar”.
“To help promote the chances of a successful date, choose an activity that is likely to get the heart racing”.
“The theory is that your date will attribute their racing heart to you, rather than the activity, convincing themselves you have that special something”.
“The results revealed that just a few minutes focusing on the benefits that flowed from the seemingly hurtful experience helped participants deal with the anger and upset caused by the situation. They felt significantly more forgiving towards those who had hurt them, and were less likely to seek revenge or avoid them”.
“Surrounding yourself with objects that remind you of your partner is good for your relationship”.
“People are far more likely to agree to a big request if they have already agreed to a small one”.
“When making straightforward decisions, stick with the conscious mind by thinking about the pros and cons and assessing the situation in a rational, level-headed way. However, for more complex choices, try giving your conscious mind a rest and letting your unconscious work”.
“Research shows that when most people look back on their lives, they tend to regret things they didn’t do”.
“To help spot possible shifts, try establishing what researchers have referred to as an ‘honest baseline’. Before asking questions that are likely to elicit deceptive answers, start with those that are far more likely to make the person respond in an honest way. During these initial answers, develop an understanding of how they behave when they are telling the truth by looking at their body language and listening to the words they say. Then, during the answers to the trickier questions, watch out for the behavioural shifts outlined above”.
“Research shows that people have a strong tendency to underestimate how long a project will take, and that people working in groups are especially likely to have unrealistic expectations”.
“It seems that to get an accurate estimate of the time needed to complete a project, you need to look at how long it took to finish broadly similar projects in the past”.
“Those who carried out the mental unpacking produced estimates that proved far more accurate than other participants”.
“Research shows that people with surnames beginning with a letter towards the start of the alphabet are more successful in life than those with names towards the end”.
Buy The Book: 59 Seconds
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