VEDANTAM: I want to start by having you tell me the story of a skydiver named Luke Aikins. By reimagining the frame around a problem, she says, we can literally see the world in a new way. Psychologist Emily Balcetis at New York University is the author of "Clearer, Closer, Better: How Successful People See The World." She studies the psychological dimensions of sight and says there are ways to exploit the brain's visual system to boost motivation, achieve goals and gain perspective. My guest today says what we see affects more than just what we see. Many people say the sense of sight is their most important sense and the one they most fear losing. VEDANTAM: When most of us think of the world around us, we think about what we see. It's part of You 2.0, our annual summer series about facing life's chaos with wisdom. VEDANTAM: This week on HIDDEN BRAIN, how we can use the brain's visual system to shape our behavior. The research she put to use was not about sound but about sight.īALCETIS: A hidden secret about goal pursuit is that what we see is really tied to what we think, what we decide and what we do. Emily drew on her years of studying psychology to help her practice. But what she did have was a mental encyclopedia of psychological insights. VEDANTAM: Emily may not have been born with a gift of coordinated limbs. VEDANTAM: Her early efforts sounded a bit like the person in the audience who claps on the wrong beat. VEDANTAM: And recorded herself while she practiced. THE OUTFIELD: (Singing) I don't want to lose your love tonight.
VEDANTAM: She chose the song "Your Love" by the English band The Outfield. I wasn't invited back to the next season of play. And I pushed my own teammate out of balance when she was carrying the basketball because I tripped on my own feet. In the fourth grade, I was on a basketball team. Such coordination was not Emily's strong suit.īALCETIS: I'm very uncoordinated. You have to strike different drums at the right moment and use one foot to hit a pedal. Playing drums is like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. But besides being short on time, Emily had another thing working against her. VEDANTAM: That might seem like a modest goal. VEDANTAM: Emily decided she'd learn to play a single song.īALCETIS: I wanted to play one rock tune on drums but, like, really learn how to nail it. I needed to explicitly and intentionally carve out time to let my own brain do the thing that it wanted to do just for me. If Emily's life had been a hotel, it would have had a no vacancy sign out front.ĮMILY BALCETIS: And that's when I decided, you know what? I also need to become a drummer.īALCETIS: I needed something that was just for myself. And she had the opportunity to write a book. Her son was just a few months old and barely sleeping. She was overseeing an enormous research project. A few years ago, Emily Balcetis was fresh out of space in her life.
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