You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day.
I'm your host, Elise Hu.
We are continuing to share a handful of talks, conversations and podcast episodes from the TED Archive that we hope will spark some inspiration in all of us as we think about the end of the year.
For me, the new year is always a time where I think back on some past mistakes, the hopes I had for the year that was and what panned out and what didn't.
It's an interesting question of what might be different next year, and it's always a slightly annoying, if slightly necessary, cycle of emotions to go through.
So, to have a little fun with these very real human topics, we're doing something different.
We are bringing you three beloved ted ed lessons, adapted for podcasts, to help us think through this cycle of reflection and maybe prompt some action.
We start with how to lovingly overcome our mistakes.
People often describe failure as a teachable moment, a necessary stumble on our way to improvement.
But learning from our mistakes isn't always easy, especially when those failures are demoralizing or overwhelming.
So what prevents us from turning our mistakes into mastery?
In a 2019 study, over 400 participants were enlisted to learn a mysterious, invented language.
Individuals were asked about three pairs of runes.
For example, which of these two characters represents an animal?
Then, after a brief break, they were asked about the same rune pairs with questions flipped.
As in, which of these two runes represents a non-living object?
But this game had a secret.
The subject's answers in round one determined the rune's meanings in round two.
In the first round, participants either had all their answers marked as correct, no matter what, or they were forced to fail every question.
This meant that at the break, every participant had the same amount of information.
And in round two, they were playing for real.
But despite this even playing field, the successful participants from round one rose to the top of the ranks, while those cast as failures kept well failing.
People often describe failure as a teachable moment, a necessary stumble on our way to improvement.
But learning from our mistakes isn't always easy, especially when those failures are demoralizing, overwhelming or just downright confusing.
So what exactly prevents us from turning our mistakes into mastery?
Perhaps the most obvious hurdle to learning from failure is how painful it can be.
People generally want to think of themselves as capable and competent, and experiencing failure threatens that self-image.
In a survey following a replication of the RUNES study, participants in the failure group indicated much lower levels of self-confidence after participating.
It's tempting to dismiss this pain as a temporary setback, but some studies have found that when people feel demoralized or incompetent, their brains often stop processing new information.
This suggests that if a threat to your self-esteem is large enough, it can undermine your ability to learn.
However, your tolerance for failure also depends on your relationship with the task at hand.
In a study from 2011, researchers surveyed a group of American students enrolled in introductory and advanced French courses.
These students completed a questionnaire asking what kind of teacher they preferred.
One who emphasized their strengths and successes, or one who highlighted their mistakes and corrected their weaknesses?
In general, responses showed that, while beginner students sought positive reinforcement, advanced students were more eager for critical feedback.
Researchers have theorized a handful of explanations for these results.
Having just started out, beginners are still determining if they enjoy learning French and if they want to continue studying.
So they might crave praise as a way to stay motivated.
On the other hand, the advanced students are already invested, so they may want to improve their skills as efficiently as possible.
The process of gaining expertise also comes with its fair share of failure, so the advanced students may have built a higher tolerance for making mistakes.
But whether you're an expert or a novice, it's usually much more straightforward to learn from your successes than your failures.
For example, imagine getting your grade back on an exam. aced it.
You could reasonably assume you made good choices around when, what and how much to study and you can replicate those decisions for the next test.
But if you failed, it could be for any number of reasons.
Maybe you didn't study enough.
Maybe you studied the wrong information.
Or maybe you did everything right and the test covered things you shouldn't have been expected to know.
In cases like this, it's unclear exactly what went wrong, making it difficult to learn how to improve.
Wanting to learn from our failures is completely natural, and there's a lot to gain by being resilient and cultivating a growth mindset.
But fixating on your failures can make it easy to forget all your successes.
And building on what you're doing right can be more effective than focusing on what.
That TED-Ed lesson was directed by Louise Stockler and narrated by Alexandra Panzer.
It was originally released in October 2023.
Everything our bodies do, whether physical or mental, uses energy.
In this next TED-Ed lesson, we explore the psychology of decision fatigue and ways we can avoid it.
What kinds of choices lead us to this state?
And what can we do to fight fatigue?
That's coming up right after a short break.
In a 2011 study, researchers followed a group of judges deciding whether or not to offer imprisoned individuals a chance at parole.
Logically, one might expect things like an imprisoned person's crime, existing sentence and current behavior to be the primary considerations.
But while those details were duly examined, one variable had a remarkably large impact.
The time of day.
Imprisoned.
People who met with the board in the morning were far more likely to receive parole than those whose cases were reviewed in the afternoon, even if their crimes and sentences were practically identical.
This finding might seem strange, but the researchers' explanation was simple.
In the afternoon, the judges were likely exhausted.
Specifically, they were experiencing decision fatigue.
This kind of cognitive exhaustion occurs after a period of extended decision making, and it can make people more impulsive and less confident while making choices.
The dangers of decision fatigue are clear in high-stakes scenarios like this study, but it can have a serious impact on our day-to-day lives as well.
So what kinds of choices lead us to this state, and what can we do to fight fatigue?
Everything our bodies do, whether physical or mental, uses energy.
But while it's unclear exactly what resources are depleted during mental strain, studies have found many individuals seem to have a daily threshold for making decisions.
And once that threshold is met, most people make the conscious choice to take it easy and save serious thinking about any new decisions for another day.
How quickly you reach this threshold depends on several variables, including the frequency, complexity and novelty of the decisions you have to make.
For example, choosing what to eat for breakfast isn't very taxing.
Not only is this decision limited by what's available, it's also a choice you expect to make once a day, with fairly low stakes.
And even when you're not quite sure what to eat, the time between this minor decision and the next one should give you ample room to recover whatever cognitive energy you expend.
But let's imagine something much trickier.
For example, your car suddenly breaks down and you need to replace it right away.
This is an unexpected, complicated decision with serious consequences.
In this case, there are countless options to choose from, and you won't find them all in one place.
To make the optimal choice, you'll need to do hours of thoughtful research to consider the various pros and cons.
And since this is a decision you don't often make, you'll also have to identify what considerations are most important.
The time pressure can add additional stress, both during the decision-making process and afterwards, as you expend more energy wondering if you would have made a different decision with more time.
After just a single decision of this magnitude, most people would have already reached their decision-making threshold.
But in professions where individuals need to make multiple high-stakes decisions every day, decision fatigue can be much more dangerous.
Judges like those in the 2011 study often encounter difficult decisions back to back with no time to recover.
Many researchers are especially concerned about decision fatigue in medicine.
Doctors often work long shifts full of life or death decisions, and some studies have found that medical workers are much more likely to make critical mistakes when working extended shifts.
Addressing these issues requires institutional changes, but there are much more direct ways most of us can avoid fatigue in our daily lives.
One simple strategy is to make fewer daily decisions, tackling your to-do list over multiple days or even removing some rote decisions from your day altogether.
It's also typically less draining to offer advice on a hard decision than it is to make that choice yourself.
So it can be helpful to imagine your decisions as someone else's before considering how the consequences impact you specifically.
Finally, it's essential to remember that not every choice is equally important.
And learning how to relax about the small stuff can help you save energy for the decisions that truly matter.
That was directed by Jolene Tan, narrated by Alexandra Panzer, with music from Jeremy Lim.
It was originally released in November 2023.
Motivation is key to sticking to any resolution or practice, and yet motivation is complicated.
Psychologists define motivation as the desire to initiate and maintain a particular behavior.
But sometimes no matter how passionate you are about a goal or a.
In this next and last TED-Ed lesson of today's episode, we explore the question of why motivation is so fickle.
What does and doesn't contribute to our drive to do things?
That's coming up right after the break.
You've always aspired to be a professional artist.
At last, this dream may become a reality and you're creating a portfolio to submit to art programs.
But as the application deadline looms, you suddenly find yourself unmotivated and avoiding the canvas altogether.
Why does motivation seem so fickle?
And what even is it in the first place?
Psychologists define motivation as the desire or impetus to initiate and maintain a particular behavior.
In other words, it's the energy that drives you to do something.
And knowing the source of that drive is particularly important when it comes to understanding how to maintain it.
These motivational forces generally fall into two broad categories, intrinsic and extrinsic.
Intrinsic motivation is involved when you experience an activity as an end in itself.
Take a hobby like playing video games.
The experience largely explains the desire to do it.
Performing tasks that feel right in the moment or that you find meaningful, interesting or satisfying are driven by intrinsic motivation.
Extrinsic motivation, on the other hand, refers to pursuing a task as a means to an end.
While few would consider going to the dentist an enjoyable activity, you're often motivated by the outcome of having clean, healthy teeth.
Other examples of extrinsic motivation include completing a task to receive some sort of reward, whether it's praise, power or money.
Notably, these rewards tend to come later, like receiving a bonus at the end of a quarter or winning a competition after months of training.
While extrinsic rewards like getting paid may seem appealing, their effectiveness can be surprisingly short-lived.
For example, a 2017 study found that those who were highly focused on the outcomes of their New Year's resolutions or driven by extrinsic motivation weren't the most likely to stick to them.
What did predict persistence, however, was how much a person enjoyed pursuing their goals.
In other words, you're more likely to maintain an exercise routine if you take classes you enjoy, rather than just those that build your biceps.
Years of psychology research have shown that high levels of intrinsic motivation for school, a job or an exercise class are more likely to keep you engaged in the long run.
Day-to-day actions though, are rarely either exclusively intrinsically or extrinsically motivated.
Studying for a history exam, for example, can be intrinsically motivated if you're curious about the culture of ancient Egypt.
But extrinsic motivators may also be at play as you aim to get a good grade or feel pressure from family members to do well in school.
But having multiple motivators isn't always better.
One study of military cadets found that those who were driven both by intrinsic motivators like self-improvement and extrinsic motivators like the outcome of getting a good job were overall less motivated than cadets driven by just one of these factors.
As a result, these cadets performed worse and were less likely to graduate.
Psychologists call this phenomenon the over-justification effect the idea that additional extrinsic motivators can actually muddy the waters when you already have the intrinsic drive to do something.
But this is only a problem if you already find a task motivating.
When you're faced with an activity you find tedious or uninteresting, adding extrinsic rewards can be beneficial.
In this way, extrinsic motivators can provide sufficient justification.
While you may never enjoy doing the laundry, it may feel less daunting if you get praise from a loved one or even promise yourself that you'll watch your favorite TV show when you're done folding.
Motivation is complicated and sometimes, no matter how passionate you are about a goal or hobby, finding the motivation to actually do it can be difficult.
But there are things you can do to increase your drive, even when it feels impossible.
Focus on building intrinsic motivation by making the task more fun in the moment.
Asking a friend to join you or simply putting on your favorite playlist can give you the boost to get started and stick with your goals for the long haul.
And that TED-Ed lesson was directed by Magali Garcia, narrated by Alexandra Panzer, music by Adam Alexander Bam Bam Wolfgang.
It was originally released in January 2024.
And that's it for today.
TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective.
This talk was fact-checked by the TED Research Team and produced and edited by our team Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little and Tansika Sangmarnivong.
This episode was mixed by Lucy Little.
Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Balarezo.
I'm Elise Hu.
I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed.
Thanks for listening.
