Student Project: "Hacking Your Brain" to Exit Your Comfort Zone!

Edie Abraham-Macht

Today, I’m thrilled to spotlight another starred project by Saira Kazmi, a student in the Peak Performance course. For her project, Saira successfully formed and tracked her progress on a new habit—running outside every morning, first thing in the morning—in just two weeks!

 

For her project, Saira artfully applied psychologically validated strategies she learned in Peak Performance—such as a growth mindset, the Piers Steel equation, and positive reinforcement—to help her achieve a goal that she was also intrinsically motivated to pursue. Saira’s project proves that no matter how passionate we are about a practice—in her case, exercising out in nature—we still need to build the necessary skills to help us transfer that passion into action.

Something I especially love about Saira’s project is that although she made significant progress towards forming a new habit, she acknowledges that she will need to do ongoing work to keep it up)! For this reason, in addition to tracking the habit itself, Saira implemented tangible metrics like post-run journaling and recording changes in her mental and physical states to prove to her future self that, although meeting her goal every single day will be a challenge, it’s a challenge well worth rising to!

Saira’s eloquent, beautifully organized presentation will give you the extra motivational push you need to form a new healthy habit of your own, and the psychological knowledge to make it stick!