A Powerful Mindhack That You Can Use to Study or Work Less in Your Leisure

What if I told you that you could have more fun, learn quicker, and become perceived as smarter by your peers by doing one simple thing consistently?

– You’d probably say:

“Ludvig, stop trying to sell me on quick-fixes, because there are none!”

And you’d be right for the majority of the time. But in this case you’d actually be wrong, because what I’m about to tell you actually works, and it costs nothing on your part except a few seconds of discomfort.

So, what is this unconventional tip that I speak of?

It is to get buy-in from yourself as soon as possible in any given situation.

What is Buy-in?

To buy-in is to become immersed in something as a result of having invested time, resources, or thoughts into it. The more you buy into something the more innately interested you’ll be in it.

I still don’t get it. Give me some more concrete examples!

Right, try these on for size.

You have buy-in when you:

• Watch several episodes of a TV series and find yourself liking it, expecting the next episode to be just as cool as the previous ones were.
• Start regularly checking a blog or website for updates that aren’t related to the things you really should be doing.
• Implicitly trust what someone else says without being critical of it.

You have bought into a thing when you’ve crossed the threshold of no longer doubting its usefulness or truthfulness.

As a result of having bought into something you are much more receptive and attentive to the thing or activity because your brain has now identified it as something that you are interested in.

How to Use it to Your Advantage

Now that you know what the concept of buy-in means, you’re probably wondering:

What the !!?#  am I going to use this for?

You’re going to use it to become interested in things you probably wouldn’t be interested in otherwise.

Getting personal buy-in is a very powerful mindhack that you can use anytime you want, and it is particularly useful in class or at work.

Here’s how you’d do it: in order to trick yourself into becoming interested during class or at work, you need to do one very important thing:

‒ You need to ask a question or speak up in public. Even if you don’t initially feel like it.

Actually, it is especially important that you do this when you feel bored or disinterested in the topic at hand. That’s when you really need to use this mindhack.

Personally, I use this trick all the time to get buy-in from myself. Over the past year I’ve seen some pretty good results in school despite not spending much time studying in my leisure.

The reason for this was because I’ve been very active during class, and the reason why I was always active in class was because I forced myself to abide by this one rule:

‒ I  always ask a question or make an assertion in front of everyone else within 10 minutes of starting. No exceptions.

Why Does it Work?

Seeing as how you’re reading posts on LifeHack, I figure you’re a person who definitely wants to know why getting yourself to buy into a thing works as efficiently as it does.

There are at least three major reasons for why this mindhack works:

1. By speaking up in front of a group of other people, you raise your adrenaline levels, which in turn infuses glucose into your bloodstream and makes you feel alert.
2. When you ask a question or make an assertion, you are committing to the interaction. This makes your brain think “well, I wouldn’t have asked asked unless I was interested, so I guess I’m interested…” and as a result you suddenly feel interested. It works like magic every time!
3. When you ask a question or make an assertion in front of other people, you are making yourself accountable, and because you will want to make sure that you do not screw up and lose face in front of other people, you will pay more attention to reduce the risk of that happening.

If you still don’t believe this could work due to how simple it is, I strongly suggest you try it out tomorrow at work in a meeting or in school during your next class.

Tell yourself you will speak up as soon as possible upon arrival.

It doesn’t matter the least what you say, only that you say something.

It might feel scary to do at first, but I promise you: the payout is very high in relation to the price of temporary discomfort that you have to pay.

What is better?

Sitting through the meeting or class feeling comfortable, but utterly bored‒or going through a couple of seconds of discomfort to become really interested for the remainder of the time?