One take-away I really liked about The Replacing Guilt Sequence was the idea that—instead of choosing between actions, you should think about the world-state that each action results in, then choose which of those world-states that you like more. But that’s just me, and your mind probably reacts a bit differently.
For the situation in which you find yourself—in which you don’t really know what you want to do. You just want to do something, I’d recommend the lessons from this post from the sequence.
It seems to me that the listless guilt usually stems from not doing anything in particular. I’m not sure how to remove that feeling of guilt in people who aren’t doing anything in particular. But if they shift the guilt to being guilty about not doing one thing in particular, then I have some tools that might help.
I’d definitely recommend the sequence as a whole! Different parts resonate for different people. My personal recommendation for OP would be Enjoying the feeling of agency.
Yeah, so you wouldn’t say something like “I want to run”, or “I should get some exercise”. You would say “If I go for a run, then I will likely feel refreshed and would increase the probability that my overall health increases over the long-run. Possibly causing me to live longer, and certainly increasing my future life-satisfaction. At the cost of moderate exhaustion in the near-term.” then you compare the result which that action would cause to the results which alternative actions cause, choose the most favorable world-state, and perform the action which causes that world state to occur.
One take-away I really liked about The Replacing Guilt Sequence was the idea that—instead of choosing between actions, you should think about the world-state that each action results in, then choose which of those world-states that you like more. But that’s just me, and your mind probably reacts a bit differently.
For the situation in which you find yourself—in which you don’t really know what you want to do. You just want to do something, I’d recommend the lessons from this post from the sequence.
I’d definitely recommend the sequence as a whole! Different parts resonate for different people. My personal recommendation for OP would be Enjoying the feeling of agency.
The world-state idea is interesting, like the shift in perception is to make the options salient (and therefore more likely to be taken).
Yeah, so you wouldn’t say something like “I want to run”, or “I should get some exercise”. You would say “If I go for a run, then I will likely feel refreshed and would increase the probability that my overall health increases over the long-run. Possibly causing me to live longer, and certainly increasing my future life-satisfaction. At the cost of moderate exhaustion in the near-term.” then you compare the result which that action would cause to the results which alternative actions cause, choose the most favorable world-state, and perform the action which causes that world state to occur.