This point seems very valuable and a bit hidden in the footnote. I think while the example in this post is good at illustration, it’s not good at getting people to actually apply the concept.
Thanks for the feedback. After mulling over it for a while, I think I agree. Though my thoughts on whether that’s appropriate are more complicated, and I’m not 100% I understand what you mean exactly.
Can you expand more on where you’re coming from, and what you think it’d look like to be better at the latter (either with or without sacrificing the former)?
Also, is your akrasia progress an example that came from reading this post, or something you picked up on elsewhere which happens to mirror this post? If the former, what made it click, exactly?
Also, is your akrasia progress an example that came from reading this post, or something you picked up on elsewhere which happens to mirror this post? If the former, what made it click, exactly?
Understanding cause and effect generally isn’t easy. I think I have read half of the sequence in the week beforehand. One key aspect is agency. Reading it motivated my to exert agency, reading it motivated me to look at my procrastination more as a puzzle to be solved than something that’s given.
I think the structure of what was in my mind was. “If I do X, I will likely make some mistakes → I should not do X because X is high stakes” this then lead to procrastinating X. After looking at it more explicitly I got “If I do X, I will likely make some mistakes → It completely fine to make some mistakes, mistakes just would lead to me being asked to fix them → do X”. Kinesthetically, making that shift came with some relaxation.
The sequence suggest that if I do procrastinate, then there’s likely a reason why I’m procrastinating so applying the sequence to the problem was about looking for that reason. Beforehand the procrastination was puzzling because I did have a firm belief of “X has to happen before deadline X / procrastinating it is bad”.
You yourself gave the example where your wife had to tell you “Aren’t you saying you can help other people with problems like this?” to actually apply the concepts when it matters. Michael Smith who created the CFAR curriculum in the early days once told me that the key aspect of what the 4-day CFAR workshop is about is to put people in an environment where they actually feel the agency to make changes. From that perspective, just putting a book with the workshop topics online wouldn’t do what the CFAR workshop is about.
In the introduction to your sequence you write “This sequence comprises nineteen posts, totaling approximately 70,000 words. If you want to test the water and verify that there’s real insights to be gained, try your hand at the challenges, then check the solutions.” I would hope that your goal isn’t just insights but people actually putting ideas into practice.
Long before I actually really applied NLP and hypnosis there was a time where I was reading a lot of the relevant online discussions. The first time I was actually applying something was when I was emotionally hurting because I had a crush on a girl. In the same token, it might be that someone with chronic pain feels like they need to actually apply your sequence when the time comes when they don’t have another choice.
It would be better if the sequence would succeed in people having a clear idea of how they could actually apply the concepts to their lives and then doing that.
It would be better if the sequence would succeed in people having a clear idea of how they could actually apply the concepts to their lives and then doing that.
What would that look like, to you? Last comment it sounded like you were saying “More emphasis on the concrete take home lessons rather than burying in footnotes”, but in this comment it sounds like you’re pointing more at the motivation aspect which seems quite different—and more in line with my focus. I definitely can’t pass your ITT yet.
I’ll share a little more about how I’m trying to do that, and maybe you can help me figure out how to do it better.
It comes back to our earlier discussion on expectation=intention=setpoint. Summarizing, you were pointing at the value of providing directions in helping people get from point A to point B, while I’m focused more on getting their intent set in the first place. I don’t disagree about the importance of knowing how to get from A to B, but I find that like you’re saying this time, a lot of the time motivation is limiting. If people aren’t actually aiming at point B then they won’t follow directions. If they are, then they’re likely to ask for directions as needed. The opening example of the girl in the jacuzzi illustrates this well, as my object level advice wasn’t anything her friends couldn’t have told her, but the difference is that she asked for my input and dismissed theirs.
It’s the same thing, on the meta level. Part of what I’m trying to do is motivate readers by demonstrating how solvable these things are and making more concrete and tangible that sense that more is possible (amusingly enough, the top comment chain there is about how nice it’d be to have akrasia solved), and part of what I’m trying to do is provide the compass and sextant needed to start navigating towards a solution. When you say “reading it motivated me to look at my procrastination more as a puzzle to be solved than something that’s given”, and “The sequence suggest that if I do procrastinate, then there’s likely a reason why I’m procrastinating so applying the sequence to the problem was about looking for that reason”, this is exactly the kind of thing I’m going for.
But it’s not just that. When I hurt my foot and needed the prodding to try that technique, I had some faulty presuppositions that kept me from doing that stuff by default, which is why I needed the prodding and even the “technique”. By the time I helped the kid in the fire poker situation, I had some insights which deflated some of these presuppositions, but I still had no idea how to apply any of the insights I’d learned to help this kid. Yet this lack of understanding of how to apply the insights did not stop me from behaving in accordance with my new perspective, and this new perspective brought about different results. Object level application of these insights can actually lead meta level understanding of what is being applied and why it works.
I’m aiming to directly undermine those presuppositions and begin dissolving the connective tissue that gets people stuck in the first place, by showing how things that look like “psychological problems” even in difficult or “impossible” situations turn out over and over to be disagreements propped up by unseen flinches. Like, “Maybe this problem isn’t a given”. “Maybe things ain’t as they seem. What would that be like?”. Trying to cast doubt on the pretense of certainty with which these disconnects are held together, so that when it gets to the footnote of “Maybe listen to yourself?” it doesn’t take suspending people up in the air to get through. Or having a crush on someone, or whatever.
The idea isn’t just that you turn towards existing problems as puzzles, it’s also that next time there’s something that would have gone over threshold, the idea that there are things you “can’t get yourself to do” feels less credible and less enticing, and is less likely to ensnare you. So next time it comes out as “Ugh. I hate working on patents”, naturally evokes “What’s so bad about working on patents?”, and applies the same active ingredient of “turn towards the objection” without ever needing to understand how to apply these insights to akrasia—because nothing will stick long enough to earn the diagnosis. Noticing what’s happening differently is important too because that can help us be intentional about the direction we choose to move, but it doesn’t have to lead application.
I’m not sure how to give more emphasis to things like “Actually think through whether the objections your mind comes up might have merit after all” without detracting from the emphasis on “These things which we’re so sure are intractable actually melt away when we aim true”. And for my friend, if I were to try to convey the former before the latter has sunk in, and without suspending her above concrete, she’d have concluded “Tried that, didn’t work”, and left with nothing more than immunization against the solution. If things aren’t going to come across 100% clearly, I’d rather people like her leave correct in thinking “Okay but I don’t know how to put this to use” than incorrect in thinking “I do”. Because at least the former at least leaves room for the desire to ask for directions.
Separately from how well it’s working out, does that help make more sense of the choices I’ve made in presentation?
How would you do it, from the writer’s side? What would you like to see/what would make you more likely to put things to practice, from the reader’s side? I’ve tried to write in the way that I would have liked to see as a reader, but that doesn’t necessarily match well to the actual readers.
Thanks for the feedback. After mulling over it for a while, I think I agree. Though my thoughts on whether that’s appropriate are more complicated, and I’m not 100% I understand what you mean exactly.
Can you expand more on where you’re coming from, and what you think it’d look like to be better at the latter (either with or without sacrificing the former)?
Also, is your akrasia progress an example that came from reading this post, or something you picked up on elsewhere which happens to mirror this post? If the former, what made it click, exactly?
Understanding cause and effect generally isn’t easy. I think I have read half of the sequence in the week beforehand. One key aspect is agency. Reading it motivated my to exert agency, reading it motivated me to look at my procrastination more as a puzzle to be solved than something that’s given.
I think the structure of what was in my mind was. “If I do X, I will likely make some mistakes → I should not do X because X is high stakes” this then lead to procrastinating X. After looking at it more explicitly I got “If I do X, I will likely make some mistakes → It completely fine to make some mistakes, mistakes just would lead to me being asked to fix them → do X”. Kinesthetically, making that shift came with some relaxation.
The sequence suggest that if I do procrastinate, then there’s likely a reason why I’m procrastinating so applying the sequence to the problem was about looking for that reason. Beforehand the procrastination was puzzling because I did have a firm belief of “X has to happen before deadline X / procrastinating it is bad”.
You yourself gave the example where your wife had to tell you “Aren’t you saying you can help other people with problems like this?” to actually apply the concepts when it matters. Michael Smith who created the CFAR curriculum in the early days once told me that the key aspect of what the 4-day CFAR workshop is about is to put people in an environment where they actually feel the agency to make changes. From that perspective, just putting a book with the workshop topics online wouldn’t do what the CFAR workshop is about.
In the introduction to your sequence you write “This sequence comprises nineteen posts, totaling approximately 70,000 words. If you want to test the water and verify that there’s real insights to be gained, try your hand at the challenges, then check the solutions.” I would hope that your goal isn’t just insights but people actually putting ideas into practice.
Long before I actually really applied NLP and hypnosis there was a time where I was reading a lot of the relevant online discussions. The first time I was actually applying something was when I was emotionally hurting because I had a crush on a girl. In the same token, it might be that someone with chronic pain feels like they need to actually apply your sequence when the time comes when they don’t have another choice.
It would be better if the sequence would succeed in people having a clear idea of how they could actually apply the concepts to their lives and then doing that.
Okay, cool.
What would that look like, to you? Last comment it sounded like you were saying “More emphasis on the concrete take home lessons rather than burying in footnotes”, but in this comment it sounds like you’re pointing more at the motivation aspect which seems quite different—and more in line with my focus. I definitely can’t pass your ITT yet.
I’ll share a little more about how I’m trying to do that, and maybe you can help me figure out how to do it better.
It comes back to our earlier discussion on expectation=intention=setpoint. Summarizing, you were pointing at the value of providing directions in helping people get from point A to point B, while I’m focused more on getting their intent set in the first place. I don’t disagree about the importance of knowing how to get from A to B, but I find that like you’re saying this time, a lot of the time motivation is limiting. If people aren’t actually aiming at point B then they won’t follow directions. If they are, then they’re likely to ask for directions as needed. The opening example of the girl in the jacuzzi illustrates this well, as my object level advice wasn’t anything her friends couldn’t have told her, but the difference is that she asked for my input and dismissed theirs.
It’s the same thing, on the meta level. Part of what I’m trying to do is motivate readers by demonstrating how solvable these things are and making more concrete and tangible that sense that more is possible (amusingly enough, the top comment chain there is about how nice it’d be to have akrasia solved), and part of what I’m trying to do is provide the compass and sextant needed to start navigating towards a solution. When you say “reading it motivated me to look at my procrastination more as a puzzle to be solved than something that’s given”, and “The sequence suggest that if I do procrastinate, then there’s likely a reason why I’m procrastinating so applying the sequence to the problem was about looking for that reason”, this is exactly the kind of thing I’m going for.
But it’s not just that. When I hurt my foot and needed the prodding to try that technique, I had some faulty presuppositions that kept me from doing that stuff by default, which is why I needed the prodding and even the “technique”. By the time I helped the kid in the fire poker situation, I had some insights which deflated some of these presuppositions, but I still had no idea how to apply any of the insights I’d learned to help this kid. Yet this lack of understanding of how to apply the insights did not stop me from behaving in accordance with my new perspective, and this new perspective brought about different results. Object level application of these insights can actually lead meta level understanding of what is being applied and why it works.
I’m aiming to directly undermine those presuppositions and begin dissolving the connective tissue that gets people stuck in the first place, by showing how things that look like “psychological problems” even in difficult or “impossible” situations turn out over and over to be disagreements propped up by unseen flinches. Like, “Maybe this problem isn’t a given”. “Maybe things ain’t as they seem. What would that be like?”. Trying to cast doubt on the pretense of certainty with which these disconnects are held together, so that when it gets to the footnote of “Maybe listen to yourself?” it doesn’t take suspending people up in the air to get through. Or having a crush on someone, or whatever.
The idea isn’t just that you turn towards existing problems as puzzles, it’s also that next time there’s something that would have gone over threshold, the idea that there are things you “can’t get yourself to do” feels less credible and less enticing, and is less likely to ensnare you. So next time it comes out as “Ugh. I hate working on patents”, naturally evokes “What’s so bad about working on patents?”, and applies the same active ingredient of “turn towards the objection” without ever needing to understand how to apply these insights to akrasia—because nothing will stick long enough to earn the diagnosis. Noticing what’s happening differently is important too because that can help us be intentional about the direction we choose to move, but it doesn’t have to lead application.
I’m not sure how to give more emphasis to things like “Actually think through whether the objections your mind comes up might have merit after all” without detracting from the emphasis on “These things which we’re so sure are intractable actually melt away when we aim true”. And for my friend, if I were to try to convey the former before the latter has sunk in, and without suspending her above concrete, she’d have concluded “Tried that, didn’t work”, and left with nothing more than immunization against the solution. If things aren’t going to come across 100% clearly, I’d rather people like her leave correct in thinking “Okay but I don’t know how to put this to use” than incorrect in thinking “I do”. Because at least the former at least leaves room for the desire to ask for directions.
Separately from how well it’s working out, does that help make more sense of the choices I’ve made in presentation?
How would you do it, from the writer’s side? What would you like to see/what would make you more likely to put things to practice, from the reader’s side? I’ve tried to write in the way that I would have liked to see as a reader, but that doesn’t necessarily match well to the actual readers.