Are you claiming, then, to have been born without the ability to achieve any goal?
It looks to me as if pjeby and gworley are miscommunicating somehow, and this looks like where the miscommunication started. gworley, as I understand him/her, is saying not “we can’t do anything” but “there are lots of things we can’t do, even though it seems like we ought to be able to”; different things for different people.
It is true that for every achievable (i.e., achievable-by-someone) goal you have and aren’t achieving, there are other people who are achieving it or have done so. I don’t know how you think you know that those people are doing it without a workaround (not least because I don’t know exactly what you consider a “workaround”). But, in any case: it doesn’t follow that every achievable-by-someone goal you have is achievable by you, with or without workarounds. I might have the goal of running a mile in less than four minutes, or proving a mathematical theorem important enough to make me famous, or becoming President of the United States. Other people have achieved those goals. But it’s at least possible that they are out of my reach.
I might have the goal of running a mile in less than four minutes, or proving a mathematical theorem important enough to make me famous, or becoming President of the United States. Other people have achieved those goals. But it’s at least possible that they are out of my reach.
But it is not out of your reach to train to run a four minute mile, or to campaign to be the President. It is this type of behavioral goal that is under discussion; we are not talking about generalized goal-reaching ability, but establishing desired habits.
My points are that:
all of us have successfully established other habits besides the ones under discussion, without using workarounds of the type I mentioned earlier in this thread, and
beginning from a presupposition that we lack control over our behavior, irrationally limits the number of options available for a solution.
I’d go further to say that I expect most adults have had the experience of making at least one “life-changing decision” that they then executed without further external support. Actually, no, scratch that… Most people in my experience have made lots of “never again” or “always” decisions by the time they grow up, that they’ve flawlessly executed, without needing to think about it. (It’s just that many if not most of those decisions will have been really bad.)
So what I’m saying is, if you want to make some type of behavioral change, it’s more helpful to begin with the presupposition that at some point in your life you have changed at least one thing by fiat before, and then try to repeat that process. And if that doesn’t work out, to assume you’ve changed at least one thing by willpower, and apply those lessons, etc.
There has to be something you’ve done that’s worked well, IOW.
So, it’s established that human capabilities vary greatly: some people can run faster, or prove harder theorems, than others. It would therefore not be surprising if the same were true for behavioral goals, given how difficult they can (1) feel and (2) be, as measured by how many people achieve them. In fact, I think it’s obvious that there are such differences; consider, e.g., the goal “get up every morning at 6am”, and the well-established fact that there are substantial and stable differences in people’s circadian rhythms.
If all you’re arguing is that most people are somewhat capable of achieving some behavioral goals, I have no disagreement with that; nor do I see anything in what gworley has written to suggest that s/he does.
And, since (as you point out) all of us frequently achieve behavioral goals, no one is suggesting that workarounds like the ones discussed here should be, or are likely to be, applied to all such goals. Only to the ones that feel really difficult, or that people have tried and failed to achieve before—by fiat, willpower, whatever. And for those goals, the belief “I can’t control my behavior in this way without hacks” is not a “presupposition”. (It might none the less be a mistake, of course.)
And for those goals, the belief “I can’t control my behavior in this way without hacks” is not a “presupposition”. (It might none the less be a mistake, of course.)
It’s a presupposition if you’re assuming it’s true, without having tested it.
And it’s a dangerous presupposition because it rules out options that lead to an increased sense of control—and sense of control over one’s life is consistently shown to be a VERY important psychological variable for happiness, peace of mind, and motivation.
Self-fulfilling prophecies, again: presupposing lack of control leads to reduced sense of control leads to less actual control, and down the spiral goes. Presupposing greater control—or the ability to learn control—leads to increased sense of control leads to more actual control, and up the spiral goes.
This isn’t about facts, IOW, it’s about frames. I used to make the sort of arguments gworley is making, about nearly everything in my life. My wife and I would talk about trying to arrange the furniture in such a way as to thwart our tendencies to pile stuff up in high-traffic areas… instead of learning to just pick shit up.
I’ve spent most of my life trying to make things work more easily, instead of cultivating the ability to do difficult things. The problem is that it’s effectively sending a subliminal message to yourself that you can’t handle anything difficult. I was making myself weaker and weaker, when I could’ve been getting stronger.
That is my point: that the specific arguments gworley is using, even if “true”, are not useful. I was trying to point out that there are other true things that are more useful to put into your brain, if you want it to produce good results.
This is one of those glass half empty/half full things; from a purely logical perspective there’s no difference, but emotionally—and therefore behaviorally—there is.
My wife and I would talk about trying to arrange the furniture in such a way as to thwart our tendencies to pile stuff up in high-traffic areas… instead of learning to just pick shit up.
Cool! OOC—what strategies/heuristics did you implement to learn this ability?
It looks to me as if pjeby and gworley are miscommunicating somehow, and this looks like where the miscommunication started. gworley, as I understand him/her, is saying not “we can’t do anything” but “there are lots of things we can’t do, even though it seems like we ought to be able to”; different things for different people.
It is true that for every achievable (i.e., achievable-by-someone) goal you have and aren’t achieving, there are other people who are achieving it or have done so. I don’t know how you think you know that those people are doing it without a workaround (not least because I don’t know exactly what you consider a “workaround”). But, in any case: it doesn’t follow that every achievable-by-someone goal you have is achievable by you, with or without workarounds. I might have the goal of running a mile in less than four minutes, or proving a mathematical theorem important enough to make me famous, or becoming President of the United States. Other people have achieved those goals. But it’s at least possible that they are out of my reach.
But it is not out of your reach to train to run a four minute mile, or to campaign to be the President. It is this type of behavioral goal that is under discussion; we are not talking about generalized goal-reaching ability, but establishing desired habits.
My points are that:
all of us have successfully established other habits besides the ones under discussion, without using workarounds of the type I mentioned earlier in this thread, and
beginning from a presupposition that we lack control over our behavior, irrationally limits the number of options available for a solution.
I’d go further to say that I expect most adults have had the experience of making at least one “life-changing decision” that they then executed without further external support. Actually, no, scratch that… Most people in my experience have made lots of “never again” or “always” decisions by the time they grow up, that they’ve flawlessly executed, without needing to think about it. (It’s just that many if not most of those decisions will have been really bad.)
So what I’m saying is, if you want to make some type of behavioral change, it’s more helpful to begin with the presupposition that at some point in your life you have changed at least one thing by fiat before, and then try to repeat that process. And if that doesn’t work out, to assume you’ve changed at least one thing by willpower, and apply those lessons, etc.
There has to be something you’ve done that’s worked well, IOW.
So, it’s established that human capabilities vary greatly: some people can run faster, or prove harder theorems, than others. It would therefore not be surprising if the same were true for behavioral goals, given how difficult they can (1) feel and (2) be, as measured by how many people achieve them. In fact, I think it’s obvious that there are such differences; consider, e.g., the goal “get up every morning at 6am”, and the well-established fact that there are substantial and stable differences in people’s circadian rhythms.
If all you’re arguing is that most people are somewhat capable of achieving some behavioral goals, I have no disagreement with that; nor do I see anything in what gworley has written to suggest that s/he does.
And, since (as you point out) all of us frequently achieve behavioral goals, no one is suggesting that workarounds like the ones discussed here should be, or are likely to be, applied to all such goals. Only to the ones that feel really difficult, or that people have tried and failed to achieve before—by fiat, willpower, whatever. And for those goals, the belief “I can’t control my behavior in this way without hacks” is not a “presupposition”. (It might none the less be a mistake, of course.)
It’s a presupposition if you’re assuming it’s true, without having tested it.
And it’s a dangerous presupposition because it rules out options that lead to an increased sense of control—and sense of control over one’s life is consistently shown to be a VERY important psychological variable for happiness, peace of mind, and motivation.
Self-fulfilling prophecies, again: presupposing lack of control leads to reduced sense of control leads to less actual control, and down the spiral goes. Presupposing greater control—or the ability to learn control—leads to increased sense of control leads to more actual control, and up the spiral goes.
This isn’t about facts, IOW, it’s about frames. I used to make the sort of arguments gworley is making, about nearly everything in my life. My wife and I would talk about trying to arrange the furniture in such a way as to thwart our tendencies to pile stuff up in high-traffic areas… instead of learning to just pick shit up.
I’ve spent most of my life trying to make things work more easily, instead of cultivating the ability to do difficult things. The problem is that it’s effectively sending a subliminal message to yourself that you can’t handle anything difficult. I was making myself weaker and weaker, when I could’ve been getting stronger.
That is my point: that the specific arguments gworley is using, even if “true”, are not useful. I was trying to point out that there are other true things that are more useful to put into your brain, if you want it to produce good results.
This is one of those glass half empty/half full things; from a purely logical perspective there’s no difference, but emotionally—and therefore behaviorally—there is.
Cool! OOC—what strategies/heuristics did you implement to learn this ability?