But, Eliezer… your route doesn’t work as well as you want it to. You have mentioned several times here that mental energy is a large problem for you. Pjeby has referenced Seligman and Dweck on how common your experience is for those taking routes close to yours… and your response is to elaborate your current route.
You say “I am a perfectionist and there is nothing wrong with that”, but Seligman has done a lot of fairly careful research into how that works for others, and has found that there is usually something “wrong with that”, for most of the people he studied. It’s possible that you’re different from the bulk of Seligman’s research subjects. Possible.
I may have missed something between the lines (this is a fuzzy pattern matching result)… but I think you just decided not to read up on Seligman and Dweck, and instead defended your current behaviour.
Is it worth trying something different?
PS: I’m not contradicting the obvious evidence that you’re actually a highly effective person, but your own complaint is that you often feel that you’re not effective enough.
Mental energy is (so far as I can tell) a large problem for everyone who spends a lot of time thinking. The fact that it’s a problem for Eliezer isn’t evidence that he’s doing anything wrong. If it’s more of a problem for Eliezer than for other people like him—ideally for someone exactly like him except for not thinking that failure reflects on oneself, but presumably no such person is available for comparison—then there’s evidence of a problem.
I dare say Eliezer would do well to investigate the possibility that he could be more effective by changing his attitudes. On the other hand, he would also do well to consider the possibility that those attitudes are part of what makes him effective in ways he is satisfied with. It’s not as if perfectionism obviously never has any useful consequences.
One of the really big problems I’ve found with talking about mental issues is that existing psychological terminology (both of the formal and informal kinds) is way too imprecise to have a useful function.
For example, many words have completely different meanings depending on whether you operate from a fixed or growth mindset. In the growth mindset, “perfectionism” means always striving to improve yourself, no matter how good you already are. But in the fixed mindset, perfectionism means never being good enough.
Despite the superficially-similar-sounding definitions, the way these two “algorithms feel from the inside” is radically different, with correspondingly large differences on mental and physical performance.
Only Eliezer can know for sure which algorithm he’s using… but generally speaking, people with a growth mindset aren’t worried about whether something lets them off the hook, nor considering themselves awful people if they don’t succeed. Those sound like fixed-mindset traits to me.
But in the fixed mindset, perfectionism means never being good enough.
That’s the usual definition of “perfectionism,” though I’m not sure Eliezer is using the word the same way. The word seems out of place in the growth mindset.
I’m going to disagree with the grandparent here: perfectionism obviously never has any useful consequences.
The word seems out of place in the growth mindset.
shrug. If you look, you can find growth-minded people who nonetheless describe themselves as perfectionists. It’s just that they mean it the other way, i.e., that they desire and strive for perfection, rather than feeling they have to be perfect before they can consider themselves acceptable.
But, Eliezer… your route doesn’t work as well as you want it to. You have mentioned several times here that mental energy is a large problem for you. Pjeby has referenced Seligman and Dweck on how common your experience is for those taking routes close to yours… and your response is to elaborate your current route.
You say “I am a perfectionist and there is nothing wrong with that”, but Seligman has done a lot of fairly careful research into how that works for others, and has found that there is usually something “wrong with that”, for most of the people he studied. It’s possible that you’re different from the bulk of Seligman’s research subjects. Possible.
I may have missed something between the lines (this is a fuzzy pattern matching result)… but I think you just decided not to read up on Seligman and Dweck, and instead defended your current behaviour.
Is it worth trying something different?
PS: I’m not contradicting the obvious evidence that you’re actually a highly effective person, but your own complaint is that you often feel that you’re not effective enough.
Mental energy is (so far as I can tell) a large problem for everyone who spends a lot of time thinking. The fact that it’s a problem for Eliezer isn’t evidence that he’s doing anything wrong. If it’s more of a problem for Eliezer than for other people like him—ideally for someone exactly like him except for not thinking that failure reflects on oneself, but presumably no such person is available for comparison—then there’s evidence of a problem.
I dare say Eliezer would do well to investigate the possibility that he could be more effective by changing his attitudes. On the other hand, he would also do well to consider the possibility that those attitudes are part of what makes him effective in ways he is satisfied with. It’s not as if perfectionism obviously never has any useful consequences.
One of the really big problems I’ve found with talking about mental issues is that existing psychological terminology (both of the formal and informal kinds) is way too imprecise to have a useful function.
For example, many words have completely different meanings depending on whether you operate from a fixed or growth mindset. In the growth mindset, “perfectionism” means always striving to improve yourself, no matter how good you already are. But in the fixed mindset, perfectionism means never being good enough.
Despite the superficially-similar-sounding definitions, the way these two “algorithms feel from the inside” is radically different, with correspondingly large differences on mental and physical performance.
Only Eliezer can know for sure which algorithm he’s using… but generally speaking, people with a growth mindset aren’t worried about whether something lets them off the hook, nor considering themselves awful people if they don’t succeed. Those sound like fixed-mindset traits to me.
That’s the usual definition of “perfectionism,” though I’m not sure Eliezer is using the word the same way. The word seems out of place in the growth mindset.
I’m going to disagree with the grandparent here: perfectionism obviously never has any useful consequences.
shrug. If you look, you can find growth-minded people who nonetheless describe themselves as perfectionists. It’s just that they mean it the other way, i.e., that they desire and strive for perfection, rather than feeling they have to be perfect before they can consider themselves acceptable.