“Influence: the psychology of persuasion” has some useful ideas on identity formation too. In particular, the observation that your brain is looking for explanations for your own actions. When you do X it’s likely to use “I’m the kind of person who does X” only if it can’t find some strong external reason for you to have done X. The stronger the external motivation, the weaker the influence on your identity.
I think this is another reason the 2-minute approach is likely to be effective. The 2-minute version not contributing significantly to the outcome isn’t either a bug or irrelevant: it’s a feature.
It’s denying your brain the outcome-based explanation, leaving it with the identity-building explanation.
I like that explanation. My approval is not enough to vindicate it, but it’s elegant: you do something so obviously useless than your brain needs to find a reason for you to do it, and so it updates on you liking and doing this kind of things regularly.
It’s a good book.
“Influence: the psychology of persuasion” has some useful ideas on identity formation too. In particular, the observation that your brain is looking for explanations for your own actions. When you do X it’s likely to use “I’m the kind of person who does X” only if it can’t find some strong external reason for you to have done X. The stronger the external motivation, the weaker the influence on your identity.
I think this is another reason the 2-minute approach is likely to be effective. The 2-minute version not contributing significantly to the outcome isn’t either a bug or irrelevant: it’s a feature.
It’s denying your brain the outcome-based explanation, leaving it with the identity-building explanation.
I like that explanation. My approval is not enough to vindicate it, but it’s elegant: you do something so obviously useless than your brain needs to find a reason for you to do it, and so it updates on you liking and doing this kind of things regularly.
Thanks for the other book recommendation!