In this cases it can be helpful to imagine your current self in a bargaining game with your future selves, in a sort of prisoner’s dilema. If your current now defects, your future selves will be more prone to defecting as well. If you coordinate and resist tempation now, future resistance will be more likely. In other words, establishing a Schelling fence.
This is an interesting way of looking at it. To elaborate a bit, one day of working toward a long-term goal is essentially useless, so you will only do it if you believe that your future selves will as well. This is some of where the old “You need to believe in yourself to do it!” advice comes from. But there can be good reasons not to believe in yourself as well.
In the context of the iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma, it’s been investigated what the frequency of random errors (the decision to cooperate or defect being replaced with a random one in x% of instances) can go up to before cooperation breaks down. (I’ll try to find a citation for this later.) This seems similar, but not literally equivalent, to a question we might ask here: What frequency of random motivational lapses can be tolerated before the desire to work towards the goal at all breaks down?
Naturally, the goals that require the most trust are ones that see no benefit until the end, because they require you to trust that your future selves won’t permanently give up on the goal anywhere between now and the end to be worth working towards at all. But most long term goals aren’t really like this. They could be seen to fall on a spectrum between providing no benefit until a certain point and linear benefit the more they are worked towards with the “goal” point being arbitrary. (This is analogous to the concept of a learning curve.) Actions towards a goal may also provide an immediate benefit as well as progress toward the goal, which reduces the need to trust your future selves.
If you don’t trust your future selves very much, you can seek out “half-measure” actions that sacrifice some efficiency toward the goal for immediate benefits, but still contribute some progress toward the goal. You can to some extent set where they are along this spectrum, but you are also limited by the types of actions available to you.
This is an interesting way of looking at it. To elaborate a bit, one day of working toward a long-term goal is essentially useless, so you will only do it if you believe that your future selves will as well. This is some of where the old “You need to believe in yourself to do it!” advice comes from. But there can be good reasons not to believe in yourself as well.
In the context of the iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma, it’s been investigated what the frequency of random errors (the decision to cooperate or defect being replaced with a random one in x% of instances) can go up to before cooperation breaks down. (I’ll try to find a citation for this later.) This seems similar, but not literally equivalent, to a question we might ask here: What frequency of random motivational lapses can be tolerated before the desire to work towards the goal at all breaks down?
Naturally, the goals that require the most trust are ones that see no benefit until the end, because they require you to trust that your future selves won’t permanently give up on the goal anywhere between now and the end to be worth working towards at all. But most long term goals aren’t really like this. They could be seen to fall on a spectrum between providing no benefit until a certain point and linear benefit the more they are worked towards with the “goal” point being arbitrary. (This is analogous to the concept of a learning curve.) Actions towards a goal may also provide an immediate benefit as well as progress toward the goal, which reduces the need to trust your future selves.
If you don’t trust your future selves very much, you can seek out “half-measure” actions that sacrifice some efficiency toward the goal for immediate benefits, but still contribute some progress toward the goal. You can to some extent set where they are along this spectrum, but you are also limited by the types of actions available to you.