Thanks for the elaboration. Yes, I see what you mean by brute force, and I also see how my post might be read to be advising an approach similar to what you described. I don’t know whether a pragmatic approach like that is a good developmental stage to go through? Maybe for a bit, but I’m not sure.
If the post didn’t shed any light on how a brute force approach is not the only option and not necessarily the best, I think it’s because I forgot that someone might approach motivation in that way. Only reading your description brought it back into my mind.
Go back five to six years I did have a phase when I was very big on “discipline”, I certainly tried to muster willpower to make myself do things—but it was never that successful or systematized. Around the time I did begin making more serious efforts to be productive I was already engaged with CFAR, reading mindingourway.com, and generally being coached into an approach of non-willpower-reliance and non-self-coercion. Yet it must have been long enough ago that I think I’d forgotten that there’s a very a natural approach to motivation where you pile on productivity tricks in a not quite sustainable/healthy way.
So, thanks for pointing that all out. That’s a good reminder.
For the public record, I think ideal motivation is attained when you have something resembling a state of harmony in your mind and with yourself. You might take actions to make actions seem more attractive and/or do things to decrease temptation, but it isn’t coercive or depleting. This is difficult to achieve and requires a lot introspection, self-awareness, resolving inner conflicts, etc., etc. If you’re doing it right, you’re not suffering. You don’t crash. It doesn’t feel like you’re coercing yourself.
It’s possible I should have stated something like that in the post itself.
I still think there’s cruxes there that you’re not seeing. My approach just accentuated the problems of looking at things at the level of a motivation system, they’re still there even if you have the idea of harmony… they stick until you realize that the harmony is the thing, and the motivation system analogy is just crudely approximating that. (of course, I’m sure the harmony is just crudely approximating something even more fundamental). Note that this is the same thing that stuck out to me during your ACT presentation—missing that the harmony was the thing, not the ability to take actions.
I don’t think there’s much much more of a gap that can be bridged here, at least not with my skills. I won’t be replying anymore but I appreciate you engaging :).
Thanks for the elaboration. Yes, I see what you mean by brute force, and I also see how my post might be read to be advising an approach similar to what you described. I don’t know whether a pragmatic approach like that is a good developmental stage to go through? Maybe for a bit, but I’m not sure.
If the post didn’t shed any light on how a brute force approach is not the only option and not necessarily the best, I think it’s because I forgot that someone might approach motivation in that way. Only reading your description brought it back into my mind.
Go back five to six years I did have a phase when I was very big on “discipline”, I certainly tried to muster willpower to make myself do things—but it was never that successful or systematized. Around the time I did begin making more serious efforts to be productive I was already engaged with CFAR, reading mindingourway.com, and generally being coached into an approach of non-willpower-reliance and non-self-coercion. Yet it must have been long enough ago that I think I’d forgotten that there’s a very a natural approach to motivation where you pile on productivity tricks in a not quite sustainable/healthy way.
So, thanks for pointing that all out. That’s a good reminder.
For the public record, I think ideal motivation is attained when you have something resembling a state of harmony in your mind and with yourself. You might take actions to make actions seem more attractive and/or do things to decrease temptation, but it isn’t coercive or depleting. This is difficult to achieve and requires a lot introspection, self-awareness, resolving inner conflicts, etc., etc. If you’re doing it right, you’re not suffering. You don’t crash. It doesn’t feel like you’re coercing yourself.
It’s possible I should have stated something like that in the post itself.
I still think there’s cruxes there that you’re not seeing. My approach just accentuated the problems of looking at things at the level of a motivation system, they’re still there even if you have the idea of harmony… they stick until you realize that the harmony is the thing, and the motivation system analogy is just crudely approximating that. (of course, I’m sure the harmony is just crudely approximating something even more fundamental). Note that this is the same thing that stuck out to me during your ACT presentation—missing that the harmony was the thing, not the ability to take actions.
I don’t think there’s much much more of a gap that can be bridged here, at least not with my skills. I won’t be replying anymore but I appreciate you engaging :).
No worries! Maybe we can get to the bottom of it another time, maybe another place. :)