In general, I like to use the stages of change model when trying to make a change. The research basically says that if people try to change when they’re ready to change, they’ll do it the first time, but if they try to change before they’re ready, it will take multiple attempts.
For this reason, I try not to set action-based new years resolution (it’d be really suspicious if all the changes I wanted to make suddenly moved into the “Action” stage on the 1st). Instead, I’ll do something like a “Theme” for the year (this year it’s “Full contact with reality” and then take stage appropriate actions for that theme (thinking and reading during contemplation, planning during preparation, creating habits during action, etc.)
MurphyJitsu is a great tool to use here. There’s a bunch of good exanations on LW, but the basic tool is to imagine you failed, ask yourself why, then patch your approach until it’s very surprising that you failed.
Learning to forgive yourself is HUGE here. Research says that people who forgive themselves for procrastinating are less likely to procrastinate in the future, and I’m pretty sure this generalizes. Expect adjustments and forgive yourself for needing to make them.
In general, I like to use the stages of change model when trying to make a change. The research basically says that if people try to change when they’re ready to change, they’ll do it the first time, but if they try to change before they’re ready, it will take multiple attempts.
Oh MAN this makes too much sense. The stuff that’s working now, I’ve tried for like a year plus with incomplete success but now it’s just working, without having to apply extra effort. Could you give a source for this?
Learning to forgive yourself is HUGE here. Research says that people who forgive themselves for procrastinating are less likely to procrastinate in the future, and I’m pretty sure this generalizes. Expect adjustments and forgive yourself for needing to make them.
Any chance I could bother you for source on this? I’d like to read more on it, also seems cool as hell.
I’ve vaguely moved towards this with issue of forgiveness/not forgiveness moving more towards: oh no, have I screwed myself into a downward spiral?? Which is mainly just because I’m not confident yet in my ability to recover from disruptions (not that I have strong evidence of it being a big problem this year but more based on outside view and past data).
MurphyJitsu is a great tool to use here. There’s a bunch of good exanations on LW, but the basic tool is to imagine you failed, ask yourself why, then patch your approach until it’s very surprising that you failed.
Thanks, forgot about this. Will try out the plan-bot
The original book on the Transtheoretical model is still my go to resource for this, It’s called “Changing for Good” by James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente. However it’s quite a commonly used model especially in the treatment of addiction, and there’s plenty of info online including wikipedia, probably webmd, etc.
That plan bot is cool but the week time frame seems like an odd choice. For many habits like new years resolution I find it takes them longer to fail then a week, So I’d recommend mentally replacing that with something like 6 months.
Didn’t realize you were the author of that post, read it a few days ago!
So what do all 5 of these oscillation patterns have in common? A lack of congruency. The tendency to ignore some needs in order to focus on others. A sense of inner conflict, instead of alignment.
In each and every case, the solution involves welcoming and acknowledging all parts of yourself, before plotting a way forward. Transitioning from forcing yourself to choosing what you want to do.
Honestly, I could do another 100 tweets on what this looks like in each case. The delicate dance of beliefs, emotions, strategies, behaviors, and tools that can be combined to internalize a new way of being.
But the start is just self acknowledgement. Letting all your feelings, values, desires in, and going from there.
This seems accurate and like my current equilibrium is great because I got lucky enough to have done a few things that ended up aligning things that previously were not aligned without me realizing it.
Do you have a way that you manually worked out your incongruencies and made them congruent? I think it might be useful if you added a hammertime style exercise for practical implementation since idea seems solid but it still seems hard to practice directly.
Great question!
A few thoughts on this:
In general, I like to use the stages of change model when trying to make a change. The research basically says that if people try to change when they’re ready to change, they’ll do it the first time, but if they try to change before they’re ready, it will take multiple attempts.
For this reason, I try not to set action-based new years resolution (it’d be really suspicious if all the changes I wanted to make suddenly moved into the “Action” stage on the 1st). Instead, I’ll do something like a “Theme” for the year (this year it’s “Full contact with reality” and then take stage appropriate actions for that theme (thinking and reading during contemplation, planning during preparation, creating habits during action, etc.)
MurphyJitsu is a great tool to use here. There’s a bunch of good exanations on LW, but the basic tool is to imagine you failed, ask yourself why, then patch your approach until it’s very surprising that you failed.
Learning to forgive yourself is HUGE here. Research says that people who forgive themselves for procrastinating are less likely to procrastinate in the future, and I’m pretty sure this generalizes. Expect adjustments and forgive yourself for needing to make them.
If you’re continually finding yourself with systems that don’t stick, IME it’s likely that you’re fundamentally motivating yourself in a coercive way. You may want to read this post and sequence to begin to reorient your motivation system to a more sustainable strategy: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ga8g4RbKc6DmqEBwD/why-productivity-systems-don-t-stick
Oh MAN this makes too much sense. The stuff that’s working now, I’ve tried for like a year plus with incomplete success but now it’s just working, without having to apply extra effort. Could you give a source for this?
Any chance I could bother you for source on this? I’d like to read more on it, also seems cool as hell.
I’ve vaguely moved towards this with issue of forgiveness/not forgiveness moving more towards: oh no, have I screwed myself into a downward spiral?? Which is mainly just because I’m not confident yet in my ability to recover from disruptions (not that I have strong evidence of it being a big problem this year but more based on outside view and past data).
Thanks, forgot about this. Will try out the plan-bot
The original book on the Transtheoretical model is still my go to resource for this, It’s called “Changing for Good” by James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente. However it’s quite a commonly used model especially in the treatment of addiction, and there’s plenty of info online including wikipedia, probably webmd, etc.
Forgiveness and procrastination: This study from Wohl et al: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886910000474
That plan bot is cool but the week time frame seems like an odd choice. For many habits like new years resolution I find it takes them longer to fail then a week, So I’d recommend mentally replacing that with something like 6 months.
Didn’t realize you were the author of that post, read it a few days ago!
This seems accurate and like my current equilibrium is great because I got lucky enough to have done a few things that ended up aligning things that previously were not aligned without me realizing it.
Do you have a way that you manually worked out your incongruencies and made them congruent? I think it might be useful if you added a hammertime style exercise for practical implementation since idea seems solid but it still seems hard to practice directly.