An important aspect of self-image is whether people consider themselves “successful” or “losers”, based on their previous successes and failures. But we have a bias here: the feeling from a successful or failed task is not proportionate to its difficulty. So people can manipulate their outcomes by only doing easy tasks, which have high success ratio. When used strategically, this can be helpful; but doing it automatically all the time is harmful. Learning new things requires trying new things, but that has a risk of failure, which can harm self-image with possible bad consequences such as learned helplessness. On the other hand, protecting self-image all the times means never learning anything. Updating means admitting you were (more) wrong. How to deal with this?
I could treat my positive self-image as a depletable resource: after repeated failures I would stop experimenting with new things and return to practicing the stuff I am successful at, until I feel good about myself again. Maybe this is a secret ingredient of practice: not only does practicing a skill make one better at the given skill, but it also makes it part of their self-image. Doing difficult exercises would be better for actually improving the skills, but doing easier (though not too easy) exercises would be better for the self-image as a skilled person.
I could try to make a self-image of “a person who tries difficult things many people would rather avoid” which could make failures less significant (actually contributing to the self-image) and successes more sweet. On the other hand, if I overdo this, I get a convenient excuse for never completing anything. Perhaps it could be balanced by measuring whether people really avoid those things I am failing at. Alternatively I could use a self-image of a person learning something, because the only way to fail at learning is to stop learning; getting an exercise wrong is a part of learning. Again, overdoing this, I get a convenient excuse for failing.
Somehow related: the line between “solving the problem” and “running away from the problem” is sometimes blurred, but the respective self-images feel very differently. What kind of a solution can I accept so that it will not feel like running away? (Changing my job, which greatly improved my life: was it running away from the problem, solving the problem, or both?) It is easy to blame the environment, but also to blame the person, even if we are the person (we model others blaming ourselves). I prefer the self-image of a problem solver (because it would prime me to solve problems, duh), but my ultimate goal is winning, not working hard.
Also I have stopped reading internet discussions where people are impolite (unfortunately, too large sections of the internet), because I realized that it harms my self-image: I started to think about myself as a person who cannot have an intelligent and polite discussion with most people. Somehow I blamed myself for evoking the responses I got online, and integrated that into a stereotypical self-image of a computer guy with low social skills. However, most offline experiences proved me wrong: with real people I am a nice person, and I can have a pleasant talk with most of them.
An important aspect of self-image is whether people consider themselves “successful” or “losers”, based on their previous successes and failures. But we have a bias here: the feeling from a successful or failed task is not proportionate to its difficulty. So people can manipulate their outcomes by only doing easy tasks, which have high success ratio. When used strategically, this can be helpful; but doing it automatically all the time is harmful. Learning new things requires trying new things, but that has a risk of failure, which can harm self-image with possible bad consequences such as learned helplessness. On the other hand, protecting self-image all the times means never learning anything. Updating means admitting you were (more) wrong. How to deal with this?
When you practice or learn, ensure that each session ends on a high note. Either push yourself to accomplish something for the first time and then stop immediately, or end with an exercise that you find difficult but now comfortably within your abilities. This is, apparently, commonly used in animal training—see the “laws of shaping”.
I suspect this works because of the peak-end rule—even if you’ve been working above your comfortable difficulty for most of the session, you’ll remember the session as if you did difficult things, and became more competent by the end. You won’t remember the session as frustrating or painful if the end is especially satisfying.
Doing difficult exercises would be better for actually improving the skills, but doing easier (though not too easy) exercises would be better for the self-image as a skilled person.
Well, if you practice in contact with other people, you can reinforce your self-image as a skilled person by doing more difficult exercises than they do. The most obvious example is actual physical exercise, like weight lifting, where the primary metric of superiority is not doing exercises more easily (other people would recognize that you’re not working hard enough,) but by doing more difficult lifts.
An important aspect of self-image is whether people consider themselves “successful” or “losers”, based on their previous successes and failures. But we have a bias here: the feeling from a successful or failed task is not proportionate to its difficulty. So people can manipulate their outcomes by only doing easy tasks, which have high success ratio. When used strategically, this can be helpful; but doing it automatically all the time is harmful. Learning new things requires trying new things, but that has a risk of failure, which can harm self-image with possible bad consequences such as learned helplessness. On the other hand, protecting self-image all the times means never learning anything. Updating means admitting you were (more) wrong. How to deal with this?
I could treat my positive self-image as a depletable resource: after repeated failures I would stop experimenting with new things and return to practicing the stuff I am successful at, until I feel good about myself again. Maybe this is a secret ingredient of practice: not only does practicing a skill make one better at the given skill, but it also makes it part of their self-image. Doing difficult exercises would be better for actually improving the skills, but doing easier (though not too easy) exercises would be better for the self-image as a skilled person.
I could try to make a self-image of “a person who tries difficult things many people would rather avoid” which could make failures less significant (actually contributing to the self-image) and successes more sweet. On the other hand, if I overdo this, I get a convenient excuse for never completing anything. Perhaps it could be balanced by measuring whether people really avoid those things I am failing at. Alternatively I could use a self-image of a person learning something, because the only way to fail at learning is to stop learning; getting an exercise wrong is a part of learning. Again, overdoing this, I get a convenient excuse for failing.
Somehow related: the line between “solving the problem” and “running away from the problem” is sometimes blurred, but the respective self-images feel very differently. What kind of a solution can I accept so that it will not feel like running away? (Changing my job, which greatly improved my life: was it running away from the problem, solving the problem, or both?) It is easy to blame the environment, but also to blame the person, even if we are the person (we model others blaming ourselves). I prefer the self-image of a problem solver (because it would prime me to solve problems, duh), but my ultimate goal is winning, not working hard.
Also I have stopped reading internet discussions where people are impolite (unfortunately, too large sections of the internet), because I realized that it harms my self-image: I started to think about myself as a person who cannot have an intelligent and polite discussion with most people. Somehow I blamed myself for evoking the responses I got online, and integrated that into a stereotypical self-image of a computer guy with low social skills. However, most offline experiences proved me wrong: with real people I am a nice person, and I can have a pleasant talk with most of them.
When you practice or learn, ensure that each session ends on a high note. Either push yourself to accomplish something for the first time and then stop immediately, or end with an exercise that you find difficult but now comfortably within your abilities. This is, apparently, commonly used in animal training—see the “laws of shaping”.
I suspect this works because of the peak-end rule—even if you’ve been working above your comfortable difficulty for most of the session, you’ll remember the session as if you did difficult things, and became more competent by the end. You won’t remember the session as frustrating or painful if the end is especially satisfying.
Well, if you practice in contact with other people, you can reinforce your self-image as a skilled person by doing more difficult exercises than they do. The most obvious example is actual physical exercise, like weight lifting, where the primary metric of superiority is not doing exercises more easily (other people would recognize that you’re not working hard enough,) but by doing more difficult lifts.
+1 for avoiding rude conversations online :)
Well, sometimes they are hilarious. But usually they’re not worth the time.