When thinking about my own rationality I have to identify problems. This means that I write statements like “I wait to long with making decisions, see X,Y”. Now I worry that by stating this as a fact I somehow anchor it more deeply in my mind, and make myself act more in accordance with that statement. Is there actually any evidence for that? And if so, how do I avoid this problem?
I don’t have any references on hand but cognitive behaviour therapy definitely frowns on people describing themselves using absolute statements like that.
I would advise reframing it in a way that makes it clear that your undesirable behaviour is something that you do some of the time or that you did in the past but try not to do now, to avoid reinforcing any underlying beliefs, for example, that you are the kind of person who is bad at making timely decisions. Even better would be reframing to include some kind of resolution about how you will go about making more timely decisions in the future, even if it’s just a resolution to try to be more aware of when you’re putting off a decision.
When thinking about my own rationality I have to identify problems. This means that I write statements like “I wait to long with making decisions, see X,Y”. Now I worry that by stating this as a fact I somehow anchor it more deeply in my mind, and make myself act more in accordance with that statement. Is there actually any evidence for that? And if so, how do I avoid this problem?
I don’t have any references on hand but cognitive behaviour therapy definitely frowns on people describing themselves using absolute statements like that.
I would advise reframing it in a way that makes it clear that your undesirable behaviour is something that you do some of the time or that you did in the past but try not to do now, to avoid reinforcing any underlying beliefs, for example, that you are the kind of person who is bad at making timely decisions. Even better would be reframing to include some kind of resolution about how you will go about making more timely decisions in the future, even if it’s just a resolution to try to be more aware of when you’re putting off a decision.