One relevant factor here is that the conscious mind is largely driven by subconscious beliefs in the first place, so the direction in which the conscious mind attempts to edit beliefs is often dysfunctional; see e.g. the part of your previous article that said:
People know intuitively where leverage points are.… Everyone is trying very hard to push it IN THE WRONG DIRECTION!
The desires we have to edit our inner leverage points are no different: a person who is a perfectionist will rarely work on editing themselves to be less perfectionistic, vs. trying to edit themselves to be better at not making mistakes.
Even in the case of trying to edit one’s self to be “less perfectionistic”, one is likely to approach it as something like, “How can I stop being upset over these stupid mistakes (so that I can get closer to being perfect sooner)?”, not “How can I stop thinking mistakes mean I’m a shitty person?”
Conscious editing without first looking for background assumptions (like “mistakes = shitty person”) will just be rearranging the furniture instead of actually moving house. But we don’t consciously notice these background assumptions by default, because our brain doesn’t attribute the problems we experience as a result of them, as having anything to do with them. We see surface symptoms and try to fix those symptoms, not question the underpinnings of our model of the world!
One relevant factor here is that the conscious mind is largely driven by subconscious beliefs in the first place, so the direction in which the conscious mind attempts to edit beliefs is often dysfunctional; see e.g. the part of your previous article that said:
The desires we have to edit our inner leverage points are no different: a person who is a perfectionist will rarely work on editing themselves to be less perfectionistic, vs. trying to edit themselves to be better at not making mistakes.
Even in the case of trying to edit one’s self to be “less perfectionistic”, one is likely to approach it as something like, “How can I stop being upset over these stupid mistakes (so that I can get closer to being perfect sooner)?”, not “How can I stop thinking mistakes mean I’m a shitty person?”
Conscious editing without first looking for background assumptions (like “mistakes = shitty person”) will just be rearranging the furniture instead of actually moving house. But we don’t consciously notice these background assumptions by default, because our brain doesn’t attribute the problems we experience as a result of them, as having anything to do with them. We see surface symptoms and try to fix those symptoms, not question the underpinnings of our model of the world!
One way to deal with this is to always start with re-consolidating the more cognitively fused schema.
If you’re trying to use a technique to be more perfect, first, use that same technique to question whether you should be more perfect.
Edit: Thought this would be better as a top-level comment.