the reason I don’t find this article useful is that it’s not ‘specific’ (and I will be more specific on what I mean by that). my observation is that, most people’s problem is not that they can’t give out a reasonable sounding methodology like you outlined, but that they are unable to carry it through. A most simple example is staying on a diet, or going to the gym. The deciding factor is not knowing how it should be done, but actually doing it.
Now let me be more specific. Here’s one place I felt it’s glaringly unspecific. To quote you (from “making firm commitment”):
“Requirements: Decisiveness, a bit of willpower.”
But that’s the whole point, no? How do you become decisive and acquire will-power, if you aren’t/doesn’t have it? decisiveness, willpower, firmness—it reads like tautology. Some specific tips/hacks would have helped. I remember reading someone’s blog with a tip of keeping up some activity (like going to the gym). A very specific tip is given:
“paste row of large sheets of paper on the most noticeable side of your living room wall, and mark on it, in a long row, in large fonts and screaming color, the dates of everyday for the next 6 months (or years, whatever, long period of time). everyday you went to the gym, put a large X under the date. keep up for a couple of weeks. after that, the sight of the continuing extending row of deafening X will be enough motivation to keep you going.”
That’s a specific to overcome one’s laziness, and I can imagine it working for someone. The point I am trying to make is this: abstract reasoning might be good for deciding what to do, but is hardly sufficient to get us to do it. It’s like keeping telling oneself that “it’s good to go to the gym”, or “studying for school”, or “making that sales call”—rarely it does us any good, and almost never lastingly.
Here’s another example from your article (from under “identify”):
“Requirements: Introspection about what you want to achieve”
What are your insights for introspecting? I am serious about this question, because I have been doing a lot of introspection since high school, only to realize later that talking to myself (what I thought introspecting was) is a lousy way to understand myself better. I see people around me, and many times it was clear they couldn’t get very good understanding of themselves either. So I suspect introspection is very difficult, few can do it well, and for this reason, if you have any insights to share on this, it would be of great value. but just saying “introspect on what to achieve” is hardly useful insight, particularly consider the crowd at LessWrong.
A strategy like the one you described if fine, but it’s all in the details of how you pull it off. One rule of thumb I use (for both communicating to others, and as a self-checking mechanism when I convince myself that I know how to do something) is to try to include something clearly actionable. E.g.
“be more decisive” is not clearly actionable.
“paste your living room wall with long row of paper” is.
One immediately actionable thing that I hope the reader will get from reading this response is, when reading, ask yourself the question, “is there any specific action I can take?”.
the reason I don’t find this article useful is that it’s not ‘specific’ (and I will be more specific on what I mean by that). my observation is that, most people’s problem is not that they can’t give out a reasonable sounding methodology like you outlined, but that they are unable to carry it through. A most simple example is staying on a diet, or going to the gym. The deciding factor is not knowing how it should be done, but actually doing it.
Now let me be more specific. Here’s one place I felt it’s glaringly unspecific. To quote you (from “making firm commitment”): “Requirements: Decisiveness, a bit of willpower.”
But that’s the whole point, no? How do you become decisive and acquire will-power, if you aren’t/doesn’t have it? decisiveness, willpower, firmness—it reads like tautology. Some specific tips/hacks would have helped. I remember reading someone’s blog with a tip of keeping up some activity (like going to the gym). A very specific tip is given: “paste row of large sheets of paper on the most noticeable side of your living room wall, and mark on it, in a long row, in large fonts and screaming color, the dates of everyday for the next 6 months (or years, whatever, long period of time). everyday you went to the gym, put a large X under the date. keep up for a couple of weeks. after that, the sight of the continuing extending row of deafening X will be enough motivation to keep you going.”
That’s a specific to overcome one’s laziness, and I can imagine it working for someone. The point I am trying to make is this: abstract reasoning might be good for deciding what to do, but is hardly sufficient to get us to do it. It’s like keeping telling oneself that “it’s good to go to the gym”, or “studying for school”, or “making that sales call”—rarely it does us any good, and almost never lastingly.
Here’s another example from your article (from under “identify”): “Requirements: Introspection about what you want to achieve”
What are your insights for introspecting? I am serious about this question, because I have been doing a lot of introspection since high school, only to realize later that talking to myself (what I thought introspecting was) is a lousy way to understand myself better. I see people around me, and many times it was clear they couldn’t get very good understanding of themselves either. So I suspect introspection is very difficult, few can do it well, and for this reason, if you have any insights to share on this, it would be of great value. but just saying “introspect on what to achieve” is hardly useful insight, particularly consider the crowd at LessWrong.
A strategy like the one you described if fine, but it’s all in the details of how you pull it off. One rule of thumb I use (for both communicating to others, and as a self-checking mechanism when I convince myself that I know how to do something) is to try to include something clearly actionable. E.g.
“be more decisive” is not clearly actionable.
“paste your living room wall with long row of paper” is.
One immediately actionable thing that I hope the reader will get from reading this response is, when reading, ask yourself the question, “is there any specific action I can take?”.
best,