This seems like it could be a useful methodology to adopt, though I’m not sure it would be helpful for everyone. In particular, for people who are prone to negative rumination or self-blame, the answer to these kinds of questions will often be highly warped or irrational, reinforcing the negative thought patterns. Such a person could also come up with a way they could improve their life, fail to implement it, and then feel guilty when their reality fails to measure up to their imagined future.
On the other hand, I’m no psychotherapist, so it may just be the opposite. Maybe asking these questions to oneself could help people break out of negative thought patterns by forcing certain conditions? I’d appreciate other people’s take on this subject.
As a single point of anecdata, I personally am fairly prone to negative thoughts and self-blame, and find this super helpful for overcoming that. My Inner Simulator seems to be much better grounded than my spirals of anxiety, and not prone to the same biases.
Some examples:
I’m stressing out about a tiny mistake I made, and am afraid that a friend of mine will blame me for it. So I simulate having the friend find out and get angry with me about it, and ask myself ‘am I surprised at this outcome’. And discover that yes, I am very surprised by this outcome—that would be completely out of character and would feel unreasonable to me in the moment.
I have an upcoming conversation with someone new and interesting, and I’m feeling insecure about my ability to make good first impressions. I simulate the conversation happening, and leaving feeling like it went super well, and check how surprised I feel. And discover that I don’t feel surprised, that in fact that this happens reasonably often.
Such a person could also come up with a way they could improve their life, fail to implement it, and then feel guilty when their reality fails to measure up to their imagined future.
This seems like a potentially fair point. I sometimes encounter this problem. Though I find that my Inner Sim is a fair bit better calibrated about what solutions might actually work. Eg it has a much better sense for ‘I’ll just procrastinate and forget about this’. On balance, I find that the benefits of ‘sometimes having a great idea that works’ + the motivation to implement it far outweighs this failure mode, but your mileage may vary.
This seems like it could be a useful methodology to adopt, though I’m not sure it would be helpful for everyone. In particular, for people who are prone to negative rumination or self-blame, the answer to these kinds of questions will often be highly warped or irrational, reinforcing the negative thought patterns. Such a person could also come up with a way they could improve their life, fail to implement it, and then feel guilty when their reality fails to measure up to their imagined future.
On the other hand, I’m no psychotherapist, so it may just be the opposite. Maybe asking these questions to oneself could help people break out of negative thought patterns by forcing certain conditions? I’d appreciate other people’s take on this subject.
As a single point of anecdata, I personally am fairly prone to negative thoughts and self-blame, and find this super helpful for overcoming that. My Inner Simulator seems to be much better grounded than my spirals of anxiety, and not prone to the same biases.
Some examples:
I’m stressing out about a tiny mistake I made, and am afraid that a friend of mine will blame me for it. So I simulate having the friend find out and get angry with me about it, and ask myself ‘am I surprised at this outcome’. And discover that yes, I am very surprised by this outcome—that would be completely out of character and would feel unreasonable to me in the moment.
I have an upcoming conversation with someone new and interesting, and I’m feeling insecure about my ability to make good first impressions. I simulate the conversation happening, and leaving feeling like it went super well, and check how surprised I feel. And discover that I don’t feel surprised, that in fact that this happens reasonably often.
This seems like a potentially fair point. I sometimes encounter this problem. Though I find that my Inner Sim is a fair bit better calibrated about what solutions might actually work. Eg it has a much better sense for ‘I’ll just procrastinate and forget about this’. On balance, I find that the benefits of ‘sometimes having a great idea that works’ + the motivation to implement it far outweighs this failure mode, but your mileage may vary.