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John_Maxwell_IV comments on Identity crafting - Less Wrong Discussion

10 Post author: robot-dreams 31 December 2014 06:34PM

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Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 31 December 2014 11:21:44PM *  10 points [-]

Instead of cutting out daydreaming altogether, you might try to tweak it and turn it in to "mental contrasting", a technique that the psychology literature has shown to be useful for achieving your goals. Some info.

You might also find it useful to use mental contrasting on whatever "behavioral bugs" you have that are preventing you from achieving your goals. For example, maybe being a hypereffective person consists of mastering these eight skills: controlling impulses, overcoming aversions, translating goals in to urges, maintaining a growth mindset, overcoming perfectionism, maintaining high morale, focusing effectively, and maintaining high energy. (If you haven't noticed, most people are not hypereffective and lead lives of quiet desperation.) So given those eight stats, (a) how do you rate in each right now and (b) how will you build your character to solve those eight core problems? For example, you could start meditating for impulse control and focus. You could learn about exposure therapy for overcoming aversions. You could use mental contrasting for translating goals in to urges. You could lift weights for growth mindset (this works surprisingly well) and energy. Etc. I'm essentially suggesting that you turn this "identity crafting" mindset on the very factors that are preventing you from achieving your desired identity.

In addition to the eight core problems I mentioned, there's a final problem I didn't: building and maintaining habits. That's the meta stat that will give you the ability to keep up something like a daily meditation practice in a sustainable way. Recommended reading. A daily habit review is the best method I've found to build habits: I ask myself in a nonjudgemental, curious way where I used the habit successfully, where I used the habit unsuccessfully, and where I could have used it even though I didn't think of it at the time.