How to set a goals in one step. Pick the biggest/grandest thing you can expect to actually accomplish. Don't try to engineer a reward dispenser, extrinsic or intrinsic. Don't get high on motivation and then come crashing down. Just pick what you already want and expect you can do, and do it. This applies to both daily, weekly, yearly, etc. timespans.

This is basically the next best alternative to BJ Fogg's Tiny Habits. Rather than setting the easiest possible goal "Plug in the treadmill after breakfast" you pick one you're sure you can do anyway "Run for five minutes in the morning". Whatever you think you can do. Then once you can do five minutes, you'll probably believe you can push farther.

(Disclaimer: I have recently started using this. It might not be the super be-all-end-all goal setting method.)

The purpose is to elucidate the feeling in more detail. Our feelings become automatic and don't require conscious appraisal. Often, a clear conscious appreciation of exactly what our feelings are, doesn't exist. The feeling can be there but there may not be a conscious understanding of exactly what it is and what it is for.

There is an assumption implied by this whole post that, at least sometimes, our feelings are not appropriate to the situation. Why would I want to get rid of an emotional reaction that is entirely appropriate? If it is serving me well then I would want to keep it. So, yes, there is an assumption that the feelings in question, the ones that I want to be rid of, are not appropriate. Bringing a feeling into clear conscious focus can sometimes make it immediately obvious that that feeling is not needed anymore, at which point it will vanish. That is the point of focusing. A public speaking fear, such as you describe, would certainly not go unnoticed. But that doesn't mean that the person is fully aware, in detail, of what they are afraid of and why. But focusing can bring that awareness. And often the fear is unreasonable and will vanish when that is realized. But if the feeling is not brought into clearer focus this will not happen. I want to emphasize this point. You can make a very rational airtight argument to yourself that it is irrational and unnecessary to be insecure in that situation. If you haven't brought a clear picture of the fear into conscious awareness it will not turn off the fear. But if you do bring that clear, detailed picture of the fear and its reasons, and you realize that the reasons are not valid, the fear will vanish. But you have to get that clear picture first or you can't change it. That is the point of it. The feelings may be irrational but they will not change unless they are brought into clear conscious focus. Perhaps that is why it is called 'focusing'. The name seems to work better as an analogy to focusing a camera on some particular area than in the common every day sense of 'focus' meaning to concentrate.

I've done a very little bit of insight meditation and a fair amount of focusing and they are very similar. I'd say the biggest differences are 1) focusing is not as wide open. You are trying to 'work on' some troublesome feeling and 2) while you do stay detached somewhat from the feeling and are an observer, you don't just let if float away. You have an interest in it and you stay with it. You are supposed to ask it ( I hate that anthropomorphizing of it but that's what they say) what it wants and stuff like that until you get a 'shift' where you have a sort of epiphany which is marked by an unmistakable release of tension. It really does feel an awful lot like mindfulness meditation.

Is the point that being a "gentleman" and wiping your seat may have "efficiency" value but lack decency value?

I have a few pieces of knowledge that I think could be somehow synthesized to form a really powerful idea with a lot of implications.

1. In Yvain's excellent "A Thrive/Survive Theory of the Political Spectrum" (read it if you haven't already!) he makes a really compelling argument that "rightism is what happens when you’re optimizing for surviving an unsafe environment, leftism is what happens when you’re optimized for thriving in a safe environment."

2. It seems to me that a similar analogy can be made with happiness, where happiness is thrive mode and depression is survive mode. I'm not sure how widely accepted this theory is, but it seems kind of intuitive and obvious to me - happiness is what happens when things are going well, depression is what happens when things aren't, and the two moods must serve some sort of evolutionary function, right?

3. There is a direct relationship between happiness and political ideology, where the more right-wing you are, the happier you are, i.e. far right people are the happiest, far left people are the least happy. (I got this information from the General Social Survey by correlating the happiness and political ideology variables, but it was a few months ago when I did this, and the website is really confusing and I can't figure out how to display it the way I had it before, let alone link to it. So maybe you'll have to take my word for it.)

So it seems like the strategy you're using for yourself is the opposite of the strategy you're using for society, or something? Yvain theorizes in the post how someone who formulates a heuristic for themselves early on in their life that says "the world is basically dangerous" will become a right-winger, and someone with the opposite heuristic will become a left-winger, and this explains why people divide so easily into political categories. But it seems like the reverse is in fact true? This makes sense with religiosity (believing in a loving God who will keep you safe) being correlated with right-wing beliefs and poverty (growing up in a dangerous environment where survival is uncertain) being correlated with left-wing beliefs.

I don't really know what to make of this, but it seems like it could be really important.

Does anyone know the terms for the positions for and against in the following scenario?:

Let's assume you have a one in a million chance of winning the lottery. Despite the poor chance, you pay five dollars to enter, and you win a large sum of money. Was playing the lottery the right choice?

Is this an advertisement? Are you the author, or do you copperate with the author?

Akrasia-related but not yet on lesswrong. Perhaps someone will incorporate these in the next akrasia round-up:

1) Fogg model of behavior. Fogg's methods beat akrasia because he avoids dealing with motivation. Like "execute by default", you simply make a habit by tacking some very easy to perform task onto something you already do. Here is a slideshare that explains his "tiny habits" and an online, guided walkthrough course. When I took the course, I did the actions each day, and usually more than those actions. (IE every time I sat down, I plugged in my drawing tablet, which got me doing digital art basically automatically unless I could think of something much more important to do). For those who don't want to click through, here are example "tiny habits" which over time can become larger habits: "After I brush, I will floss one tooth." "After I start the dishwasher, I will read one sentence from a book.” “After I walk in my door from work, I will get out my workout clothes.” “After I sit down on the train, I will open my sketch notebook.” “After I put my head on the pillow, I will think of one good thing from my day.” “After I arrive home, I will hang my keys up by the door.”

2) The Practicing Mind. The author confronts the relatively mundane nature of most productive human activity. He works on pianos for a living, doing some of the most repetitive work imaginable. As he says: "out of sheer survival, I began to develop an ability to get lost in the process of doing something." In general, I think the book details the way a person ought to approach work: being "present" with the work, focused on the process and not the product, being evaluative and not judgmental about work, to not try too hard but instead let yourself work.

I'll share one concrete suggestion. Work slowly. "[S]lowness... is a paradox. What I mean by slow is that you work at a pace that allows you to pay attention to what you are doing. This pace will differ according to your personality and the task.... If you are washing the car, you are moving the sponge in your hand at a slow enough pace that allows you to observe your actions in detail as you clean the side of your car. This will differ from, say, the slow pace at which you will learn a new computer program. If you are aware of what you are doing and you are paying attention to what you are doing, then you are probably working at the appropriate pace. The paradox of slowness is that you will find you accomplish the task more quickly with less effort because you are not wasting energy. Try it and you will see." He gives the example of working slowly during his work and paradoxically finishing sooner. I can't comment on the time aspect personally, but at least giving myself permission to work slowly increases the likelihood of paying deep attention to a project as well as not stressing.