3 ms·

This is an unhelpfully reductive view of needs and wants. Many of the systems humans have in place for regulating behaviour towards needs and goals are intensel

by kqr 3y ago

This is an unhelpfully reductive view of needs and wants. Many of the systems humans have in place for regulating behaviour towards needs and goals are intensely focused on the short term. The point of these incentives is not to override your actual long-term needs and wants, but rather to artificially bring their consequences up to the near term so that you work with your inherited systems rather than against them. You shouldn't set a goal to exercise daily if doing so makes you feel bad. You should set that goal specifically when you have recognized it makes you overall feel better, even if it costs a discomfort in the moment. Some people can easily align their behaviour with their long term needs and wants. If you are such a person, these incentive structures will not help you and you will be confused about the need for it.

valyagolev 3y ago
> You shouldn't set a goal to exercise daily if doing so makes you feel bad. Daily is probably excessive, but regular exercise will very likely be a bit unpleasant for most people, and that's not really a reason to avoid it. My comment was not about avoiding unpleasure. My comment was about learning to listen to yourself, instead of tricking and forcing yourself as the default mode of behavior. Unpleasure is a very interesting and helpful thing when you're learning to understand yourself, by the way. But only if you pay attention, rather than "Use every motivation strategy you know, every trick in the book". What scares me is that such a method might end up just overriding any kind of long-term-goal adjustment from the inside. If you force yourself to write daily (and god forbid, publish what you wrote!), do you know how to make this forced writing actually attentive to yourself? Or do you just do it because you promised yourself, and ignore any inner protest? Could it end up a daily article about, say... forcing oneself to write?
- kqr 3y ago
  > regular exercise will very likely be a bit unpleasant for most people, and that's not really a reason to avoid it. My point is that there is a group of people for whom that is practically reason to avoid it. The unpleasure is large enough that it doesn't happen. Some people can force themselves by just "listening to themselves" whereas others get more mileage out of first listening to themselves, and then setting up a commitment scheme.

by kqr 3y ago

valyagolev 3y ago

> You shouldn't set a goal to exercise daily if doing so makes you feel bad. Daily is probably excessive, but regular exercise will very likely be a bit unpleasant for most people, and that's not really a reason to avoid it. My comment was not about avoiding unpleasure. My comment was about learning to listen to yourself, instead of tricking and forcing yourself as the default mode of behavior. Unpleasure is a very interesting and helpful thing when you're learning to understand yourself, by the way. But only if you pay attention, rather than "Use every motivation strategy you know, every trick in the book". What scares me is that such a method might end up just overriding any kind of long-term-goal adjustment from the inside. If you force yourself to write daily (and god forbid, publish what you wrote!), do you know how to make this forced writing actually attentive to yourself? Or do you just do it because you promised yourself, and ignore any inner protest? Could it end up a daily article about, say... forcing oneself to write?

kqr 3y ago
> regular exercise will very likely be a bit unpleasant for most people, and that's not really a reason to avoid it. My point is that there is a group of people for whom that is practically reason to avoid it. The unpleasure is large enough that it doesn't happen. Some people can force themselves by just "listening to themselves" whereas others get more mileage out of first listening to themselves, and then setting up a commitment scheme.