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It’s just like decision fatigue: your capacity for it diminishes the more you use it (within a given time range). Instead, carefully curate your identity . Thi

It’s just like decision fatigue: your capacity for it diminishes the more you use it (within a given time range). Instead, carefully curate your identity . This is described well in Atomic Habits. Train yourself to think “I am just not the kind of person who does x.”

ThrowawayR2 3y ago
Whether decision fatigue is a real thing has been called in to question: https://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story/2016/03/ego_depletion_an_influential_theory_in_psychology_may_have_just_been_debunked.html https://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_stor...
- bitshaker 3y ago
  Doesn’t matter. Changing via willpower and context cues is quite difficult. Identity change is the best, most lasting way.
- refactor_master 3y ago
  What am I going to do with all my identical shirts now!
- Supermancho 3y ago
  Anyone can make a decision without much thought, which most humans do at every moment of their existence. Making informed decisions takes conscious thought, much less keeping the decisions equally informed. There's only so much of that you can do and humans are particularly bad at recognizing the subtle decline in quality of thought. There's no question at all.
- arp242 3y ago
  According to the article "hundreds" of experiments showed an effect. Then it goes on to talk about the reproducibility crisis, but in this case it has been reproduced, no? At least, that's what the article itself says. Link to actual debunk study is dead, but "it now appears that ego depletion could be completely bogus" seems too strong. Certainly in my own experience something like ego depletion is very real – maybe not exactly as described, but you do run out of bandwidth at some point, so to speak. One of the reasons this is hard to verify experimentally is that, in my personal experience, everything is fine up to a point, after which it all breaks down. You can't easily re-create that in an experiment.
  - criddell 3y ago
    In my experience, it seems very real as well. The Wikipedia page has a pretty good rundown on the criticism and existing studies. From my understanding, it isn’t clear that the studies that have been done indicate any depletion effect at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion#Reproducibility_controversy_and_conflicting_meta_analyses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion#Reproducibility_...
rodlette 3y ago
> This is described well in Atomic Habits. Train yourself to think “I am just not the kind of person who does x.” Is this just basically willpower? Or perhaps I should read the book to find out.
- bitshaker 3y ago
  No. Changing your identity is much more powerful and sort of operates in a background process whereas willpower is more of a conscious foreground one and very difficult to sustain long term. Read the book. It goes into some detail. I’ve worked with thousands of people personally over the years to help them with supposedly difficult to treat addictions for instance. Willpower is fine to start, but completely fails in the long term. Identity change is the only thing I’ve found that works long term.
  - rodlette 3y ago
    I'll look into it. I think I acquired frugality from reading a few books that made me frugal. I'd like other traits too.
    - antwerp1 3y ago
      First time I’m reading about a character trait walking straight off the page into the reader’s life..
  - dyno12345 3y ago
    This might be a stupid question, but what is "identity" in this context? I ask because when this subject has come up I realize I don't seem to be able to think up theories about myself so easily
    - dceddia 3y ago
      Run a few test theories and see what resonates. Are you the kind of person who goes to the gym every day? Are you the kind of person who works on their hobbies at night? Are you the kind of person who binges Netflix between dinner and bed? Are you the person who cooks dinner from scratch, or orders takeout at every chance? etc. I think of them a bit like stereotypes but applied to myself, and see if I think I fit.
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
The way I like to think of it is that it's possible to have willpower when I'm feeling strong and only have to make a big decision once - what's really hard is having to use that willpower over and over. Thus, I've always felt it's better to change your environment than trying to improve your willpower. For example, I got a ton of exercise when I lived in a city when the most convenient thing to do was walk everywhere or take public transportation. When I moved out to the suburbs, I tried to force myself to walk more, but it never really worked. Driving was just by far the easier "default" way of getting places in the 'burbs. The way I think of it is to try to set things up so you don't have to use willpower in the first place.
- bitshaker 3y ago
  Environment change >>> willpower
  - hinkley 3y ago
    Environment change takes willpower, but is a force multiplier.
- hinkley 3y ago
  Buying groceries when you’re feeling good, and changing your route through the store to groom yourself for success instead of failure, are common, effective bits of advice for weight loss and healthy eating. Most of the garbage really is in the middle of the store, and I imagine myself diving into deep water to grab ketchup, soup, flour. Get in, get out, no sightseeing.
  - analog31 3y ago
    My shopping list is sequential by aisle, so I don't go down the aisle if it's not on my list. I wonder if shopping online for delivery helps curb impulse buying
    - hinkley 3y ago
      Try shopping just the exterior. The head of UI at Homegrocer was a friend of a friend when they were at their peak, and I was in the middle of my second affair with UX, so we occasionally talked. He told me he was getting pressure to incorporate dark patterns (though that phrase hadn’t made the rounds at the time) into the site design to get people to do more impulse buying. Sadly if he had they might still be around.
jancsika 3y ago
> Instead, carefully curate your identity . This is described well in Atomic Habits. Train yourself to think “I am just not the kind of person who does x.” Interesting but orthogonal to the article. The article: "I am the kind of person who has changed my environment such that doing x is inconvenient enough that I can avoid it most of the time without having to use much willpower."
- antwerp1 3y ago
  It’s not always possible to change your environment. In the most difficult scenarios, you will actually have very little control over your environment. But it’s still possible to overcome a challenge, without simply trying to willpower your way through it.
somewhereoutth 3y ago
Or perhaps (and by extension?) help to curate a society where these sorts of bad things don't happen.
refactor_master 3y ago
> Train yourself to think “I am just not the kind of person who does x.” We are rarely who we really want to be. Yet, here we are. I’ve been trained, literally since infancy, to obey bedtime, but I’m writing this response an hour past my bedtime.
- bmicraft 3y ago
  I think there's slight a difference there. Compare these two: You: I’ve been trained to obey bedtime Proposed: I'm a person that obeys bedtime What I'm getting at here is that while you seem to think you _should do_ it, you don't actually think about yourself as someone that does do it. Which makes sense because it's true, but I think the suggestion is to lie to yourself, just a little.

ThrowawayR2 3y ago

Whether decision fatigue is a real thing has been called in to question: https://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story/2016/03/ego_depletion_an_influential_theory_in_psychology_may_have_just_been_debunked.html https://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_stor...

bitshaker 3y ago
Doesn’t matter. Changing via willpower and context cues is quite difficult. Identity change is the best, most lasting way.
refactor_master 3y ago
What am I going to do with all my identical shirts now!
Supermancho 3y ago
Anyone can make a decision without much thought, which most humans do at every moment of their existence. Making informed decisions takes conscious thought, much less keeping the decisions equally informed. There's only so much of that you can do and humans are particularly bad at recognizing the subtle decline in quality of thought. There's no question at all.
arp242 3y ago
According to the article "hundreds" of experiments showed an effect. Then it goes on to talk about the reproducibility crisis, but in this case it has been reproduced, no? At least, that's what the article itself says. Link to actual debunk study is dead, but "it now appears that ego depletion could be completely bogus" seems too strong. Certainly in my own experience something like ego depletion is very real – maybe not exactly as described, but you do run out of bandwidth at some point, so to speak. One of the reasons this is hard to verify experimentally is that, in my personal experience, everything is fine up to a point, after which it all breaks down. You can't easily re-create that in an experiment.
- criddell 3y ago
  In my experience, it seems very real as well. The Wikipedia page has a pretty good rundown on the criticism and existing studies. From my understanding, it isn’t clear that the studies that have been done indicate any depletion effect at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion#Reproducibility_controversy_and_conflicting_meta_analyses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion#Reproducibility_...

rodlette 3y ago

> This is described well in Atomic Habits. Train yourself to think “I am just not the kind of person who does x.” Is this just basically willpower? Or perhaps I should read the book to find out.

bitshaker 3y ago
No. Changing your identity is much more powerful and sort of operates in a background process whereas willpower is more of a conscious foreground one and very difficult to sustain long term. Read the book. It goes into some detail. I’ve worked with thousands of people personally over the years to help them with supposedly difficult to treat addictions for instance. Willpower is fine to start, but completely fails in the long term. Identity change is the only thing I’ve found that works long term.
- rodlette 3y ago
  I'll look into it. I think I acquired frugality from reading a few books that made me frugal. I'd like other traits too.
  - antwerp1 3y ago
    First time I’m reading about a character trait walking straight off the page into the reader’s life..
- dyno12345 3y ago
  This might be a stupid question, but what is "identity" in this context? I ask because when this subject has come up I realize I don't seem to be able to think up theories about myself so easily
  - dceddia 3y ago
    Run a few test theories and see what resonates. Are you the kind of person who goes to the gym every day? Are you the kind of person who works on their hobbies at night? Are you the kind of person who binges Netflix between dinner and bed? Are you the person who cooks dinner from scratch, or orders takeout at every chance? etc. I think of them a bit like stereotypes but applied to myself, and see if I think I fit.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

The way I like to think of it is that it's possible to have willpower when I'm feeling strong and only have to make a big decision once - what's really hard is having to use that willpower over and over. Thus, I've always felt it's better to change your environment than trying to improve your willpower. For example, I got a ton of exercise when I lived in a city when the most convenient thing to do was walk everywhere or take public transportation. When I moved out to the suburbs, I tried to force myself to walk more, but it never really worked. Driving was just by far the easier "default" way of getting places in the 'burbs. The way I think of it is to try to set things up so you don't have to use willpower in the first place.

bitshaker 3y ago
Environment change >>> willpower
- hinkley 3y ago
  Environment change takes willpower, but is a force multiplier.
hinkley 3y ago
Buying groceries when you’re feeling good, and changing your route through the store to groom yourself for success instead of failure, are common, effective bits of advice for weight loss and healthy eating. Most of the garbage really is in the middle of the store, and I imagine myself diving into deep water to grab ketchup, soup, flour. Get in, get out, no sightseeing.
- analog31 3y ago
  My shopping list is sequential by aisle, so I don't go down the aisle if it's not on my list. I wonder if shopping online for delivery helps curb impulse buying
  - hinkley 3y ago
    Try shopping just the exterior. The head of UI at Homegrocer was a friend of a friend when they were at their peak, and I was in the middle of my second affair with UX, so we occasionally talked. He told me he was getting pressure to incorporate dark patterns (though that phrase hadn’t made the rounds at the time) into the site design to get people to do more impulse buying. Sadly if he had they might still be around.

jancsika 3y ago

> Instead, carefully curate your identity . This is described well in Atomic Habits. Train yourself to think “I am just not the kind of person who does x.” Interesting but orthogonal to the article. The article: "I am the kind of person who has changed my environment such that doing x is inconvenient enough that I can avoid it most of the time without having to use much willpower."

antwerp1 3y ago
It’s not always possible to change your environment. In the most difficult scenarios, you will actually have very little control over your environment. But it’s still possible to overcome a challenge, without simply trying to willpower your way through it.

somewhereoutth 3y ago

Or perhaps (and by extension?) help to curate a society where these sorts of bad things don't happen.

refactor_master 3y ago

> Train yourself to think “I am just not the kind of person who does x.” We are rarely who we really want to be. Yet, here we are. I’ve been trained, literally since infancy, to obey bedtime, but I’m writing this response an hour past my bedtime.

bmicraft 3y ago
I think there's slight a difference there. Compare these two: You: I’ve been trained to obey bedtime Proposed: I'm a person that obeys bedtime What I'm getting at here is that while you seem to think you _should do_ it, you don't actually think about yourself as someone that does do it. Which makes sense because it's true, but I think the suggestion is to lie to yourself, just a little.