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> I asked Kappes why fantasies hamper progress, and she told me that they dull the will to succeed: “Imagining a positive outcome conveys the sense that you’re

by diydsp 13y ago

> I asked Kappes why fantasies hamper progress, and she told me that they dull the will to succeed: “Imagining a positive outcome conveys the sense that you’re approaching your goals, which takes the edge off the need to achieve.” This is a massive oversimplification. I know many, many people, including myself, for whom imagining positive outcomes feeds a chain reaction of emotion and motivation which drives us to try things within and beyond our reach and ultimately to come out on top even in the face of numerous failures. Of course, as posters like theorique point out, it is not enough to merely fantasize. The positive fantasizing must, and will, motivate one to build successful habits. It is not enough to distract ones' self with a utopian mirage. It is necessary to include details and additional questions in the fantasy, such as "back from the future thinking." e.g. "Ok, my startup is successful, who are my customers? Who are they servicing? Which features of what I'm doing/did got me there?" And I believe doomsayers like the authors of this paper and this article know it damn well. There's just a more comfortable place for them in the larger cultural climate to negatively criticize the author of The Secret than there is in clarifying it. For the authors of the paper, there is more academic capital in running a "computerized content analysis" than there is to actually produce any results that help anyone. Furthermore the abstract of the Oettingen paper suggests serious misunderstandings of finance (1. Just b/c DJIA goes down doesn't mean the economy is bad. 2. The measurements were made during a financial crisis) and correlation vs. causation. So, fuck this article! Go out and do something awesome and visualize the shit out of it!!!!!!

scott_s 13y ago
Since you think that the research that investigates the effectiveness of positive thinking (such as this one: http://www.psych.nyu.edu/oettingen/Barry%20Kappes,%20H.,%20&%20Oettingen,%20G.%20%282011%29.%20JESP.pdf http://www.psych.nyu.edu/oettingen/Barry%20Kappes,%20H.,%20&..., linked from the article) has a methodological defect, how would you design an experiment so that we could correct for the problem? That is, your point is that the research conducted over-simplified the technique. If I understand your point, "thinking positively" is not enough; the subjects in the experiment did one step, but not the others that you think are required. So how do you design an experiment where thinking positively necessarily motivates "one to build successful habits"?
hosh 13y ago
The quote from the article above can be translated to: "Let's use the fear of failure to drive success." That can be done to a certain extent. Sun Tzu, for example, advised burning the ships in order to make the soldiers desperate. Desperate people appear to get a lot more things done. The thing is that, this is not sustainable. Unsustainable efforts like this does not just lead to burn out, it also leads to unbounded profit motives that drives a lot of the inequalities today ... which, of course, makes more desperate people. I have used this fear-of-failure to drive actions before. But I have learned that it is a part of "intensity". That is, I'm "cooking" myself. If I turn the heat up too fast, then I'm going to avoid it like hell. When people open up to this part of consciousness where they realize they can change the intensity, it feels like you can do anything you want. BUT, it is the nature of that kind of experience that you overcome all inhibitions and obstacles ... including when you need to stop turning up the heat. Coming back to the cooking metaphor: if you have ever cooked food before, turning the stove up to its max will not make the food cook faster. (If you don't cook, I highly recommend picking up some basic skills, like from Alton Brown's Good Eats series; there are a lot of interesting life lessons coming out of the application of heat to food). So I have this knob in my life. I turn it one way and I can intensify the heat and pressure. I can turn it down and I can adjust it. If I want to toast and incinerate something, I'd turn it all the way to max. Usually, I want a nice simmer that will go on and on. It depends on the recipe (your strategy), your ingredients (what you have to work with), and what it is you are trying to accomplish. A good, quick application of heat might inspire you to take action, but you can flame out quickly. You are totally allowed to turn it down so that once things get going, it will keep going.

by diydsp 13y ago

scott_s 13y ago

Since you think that the research that investigates the effectiveness of positive thinking (such as this one: http://www.psych.nyu.edu/oettingen/Barry%20Kappes,%20H.,%20&%20Oettingen,%20G.%20%282011%29.%20JESP.pdf http://www.psych.nyu.edu/oettingen/Barry%20Kappes,%20H.,%20&..., linked from the article) has a methodological defect, how would you design an experiment so that we could correct for the problem? That is, your point is that the research conducted over-simplified the technique. If I understand your point, "thinking positively" is not enough; the subjects in the experiment did one step, but not the others that you think are required. So how do you design an experiment where thinking positively necessarily motivates "one to build successful habits"?

hosh 13y ago

The quote from the article above can be translated to: "Let's use the fear of failure to drive success." That can be done to a certain extent. Sun Tzu, for example, advised burning the ships in order to make the soldiers desperate. Desperate people appear to get a lot more things done. The thing is that, this is not sustainable. Unsustainable efforts like this does not just lead to burn out, it also leads to unbounded profit motives that drives a lot of the inequalities today ... which, of course, makes more desperate people. I have used this fear-of-failure to drive actions before. But I have learned that it is a part of "intensity". That is, I'm "cooking" myself. If I turn the heat up too fast, then I'm going to avoid it like hell. When people open up to this part of consciousness where they realize they can change the intensity, it feels like you can do anything you want. BUT, it is the nature of that kind of experience that you overcome all inhibitions and obstacles ... including when you need to stop turning up the heat. Coming back to the cooking metaphor: if you have ever cooked food before, turning the stove up to its max will not make the food cook faster. (If you don't cook, I highly recommend picking up some basic skills, like from Alton Brown's Good Eats series; there are a lot of interesting life lessons coming out of the application of heat to food). So I have this knob in my life. I turn it one way and I can intensify the heat and pressure. I can turn it down and I can adjust it. If I want to toast and incinerate something, I'd turn it all the way to max. Usually, I want a nice simmer that will go on and on. It depends on the recipe (your strategy), your ingredients (what you have to work with), and what it is you are trying to accomplish. A good, quick application of heat might inspire you to take action, but you can flame out quickly. You are totally allowed to turn it down so that once things get going, it will keep going.