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Steps to Turn Off the Nagging Self-Doubt in Your Head

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Re: Steps to Turn Off the Nagging Self-Doubt in Your Head

#81

Post by davidjnelson »

Disruptive_Dave wrote: post #48
mtreis86 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure mindfulness falls into 'positive psychology'. Accepting things for what they are, seems neutral to me.

This. At least the mindfulness I practice (rooted in Buddhist teachings, not tied to them however) is definitely not driven by an expected outcome of "positivity." Oddly enough, this has led me to a more positive outlook, generally speaking.

That's a great insight. When you experience the truth of yourself, you experience the joy in it. Not because you are "trying to find joy". It's more realizing the joy you already are. Or that's been my experience with meditation and mindfulness at least.

Re: Steps to Turn Off the Nagging Self-Doubt in Your Head

#82

Post by scrupulusalbion »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #60
grumblestumble wrote: post #7

The world, and Silicon Valley startup culture in particular, is filled to the brim with oblivious narcissists. You can pry my nagging self-doubt from my cold, dead fingers, thank you very much.

North American culture has a tendency to redefine all criticism, external or internal, as 'negativity' -- to the point that, from my observation, organizations will a) fail without realizing it b) fail unnecessarily due to inability to deal with criticism c) define unrealistic goals on the assumption that "I think I can" will get them there. I think this is worse in California than other places, and infects Silicon V…

Are you sure that this is an America/California/Silicon-Valley feature? That your own internal critical voice arose as a result of growing up with your father (a German) seems to indicate that you got it from either having an immigrant parent, a German/European parent, or a parent who was just a negative nancy. I don't mean to be critical of you or your father; I mean to point out that the criticism=>negativity idea doesn't seem to be a strictly American thing.

> I think it leads to a 'shotgun approach' where if enough people "try try try" then yes some do succeed spectacularly while everyone else around them crashes and burns.

This reminds me of the Orks in Warhammer 40k, wherein the sheer psychic power of an Ork can make a war machine function; the machine would collapse if a non-Ork attempted to operate it.

I think the negativity about / criticism of oneself and one's identity (e.g. the self-effacing comic) is unique to Western civilization. Do people outside the West (e.g. Africa, Middle East, Asia, and perhaps South America) view themselves as backwards for how their lives work? Plenty of people, whether on the right or left, are critical of Western policies, especially regarding military and economic campaign in non-Western countries.

I am genuinely curious if people in non-Western countries see themselves as Westerners do (e.g. more bad than good).

Re: Steps to Turn Off the Nagging Self-Doubt in Your Head

#83

Post by johnwheeler »

agumonkey wrote: post #58
johnwheeler wrote: post #2

This article hits home. Five years ago, I created a SaaS app that did well, followed by one that did less so, and another that flopped (all eBay selling software). New projects weren't having as much an impact and making me feel good, so I sat around reading books. A turning point came when I read two: Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and On Writing by Stephen King. The first teaches we get optimal experience out of w…

I just got a library card .. you can guess what mindset I'm in. For a few times MOOCs managed to boost my confidence by allowing a bit of challenge and groupwork/competition. But that faded as I tried more abstract ones. Maybe I should use my new card to rent your books instead of Prolog/OCaml ones.

it depends on what you like to read. mihaly c. is a psychology professor, but very philosophical. i love his work. im reading creativity now.

Re: Steps to Turn Off the Nagging Self-Doubt in Your Head

#84

Post by madaxe_again »

taurath wrote: post #79
madaxe_again wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should doubt everything, completely, otherwise you will make poor assumptions based on incorrect axioms.

Take the right things for granted, and don't take the wrong things for granted. If you doubt everything, I doubt you'd be able to maintain a diet or drive a car, or leave the house for that purpose. If you can't see the depths to which that can go, you're operating on the shallow end of doubt.

I take some things for granted at times, but peel back what one would consider obvious and mundane to first principles routinely.

It turns out little of the human world makes much sense, other than in the context of precedent.

The physical world gets weirder yet, as this universe is, to the best of our knowledge and information currently available to us, tautological.

I of course suspend my disbelief for day to day activities, otherwise as you say I would not function, but fundamentally, I believe nothing, not even that I or anything else exists. Descartes was overly glib, apparent thought is no evidence of being, as it requires self-reference.

Re: Steps to Turn Off the Nagging Self-Doubt in Your Head

#85

Post by visarga »

wallflower wrote: post #8

It seems to me that the more you have a propensity to think (or over-think), the more likely it is that you may be able to construct rationalizations (excuses) before/during the moment as to why you might not be able to do something. More insidiously, you can construct these excuses after the moment passes, like an endless negative Nancy TiVo gone berzerk in your mind. There is no one-size-fits all solution to self-d…

> ... I am resisting doing something out of my comfort/risk zone.

Interestingly, we resist because we perceive a loss of options or in other words - freedom, caused by the paralyzing anxiety. We usually feel free by being in our optimized space, where we have already invested a lot.

And the purpose of going out of out comfort zone is exactly the same - to maximize freedom or diversity of options. By embracing novelty, new options might be discovered and more freedom acquired.

It's the classic trafeoff between exploration and exploitation. Both exploration and exploitation are necessary to maximize results, and the balance between them is not a trivial issue. Always going out of your comfort zone can do as much harm as always avoiding novelty.

By the way, Reinforcement learning algorithms such as AlphaGo deal with the same issue. The simplest solution is to follow the optimized policy ("be in the comfort zone"), but from time to time to do random exploration steps in order to discover more of the state space and possibly find better strategies. In the beginning of the training sequence, it's more exploration, but later, more exploitation.

Re: Steps to Turn Off the Nagging Self-Doubt in Your Head

#86

Post by projektir »

madaxe_again wrote: post #84
taurath wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take the right things for granted, and don't take the wrong things for granted. If you doubt everything, I doubt you'd be able to maintain a diet or drive a car, or leave the house for that purpose. If you can't see the depths to which that can go, you're operating on the shallow end of doubt.

I take some things for granted at times, but peel back what one would consider obvious and mundane to first principles routinely. It turns out little of the human world makes much sense, other than in the context of precedent. The physical world gets weirder yet, as this universe is, to the best of our knowledge and information currently available to us, tautological. I of course suspend my disbelief for day to day a…

Some of that may be true, but to affect the world, you nonetheless need to do things. And to do those things, you need to take something for granted, assume something, to complete the task.

That set of things you're willing to take for granted is actually your relevant set of beliefs, because they inform your actions. That's where the important decisions are made, and this is the constant crisis of trying to figure out the right solution with nowhere near enough information.

We can all, in theory, believe that we're wrong about most things, and this is most likely true. But, ultimately, there are things one is willing to do even if they could be wrong about them, because not doing anything is often worse. Sitting in constant doubt is effectively deciding not to participate.

Re: Steps to Turn Off the Nagging Self-Doubt in Your Head

#87

Post by dimino »

grumblestumble wrote: post #7

The world, and Silicon Valley startup culture in particular, is filled to the brim with oblivious narcissists. You can pry my nagging self-doubt from my cold, dead fingers, thank you very much.

I have... zero self doubt. Any "I can't do this" anxiety I get is related to my lack of prep-time, not my concern for my aptitude. I believe I can accomplish anything, given some time and practice.

Does this mean I'm an oblivious narcissist? I hadn't even considered the possibility...

Re: Steps to Turn Off the Nagging Self-Doubt in Your Head

#88

Post by harry_corn »

blinkingled wrote: post #65
harry_corn wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genius? Nah. Anyone who brings awareness to their own thoughts and feelings will figure this out.

It was a tongue in cheek remark obviously but nonetheless bringing awareness is only the first step - then you're stuck being aware of your own limits - overcoming those are the real effort and it requires quite a bit of it to become habitually impartial to your own thoughts - the process, the making of that habit of detachment - that's where real progress is.

Ok there. You sound so smart there bud. You guys are such pretentious losers.

Re: Steps to Turn Off the Nagging Self-Doubt in Your Head

#89

Post by harry_corn »

dionidium wrote: post #67

I once heard Sam Harris talking about a similar process. Most people sort of are their thoughts. That is -- this is tough to describe plainly -- their thoughts and feelings are primary, driving their actions as if mechanically linked. But you can in a certain sense become aware of your thoughts and view them as an outsider, as something that's happening that you can see and choose how you react to. It's not just abou…

Time for some headspace and anxiety therapy (ie rejection therapy) to reach the next level.

Re: Steps to Turn Off the Nagging Self-Doubt in Your Head

#90

Post by harry_corn »

madaxe_again wrote: post #84
taurath wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take the right things for granted, and don't take the wrong things for granted. If you doubt everything, I doubt you'd be able to maintain a diet or drive a car, or leave the house for that purpose. If you can't see the depths to which that can go, you're operating on the shallow end of doubt.

I take some things for granted at times, but peel back what one would consider obvious and mundane to first principles routinely. It turns out little of the human world makes much sense, other than in the context of precedent. The physical world gets weirder yet, as this universe is, to the best of our knowledge and information currently available to us, tautological. I of course suspend my disbelief for day to day a…

Jesus. You are halfway between poetry and ostentatious drivel.
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