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Motivating Personal Growth by Seeking Discomfort (2022)

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Re: Motivating Personal Growth by Seeking Discomfort (2022)

#31

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

atoav wrote: post #5
profsummergig wrote: post #2

> we suggest that seeking discomfort as a signal of growth can increase motivation Can someone help me understand this please? With an example? I haven't read the paper, just the abstract. I can barely understand the abstract, I am not going to understand the paper. Per the paper, does the "discomfort" need to be in the same arena as that of the "motivation" one wants? E.g.: If I want to learn a new language, does th…

Not really know if this persons idea of discomfort, but I had to think about Kafkas quote: 'Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.' Going over points of no return e.g. because you commit to certain decisions can be extremely uncomfortable and so many people will just push it off into the future, and so years can go to waste. Learning to spot that kind of discomfort in oneself (and re…

I did have success with that in changing gender, though in general I do not like points of no return.

I once wished to be a man during the week and a woman on the weekends.

In my attempt at nonmonogamy, I've had more mixed results. That is harder

Re: Motivating Personal Growth by Seeking Discomfort (2022)

#32

Post by wiseowise »

inopinatus wrote: post #20
profsummergig wrote: post #2

> we suggest that seeking discomfort as a signal of growth can increase motivation Can someone help me understand this please? With an example? I haven't read the paper, just the abstract. I can barely understand the abstract, I am not going to understand the paper. Per the paper, does the "discomfort" need to be in the same arena as that of the "motivation" one wants? E.g.: If I want to learn a new language, does th…

I don’t think it can be just anything. I experienced some discomfort this morning but I cannot speak to any consequential personal growth. I can tell you however that the Samyang Buldak instant ramen live up to their fiery reputation.

Wait til you hit the toilet!

Re: Motivating Personal Growth by Seeking Discomfort (2022)

#33

Post by bawolff »

I feel like targetting discomfort specificly would lead to bad results. Feels like a pretty typical cause vs correlation thing.

Sometimes getting out of your comfort zone is a good thing.

Sometimes that feeling of discomfort is protecting you.

Doing that hobby you were always to nervous too try? probably a good source of discomfort to feel.

Taking sky diving lessons from the sketchy guy who is not really certified? That is probably the bad type of discomfort and you should listen to it.

Re: Motivating Personal Growth by Seeking Discomfort (2022)

#34

Post by bawolff »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #30
01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeking discomfort is not intuitive I am perhaps less comfortable than others as a baseline. I could seek discomfort by say, listening to people eat with their mouths open, to little avail

You could, but is it difficult imagining situations which would be uncomfortable, and yet would also lead to personal growth?

I would say that personal growth often involves discomfort, but many uncomfortable things do not lead to personal growth.

So seeking out just discomfort seems bad. You shouldn't instantly do something just because it is uncomfortable.

Re: Motivating Personal Growth by Seeking Discomfort (2022)

#35

Post by dmichulke »

bawolff wrote: post #33

I feel like targetting discomfort specificly would lead to bad results. Feels like a pretty typical cause vs correlation thing. Sometimes getting out of your comfort zone is a good thing. Sometimes that feeling of discomfort is protecting you. Doing that hobby you were always to nervous too try? probably a good source of discomfort to feel. Taking sky diving lessons from the sketchy guy who is not really certified? T…

Discomfort is not discrete but continuous. I don't think you grow by maximizing discomfort infinitely. You'll still need capacity to handle and learn from it.

Instead I read this as leaving your comfort zone to the level that you are ... eh ... comfortable with.

Re: Motivating Personal Growth by Seeking Discomfort (2022)

#36

Post by atoav »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #31
atoav wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really know if this persons idea of discomfort, but I had to think about Kafkas quote: 'Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.' Going over points of no return e.g. because you commit to certain decisions can be extremely uncomfortable and so many people will just push it off into the future, and so years can go to waste. Learning to spot that kind of discomfort in oneself (and re…

I did have success with that in changing gender, though in general I do not like points of no return. I once wished to be a man during the week and a woman on the weekends. In my attempt at nonmonogamy, I've had more mixed results. That is harder

Oof okay a gender change is s bigger thing than I thought about when I wrote this — although the evidence points to these generally making people happier in the long run.

It still applies perfectly tho.

These point of no return decisions can also turn out to be mistakes (from with we can learn), but if skateboarding thought me anything it is that there is a class of situations where you either need to do it or you don't — as soon as you try to do it "a bit" without following through you will get hurt.

Of course the art is to recognize when each one applies, e.g. if your goal is to live healthier that doesn't mean you need to run marathons right away or you are a failure, here committing means persistence and incremental improvement.

In another class of problems the outcome depends mostly on luck, without being in the know I could imagine that non-monogamy-thing could have gone differently depending on where the people involved are with their lives.

Re: Motivating Personal Growth by Seeking Discomfort (2022)

#37

Post by ImaCake »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #25
ImaCake wrote: post #22

>learning about gun violence. Maybe this is helpful in the USA, but I hardly see how knowing anything about this counts as "personal growth"? There are plenty of things you can know that actively make you a worse person by making you depressed and thus less engaged with things you can actively act upon.

It doesn't have to make you depressed and reality isn't always demotivating. Poor models of reality are a Hallmark of depression. I think that for many, learning more about gun violence could be a relief because their uninformed baseline is so bad

Yeah I can see how that could help for some. I guess it is just a difficult example for someone not in the USA.

Re: Motivating Personal Growth by Seeking Discomfort (2022)

#38

Post by devops99 »

ImaCake wrote: post #22

>learning about gun violence. Maybe this is helpful in the USA, but I hardly see how knowing anything about this counts as "personal growth"? There are plenty of things you can know that actively make you a worse person by making you depressed and thus less engaged with things you can actively act upon.

[flagged]

Re: Motivating Personal Growth by Seeking Discomfort (2022)

#39

Post by abhaynayar »

I relate to this a lot due to personal experiences in seeking discomfort for its own sake. I used to get anxious in social situations, to treat that I intentionally went into random social situations that would make me anxious. Over time, it does make you feel less anxious. But if you stop doing it, your anxiety creeps back.

I then realized that change has to be deeper on an identity and lifestyle level. "What is the kind of person you want to become, and what is the kind of lifestyle you want to live" - rather than doing one-off anxiety provoking tasks. In living up to your desired identity and lifestyle, if you face discomfort - THAT is a good discomfort to face.

Re: Motivating Personal Growth by Seeking Discomfort (2022)

#40

Post by lukan »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #25
ImaCake wrote: post #22

>learning about gun violence. Maybe this is helpful in the USA, but I hardly see how knowing anything about this counts as "personal growth"? There are plenty of things you can know that actively make you a worse person by making you depressed and thus less engaged with things you can actively act upon.

It doesn't have to make you depressed and reality isn't always demotivating. Poor models of reality are a Hallmark of depression. I think that for many, learning more about gun violence could be a relief because their uninformed baseline is so bad

"Poor models of reality are a Hallmark of depression."

Is that a fact? I recall from studies with pessimists and optimists, where they should self report some progress on learning something - and the reports of the pessimists were way more realistic, than those of the optimists. (But the latter probably enjoyed the whole thing)

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