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Do hard things carefully

blog.depthsofrepair.com

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Re: Do hard things carefully

#21

Post by foobarchu »

metalman wrote: post #15

I like the authors take, and disatisfaction with certain maxums,so I created my own which is relevant, "just because you can,doesn't mean you should" which I first applied to lifting very heavy things and living as I do ,crossing paths with people from most lifestyles and groups,I have seen a good many exceptional people perform feats in there various fields....there is always risk.....and nothing would be fun withou…

To stretch the metaphor a bit, people who lift heavy things professionally or recreationally do so in cycles where the weight they are lifting is a percentage of the most they could lift. For that to work, you need to know what that max is, so some cycles are going to be based around recalibrating the max. Otherwise, you will plateau your growth because you are limiting yourself to what you could do before.

I think that applies to life experiences too. I personally consider myself someone for whom rollercoasters are too intense, but I still try a thrill ride every few years (if the opportunity presents) to ensure I'm not limiting myself by what was true a decade or two ago. I try foods I know I won't like sometimes, because tastes change.

I'm not comfortable with heights and generally avoid them, but I'm still planning to do a hot air balloon ride soon because I want to challenge myself.

Re: Do hard things carefully

#22

Post by foo_foo_can_do »

ileonichwiesz wrote: post #11
arzke wrote: post #4

> “You have to listen to your gut. If something feels off, you’ve gotta listen to what your body is telling you and get out. If you don’t, you’ll end up regretting it.” > Next time you’re feeling some discomfort in a situation, slow down and take a deep breath. Check in with yourself. Where is your edge? What level of discomfort feels challenging but not overwhelming right now? Can you lean in and try something diffi…

> I'd assume some neurodivergent people would struggle with this as well, as they might find it challenging to sense this balance. Yeah, this is useless because it relies on the assumption that people’s level of comfort/discomfort is a rational thing that’s consistent among different people. It treats that complex barely-understood neurological system like it’s a barometer outside your window. I’ve been dealing with…

agree, and a caveat to all 'trust your gut' type advice should be that you need to first deal with any psychological issues before you can even perceive your own genuine intuition. in my experience anxiety in fact stems from being out of touch with intuition, and it takes a more complex process to re-learn how to be natural than any pithy advice can describe.

Re: Do hard things carefully

#23

Post by paulgerhardt »

pbronez wrote: post #19

A related concept from psychology/education is “the zone of proximal development.” It extends this “edge” concept to consider how much further you can push with support from a coach. https://www.simplypsychology.org/zone-of-proximal-developmen... “It represents tasks beyond the learner’s current abilities but is attainable with the help and guidance of the more knowledgeable other (MKO). The ZPD is the range of tasks…

See also Csiksgentmihalyi’s Flow Theory [1].

Vygotsky‘s ZPD is a useful 1-dimensional tool (literally a number line) for learning I find (to oversimplify) Csiksgentmihalyi‘z to be a better 2-D tool for conceptualizing performance in a task.

While both are pretty foundational concepts in motivational psychology it follows one can expand to create one’s own n-dimensional personal heuristics incorporating emotional and social factors.

[1] https://centerforstartservices.org/blog/2024/04/what-flow

Re: Do hard things carefully

#24

Post by nuancebydefault »

arzke wrote: post #4

> “You have to listen to your gut. If something feels off, you’ve gotta listen to what your body is telling you and get out. If you don’t, you’ll end up regretting it.” > Next time you’re feeling some discomfort in a situation, slow down and take a deep breath. Check in with yourself. Where is your edge? What level of discomfort feels challenging but not overwhelming right now? Can you lean in and try something diffi…

For me the difficulty is very often that my gut says I can share almost anything with anybody. Especially when in case of one on one conversations. So my conscious brain needs to put regularly a break on it. If I give in too much, I usually get a silent reaction and sometimes even people avoiding my conversation.

Indeed the 'conversation is like a dance' feels like a more correct expression of reality.

Re: Do hard things carefully

#26

Post by gwd »

I don't think it's necessarily a "happy medium", but wisdom to know what kind of pain it is, and what the cost/benefit is of the situation.

If you're lifting weights, the "burn" you feel after doing 20 reps of a light weight might be way higher in intensity than a little twinge in your shoulder; but the "burn" might be something you push through, while the twinge is something you just stop your workout for that day -- and if it happens again, may mean you take it easy on your shoulder for a week or two. That's because you know the "cost" of pushing through the burn is negligible and the benefit part of your whole plan; the "cost" of pushing through the shoulder twinge might be a month or two of no working out, possibly no more weightlifting ever if it's bad enough.

In most situations I have a policy of eating at least a bit of whatever's put in front of me. It's good to train myself to put politeness over squeamishness, and in any case I've often found new foods that I've liked that way. I've never eaten tarantula or grasshopper, but if someone offered me one I'd try it, even though it sounds disgusting.

However, I no longer eat sea cucumbers if my wife cooks them, even though I have only a mild distaste to them: I've already eaten them hundreds of times, I know I can eat them, I'm pretty sure they're never going to get any easier to eat, and she doesn't mind, as it leaves more for her. Forcing myself to eat them doesn't really have that much benefit.

As a "social introvert", I've learned at conferences to just go back to my room and take a nap if I'm tired. I can just power through the day without a rest, but the interactions aren't really worth it -- much better to take a break and come back fresh and ready to engage.

I could go on and on -- the key thing is to recognize what the actual cost or benefit of "pushing" is.

Re: Do hard things carefully

#27

Post by nuancebydefault »

foobarchu wrote: post #21
metalman wrote: post #15

I like the authors take, and disatisfaction with certain maxums,so I created my own which is relevant, "just because you can,doesn't mean you should" which I first applied to lifting very heavy things and living as I do ,crossing paths with people from most lifestyles and groups,I have seen a good many exceptional people perform feats in there various fields....there is always risk.....and nothing would be fun withou…

To stretch the metaphor a bit, people who lift heavy things professionally or recreationally do so in cycles where the weight they are lifting is a percentage of the most they could lift. For that to work, you need to know what that max is, so some cycles are going to be based around recalibrating the max. Otherwise, you will plateau your growth because you are limiting yourself to what you could do before. I think t…

Plus one for the balloon. You will find it will stretch the rubber band a bit without much discomfort. On the contrary, the beauty of the experience most likely more than compensates for any discomfort.

Re: Do hard things carefully

#28

Post by nuancebydefault »

ejoebstl wrote: post #16

I dislike the example of sharing personal information in the article. It's sometimes not only about your own comfort and boundaries, but also how much you want to put on another person.

I struggle sometimes with that, probably because I don't understand the 'put on another person' part. Would you (or anyone else reading this) care to give a recognizable example?

Re: Do hard things carefully

#29

Post by dartharva »

GistNoesis wrote: post #7

These kinds of article push me over the edge. They introduce just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to be useful in order to sell you a book and course which will be more of the same bad quality content. In the article they define the edge as the transition zone between the comfort zone and the danger zone. And they more or less directly tell you to push it and stretch it with care. The proper underlying concept…

> If you follow the advices of these kind of articles, you typically see an initial success, followed by occasional bigger successes, followed by occasional crashes, followed by unrecoverable crashes.

Aren't such articles only meant as food for thought? I find it difficult to imagine anyone actually driving their lives on it. Is that even possible for any kind of media, let alone such short articles?

Re: Do hard things carefully

#30

Post by nuancebydefault »

GistNoesis wrote: post #7

These kinds of article push me over the edge. They introduce just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to be useful in order to sell you a book and course which will be more of the same bad quality content. In the article they define the edge as the transition zone between the comfort zone and the danger zone. And they more or less directly tell you to push it and stretch it with care. The proper underlying concept…

It feels to me like you are comparing/applying hard science knowledge and techniques to psychologic knowledge and techniques, which is fine.

However my personal experience is that it mostly doesn't work out like that. Real human interactions with others and with things is so complex that it can't reliably be modeled that way. In reality it is more a combination of gut feeling and rational overthought and afterthought, in a never ending feedback loop.

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