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Studies suggest that relying on will power to break habits is hopeless (2019)

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Re: Studies suggest that relying on will power to break habits is hopeless (2019)

#71

Post by tpmoney »

akira2501 wrote: post #36
tpmoney wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem becomes that most people use "willpower", especially when talking about bad habits, in a sense of "just stop doing The Thing". Without deep examination about WHY you do The Thing, that is a very hard thing to do because all the triggers and incentives for you to do The Thing continue to be present and push you back towards doing The Thing. Saying someone lacks Willpower is often a fancy substituti…

Will power is not some magic force that we are born with. To me "will power" comes from precisely the process you are describing, the self interrogation into the source of these negative behaviors, examination of how they hold you back, and anticipation of what you might be able to achieve if you master them. What I've observed in people is the disconnect on the last part of that pathway. They understand their defici…

>To me "will power" comes from precisely the process you are describing, the self interrogation into the source of these negative behaviors, examination of how they hold you back, and anticipation of what you might be able to achieve if you master them.

That may be how you describe it, but just hop into any discussion on Wegovy here on HN (or anywhere else) and observe the number of people who "don't get why it's so hard to just eat less". Or again, look at the entire war on drugs.

Willpower defined as a deep interrogation of your incentives and psychological state and making fundamental changes not (just or even mostly) to your behavior but to the environment around you and the incentives you are responding to, possibly and including accepting that your are unable to change your current environment and incentives and are therefore also unlikely to make the change in behavior you are attempting, is definitely not the norm.

Or to put it in a way that might make more sense to the HN crowd here, not deleting the prod database is as easy as making sure your not on prod when you do destructive things. But putting your prod stuff behind a VPN, having different logins, sanity checks and non-destructive capable default access to prod are all things that will make the chances of you never deleting prod a lot higher than just "be more careful". Yes, putting those systems and blocks in place is being careful in a sense, but it's not the same sense people mean when they say "just be careful and you won't delete prod".

Re: Studies suggest that relying on will power to break habits is hopeless (2019)

#72

Post by endisneigh »

kaashif wrote: post #69
endisneigh wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what a bizarre comment. the conclusion is hardly defeatist. the TLDR of the article is that if you (for example) are struggling with focus, a strategy that is basically telling yourself to focus (while loud music is playing around you) will not yield as much success as removing distractions (turning off the music) in your environment, then trying to focus again. the efficacy of the two strategies is dependent not ent…

The conclusion may not be defeatist, but the conclusion is different from the subtitle of the article (and the title of the submission): > Studies suggest that relying on will power is hopeless Which would indeed be extremely defeatist. Willpower and better strategies can both work in conjunction. Willpower is not entirely hopeless as a strategy.

why omit the last part?

> Studies suggest that relying on will power is hopeless. Instead, we must find strategies that don’t require us to be strong.

nothing defeatist about it.

not to mention, why judge such a long article which is summarizing a long book by the subtitle which generally isn't even written by the author of the article...

Re: Studies suggest that relying on will power to break habits is hopeless (2019)

#73

Post by refactor_master »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #4
antwerp1 wrote: post #3

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.”

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

What am I going to do with all my identical shirts now!

Re: Studies suggest that relying on will power to break habits is hopeless (2019)

#74

Post by dyno12345 »

bitshaker wrote: post #10
rodlette wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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…

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

Re: Studies suggest that relying on will power to break habits is hopeless (2019)

#75

Post by wruza »

wcarron wrote: post #44

[flagged]

That is a commonly observable post-willpower attitude. Unfortunately it doesn’t help those for whom it didn’t work. It’s like saying get up and live to a depressed one.

Saying that as a guy who punched evolving clinical depression in her face without medications with character-intrinsic anger. The problem with that approach is that not everyone has anger as a reaction so default that it still remains in a depressed state.

That said, glad you’re fine.

Re: Studies suggest that relying on will power to break habits is hopeless (2019)

#76

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

jawns wrote: post #28

I am not a smoker, but I recently read through Allan Carr's "Easy Way to Quit Smoking Without Willpower" book. (There is a similar book out there called the Easy Peasy Way to Quit Porn, for those who are struggling with that.) The tl;dr is that it's much harder to quit an addiction with the mindset, "This thing is great, but I'm going to deprive myself of it." Instead, you need to realize that you've been deceived an…

> Instead, you need to realize that you've been deceived and maybe even brainwashed into thinking that this vice has any redeeming value.

This has been 50% of my approach to trying to (almost entirely) give up drinking. I realized that (a) I rarely, if ever, get the happy buzz any more (b) it doesn't get me the sex that it once did (c) it doesn't actually assist with being emotionally open with my wife the way it once did (d) it contributes to weight gain (e) it probably has other negative health effects (f) it costs quite a bit of money.

All that's left of the positives is that I really, really enjoy the actual taste of the wines I love.

The other 50% was being told I had high blood pressure, and realizing the alcohol can play a role in that too.

Re: Studies suggest that relying on will power to break habits is hopeless (2019)

#77

Post by airstrike »

endisneigh wrote: post #72
kaashif wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conclusion may not be defeatist, but the conclusion is different from the subtitle of the article (and the title of the submission): > Studies suggest that relying on will power is hopeless Which would indeed be extremely defeatist. Willpower and better strategies can both work in conjunction. Willpower is not entirely hopeless as a strategy.

why omit the last part? > Studies suggest that relying on will power is hopeless. Instead, we must find strategies that don’t require us to be strong. nothing defeatist about it. not to mention, why judge such a long article which is summarizing a long book by the subtitle which generally isn't even written by the author of the article...

Because that bit is not in the title

Re: Studies suggest that relying on will power to break habits is hopeless (2019)

#78

Post by pi-e-sigma »

a_n wrote: post #59

[flagged]

Exactly. One day I decided to beat Magnus Carlsen at chess and I just did it. It's all about hard work, you don't need good genetics or supporting family, or a bit of luck with being at the right place at the right time. Just iron will, which BTW is also 100% a genetic trait but that simply doesn't matter!

Re: Studies suggest that relying on will power to break habits is hopeless (2019)

#79

Post by Dylan16807 »

BaculumMeumEst wrote: post #52

Good thing I didn’t read such a bullshit defeatist conclusion before I dropped 40 lbs 7 years ago (adopted sane diet, never gained it back) and dug myself out of a deep hole of alcohol dependence. haven’t beaten the habit of falling for engagement baiting headlines though i suppose do not let yourself believe you are weak or a victim

Did you "rely on will power" to do that? They're definitely not saying people are unable to change habits!

And it's more about how rare it is than saying it's actually impossible.

Re: Studies suggest that relying on will power to break habits is hopeless (2019)

#80

Post by aeblyve »

BaculumMeumEst wrote: post #52

Good thing I didn’t read such a bullshit defeatist conclusion before I dropped 40 lbs 7 years ago (adopted sane diet, never gained it back) and dug myself out of a deep hole of alcohol dependence. haven’t beaten the habit of falling for engagement baiting headlines though i suppose do not let yourself believe you are weak or a victim

Something I've been exploring for the past year or so are means to increase biological energy, and brain energy in particular. If one finds themselves unable to escape their routine, brain energy could be a bottleneck.

It seems likely to me that some point along the lines of "sane diet" increased your brain energy, which gave you the presence of mind to do all those other things.

Really, I think that the premise of the article ought to inspire hope, by suggesting that simple materialistic interventions alone could be sufficient to produce change.

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