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I have found it very useful to frame things in terms of my future self. This works for both things I want to do, and things I want to stop doing. For example

I have found it very useful to frame things in terms of my future self. This works for both things I want to do, and things I want to stop doing. For example — get home from work, tired, don’t want to go row. Instead of saying to myself “You really should go row, you said you wanted to do it 4 times a week.” I say “1 hour from now do I want to be a person who has sat on the couch for an hour or do I want to be the person who has worked out, taken a shower, and feels good”. Same thing for stopping mindless doom scrolling or making dinner vs ordering deliver or whatever. I know it’s just a mental trick — but reframing things in terms of my future self has been incredibly powerful for me.

emerged 5y ago
I sometimes explicitly create a log of the before and after state of mind. Before rowing: “I feel fine, but pretty lazy and stressed about XYZ” after rowing: “Struggled through and got a big endorphin rush toward the end, feeling good and much less stressed.” Seeing fitness progress graphs helps as well (heart rate vs power output etc). I know for me personally monitoring my resting heart rate made a strong argument against pretty much any alcohol consumption.
- loeg 5y ago
  What effect have you observed on your resting heart rate from alcohol?
  - emerged 5y ago
    It increases immediately and takes a few days to settle back down. After quitting my weekly average slowly continued to decrease. My RHH is a very consistent 46 bpm now and it was consistently in the low to mid 50s during the months/years I was routinely drinking on the weekends. Obviously there are other factors like fitness, sleep, general health, but I was monitoring the numbers on a daily basis and the trends became really clear.
    - loeg 5y ago
      Thanks. I hadn’t noticed that myself but will have to pay more attention.
  - maccard 5y ago
    I've not been measuring my RHR for a while but when I was training daily my RHR would be up significantly for maybe 3 days after a night out even if I felt 100% the morning after.
costcofries 5y ago
I do something similar. If I'm being lazy or procrastinating I ask myself to rate on a scale of ten how much I don't want to do said thing, then I ask myself why it's not a 10/10, those reasons push me to start. Example - how badly do you not want to run today (6/10). Why not 10/10? Because I'll feel better after, because it's part of my marathon training and because dinner will feel more rewarding. Ok, go run.
- psychomugs 5y ago
  Some advice I gleaned from another HN post: you rarely [1] regret going for a run. [1] Unless you're injured and stubbornly push your body through it.
  - DarylZero 5y ago
    If you're fat you are going to regret going for a run for days just from the micro-injuries. It's not low-impact. Also, even if you walk back home after an injury, you might regret running. You started your run able to run, now you're disabled!
    - BossingAround 5y ago
      Your wording is poor, but you are right in a sense. If I've never run, I won't finish a triathlon and expect to be completely fine the next day. If your body is utterly out of shape, i.e. you're morbidly obese, you don't start with running. You start with walking and slowly move to running. In that case, you won't regret walking, not running.
      - DarylZero 5y ago
        Walking has the same problem really. It's not low-impact. You may be feeling pain in your ankles, knees, feet, etc., for a few days. It's likely to negatively impact your general activity level during that time. You may still not "regret" it, but it's a very strange statement to say nobody ever has. I know I have! If you're 100lbs overweight, it's roughly the same effort & same strain on joints as a person 100lbs lighter carrying a 100lb backpack.
anthomtb 5y ago
Future me has helped maintain an exercise habit and healthy eating for nearly 2 decades of my life (and counting). Future me has been less effective for breaking the internet habit. It works, just not quite as well. I think because future me still wants to know what happened in the world in the last hour. And because sometimes current me needs a break and light entertainment due to the mental energy required to consider future me.
Ozzie_osman 5y ago
You're actually triggering two things with this trick. First, the piece you call out is delayed gratification (ie focusing on the future over the short-term). But there's a second piece hidden in there, which is identity-orientation. "I'm the type of person who does X". Tying actions to your identity is actually really powerful.
- HPsquared 5y ago
  The "identity" part is good because it works in the immediate present time.
- MagicNights 5y ago
  This is one of many solutions to the framing problem. John Vervaeke discusses it and the theoretical background in his awakening from the meaning crisis lecture series. Lecture 13 especially https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkWNBdBDyoE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkWNBdBDyoE Meditation, therapy, exercise, certain religious practices, etc. Also break people out when they are stuck in loops of vicious cycles. Different people have different combinations of what practices work for them. And there's no way to know what works before you try it. In OPs article, he mentions the distinction between knowledge and information. He means self-knowledge, the stuff Socrates talked about
id 5y ago
This only works if you care enough about your future self unfortunately.
robenkleene 5y ago
A bit off topic, but I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas about how to remember to do something like this? In specific, I mean as it relates to information management. E.g., a lot of things are solved problems for me, like using todo apps for todos, and some sort of "Everything bucket"[0] system for searching for information (per the link, I use the file system for this). But things like this, things you want to try and implement, but unlike a todo, you have to wait for the right moment (i.e., use this technique to address a bad habit at the right moment), I can't figure out a way to use to technology to remember to do them. (I'm aware some people don't like to use technology to solve these kinds of problems, but for me personally, technology has been tremendously effective in solving these problems when a system can be adapted to the problem. I'm just not sure what the system should be for this type of information.) I've actually been thinking about this problem literally for over a decade, the first app I ever made was designed to address it[1]. This app is no longer maintained, because it didn't get enough users to be worth maintaining. Maybe an app like this is the right solution, and there's just not enough people who think it's a problem worth solving to support the continued development of a software solution? I'm not sure. [0]: https://www.al3x.net/blog/2009/01/31/the-case-against-everything-buckets https://www.al3x.net/blog/2009/01/31/the-case-against-everyt... [1]: https://1percenter.com/review/ https://1percenter.com/review/
- batshit_beaver 5y ago
  When it comes to automatic introspection (ie noticing when you're thinking/feeling something, processing that, and making a CONSCIOUS decision in response), I am not aware of a better solution than meditation. It literally trains your mind that the constant stream of information passing through your brain (thoughts and cravings included) can actually be "watched" and responded to. If you don't have a sufficient level of awareness, it'll be really hard to catch yourself thinking "man, I don't want to do X, I'm just gonna lay on the couch." You'll just go lay on the couch and your brain will continue on to something else. To break these kinds of patterns, you essentially need a "supervisor" process running in your brain that can catch and evaluate thoughts, especially negative or harmful ones. Then if you catch yourself thinking "I don't want to do X right now," you can proceed to thinking about that feeling rather than laying on the couch. Takes about a month or two of daily meditation before this sort of thing really starts becoming effortless. I miss my meditation routine...
0xcde4c3db 5y ago
The problem with this kind of trick for me is that too often, the "better" option does not actually make me feel better (in any sense). It ends up just feeling like effort for the sake of effort.

emerged 5y ago

I sometimes explicitly create a log of the before and after state of mind. Before rowing: “I feel fine, but pretty lazy and stressed about XYZ” after rowing: “Struggled through and got a big endorphin rush toward the end, feeling good and much less stressed.” Seeing fitness progress graphs helps as well (heart rate vs power output etc). I know for me personally monitoring my resting heart rate made a strong argument against pretty much any alcohol consumption.

loeg 5y ago
What effect have you observed on your resting heart rate from alcohol?
- emerged 5y ago
  It increases immediately and takes a few days to settle back down. After quitting my weekly average slowly continued to decrease. My RHH is a very consistent 46 bpm now and it was consistently in the low to mid 50s during the months/years I was routinely drinking on the weekends. Obviously there are other factors like fitness, sleep, general health, but I was monitoring the numbers on a daily basis and the trends became really clear.
  - loeg 5y ago
    Thanks. I hadn’t noticed that myself but will have to pay more attention.
- maccard 5y ago
  I've not been measuring my RHR for a while but when I was training daily my RHR would be up significantly for maybe 3 days after a night out even if I felt 100% the morning after.

costcofries 5y ago

I do something similar. If I'm being lazy or procrastinating I ask myself to rate on a scale of ten how much I don't want to do said thing, then I ask myself why it's not a 10/10, those reasons push me to start. Example - how badly do you not want to run today (6/10). Why not 10/10? Because I'll feel better after, because it's part of my marathon training and because dinner will feel more rewarding. Ok, go run.

psychomugs 5y ago
Some advice I gleaned from another HN post: you rarely [1] regret going for a run. [1] Unless you're injured and stubbornly push your body through it.
- DarylZero 5y ago
  If you're fat you are going to regret going for a run for days just from the micro-injuries. It's not low-impact. Also, even if you walk back home after an injury, you might regret running. You started your run able to run, now you're disabled!
  - BossingAround 5y ago
    Your wording is poor, but you are right in a sense. If I've never run, I won't finish a triathlon and expect to be completely fine the next day. If your body is utterly out of shape, i.e. you're morbidly obese, you don't start with running. You start with walking and slowly move to running. In that case, you won't regret walking, not running.
    - DarylZero 5y ago
      Walking has the same problem really. It's not low-impact. You may be feeling pain in your ankles, knees, feet, etc., for a few days. It's likely to negatively impact your general activity level during that time. You may still not "regret" it, but it's a very strange statement to say nobody ever has. I know I have! If you're 100lbs overweight, it's roughly the same effort & same strain on joints as a person 100lbs lighter carrying a 100lb backpack.

anthomtb 5y ago

Future me has helped maintain an exercise habit and healthy eating for nearly 2 decades of my life (and counting). Future me has been less effective for breaking the internet habit. It works, just not quite as well. I think because future me still wants to know what happened in the world in the last hour. And because sometimes current me needs a break and light entertainment due to the mental energy required to consider future me.

Ozzie_osman 5y ago

You're actually triggering two things with this trick. First, the piece you call out is delayed gratification (ie focusing on the future over the short-term). But there's a second piece hidden in there, which is identity-orientation. "I'm the type of person who does X". Tying actions to your identity is actually really powerful.

HPsquared 5y ago
The "identity" part is good because it works in the immediate present time.
MagicNights 5y ago
This is one of many solutions to the framing problem. John Vervaeke discusses it and the theoretical background in his awakening from the meaning crisis lecture series. Lecture 13 especially https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkWNBdBDyoE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkWNBdBDyoE Meditation, therapy, exercise, certain religious practices, etc. Also break people out when they are stuck in loops of vicious cycles. Different people have different combinations of what practices work for them. And there's no way to know what works before you try it. In OPs article, he mentions the distinction between knowledge and information. He means self-knowledge, the stuff Socrates talked about

id 5y ago

This only works if you care enough about your future self unfortunately.

robenkleene 5y ago

A bit off topic, but I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas about how to remember to do something like this? In specific, I mean as it relates to information management. E.g., a lot of things are solved problems for me, like using todo apps for todos, and some sort of "Everything bucket"[0] system for searching for information (per the link, I use the file system for this). But things like this, things you want to try and implement, but unlike a todo, you have to wait for the right moment (i.e., use this technique to address a bad habit at the right moment), I can't figure out a way to use to technology to remember to do them. (I'm aware some people don't like to use technology to solve these kinds of problems, but for me personally, technology has been tremendously effective in solving these problems when a system can be adapted to the problem. I'm just not sure what the system should be for this type of information.) I've actually been thinking about this problem literally for over a decade, the first app I ever made was designed to address it[1]. This app is no longer maintained, because it didn't get enough users to be worth maintaining. Maybe an app like this is the right solution, and there's just not enough people who think it's a problem worth solving to support the continued development of a software solution? I'm not sure. [0]: https://www.al3x.net/blog/2009/01/31/the-case-against-everything-buckets https://www.al3x.net/blog/2009/01/31/the-case-against-everyt... [1]: https://1percenter.com/review/ https://1percenter.com/review/

batshit_beaver 5y ago
When it comes to automatic introspection (ie noticing when you're thinking/feeling something, processing that, and making a CONSCIOUS decision in response), I am not aware of a better solution than meditation. It literally trains your mind that the constant stream of information passing through your brain (thoughts and cravings included) can actually be "watched" and responded to. If you don't have a sufficient level of awareness, it'll be really hard to catch yourself thinking "man, I don't want to do X, I'm just gonna lay on the couch." You'll just go lay on the couch and your brain will continue on to something else. To break these kinds of patterns, you essentially need a "supervisor" process running in your brain that can catch and evaluate thoughts, especially negative or harmful ones. Then if you catch yourself thinking "I don't want to do X right now," you can proceed to thinking about that feeling rather than laying on the couch. Takes about a month or two of daily meditation before this sort of thing really starts becoming effortless. I miss my meditation routine...

0xcde4c3db 5y ago

The problem with this kind of trick for me is that too often, the "better" option does not actually make me feel better (in any sense). It ends up just feeling like effort for the sake of effort.