Jakub Petrykowski blog

Thoughts on willpower, blood sugar and learning too fast

A few random thoughts:

• Willpower - is it a depletable resource? Or maybe it isn't? The article suggests it's probably a dead end. Based on my small experiments with diet changes, changing habits in my case requires environment control, self-education, self-awareness and planning. No moment-to-moment willpower necessary, and in fact if it comes down to that, I usually fail and eat that delicious but unhealthy treat/cookie/pizza.
• I've bought & tried a glucometer. Very cool device, allows you to test actual effects of food on your blood sugar. It's amazing to be able to perform an actual blood test yourself, at home, within less than a minute, using a device that costs around $20. Brilliant.
• I'm experimenting with eating food which has low glycemic index, and seeing how this affects my moment-to-moment energy level, focus, emotions and optimism. So far the results are very encouraging. If you don't know what it is, and you'd like to have more energy and focus on a typical workday, I recommend learning more about glycemic index. 
• There is a phenomenon I'd call "learning too fast". I've concluded that I was reading too many books, and analyzing various areas of my work and life too much, without acting. The way I evaluate it is by looking at the ratio of applied knowledge (change in a way I do things) to acquired knowledge (instructions on how to do things differently, taken from books, friends etc.). This ratio is appallingly low for me. I'd say that I apply maybe 5-10% of what I read in the last year, and that only includes advice that I decided to be meaningful and worthwhile. Rate of knowledge application is just as important as rate of knowledge acquisition. They don't need to be equal, but learning too fast compared to applying what you learn may lead to frustration ("I learned so much, but there are no improvements in my daily work/life") and is just waste if you dedicate lots of resources to it.

More on self-discipline

Summary: As I promised to Greg last week, I read through six old articles on self-discipline by Steve Pavlina. Here's detailed comments on these, and how I think his ideas relate to my earlier post on methodical work as a habit.

Note that I am not familiar with scientific research on the topic (though perhaps it would help me a lot if I read a few papers), except that I've seen some books mentioning evidence suggesting that willpower is in limited supply in humans.

Let me discuss each of the six articles by Pavlina in the context of my previous post on methodical work as a habit.

• Part 1 (on self-discipline in general)  - 
  
  I like his definition: "Self-discipline is the ability to get yourself to take action regardless of your emotional state" 
  
  He claims that self-discipline can be trained like a muscle. I sure hope it can. But he shows examples like, say, getting up early in the morning. Well that sounds like building an individual habit of getting up early rather than working on "self-discipline", doesn't it?
  
  Obviously when you train a repeatable behavior, over time you will get better at that specific behavior. But does it later "overflow" into other areas of life?
  
  By training those individual habits or behaviors, are we improving our capacity to self-discipline in any area?
  
  I think more likely than not we are simply training individual habits. Whether or not we increase our capacity to act regardless of emotional states remains unknown.
• Part 2 (acceptance) -  he merely restates that after a long time of practicing various habits (working out, diet, ...) he had made great progress in these areas of life. 
  
  Here's the key sentence: "It’s still hard work, but I’ve become a lot stronger such that things that would have been insurmountable for me at age 20 are easy today"
  
  It sounds a lot like he basically trained well in these specific areas he named, so they are easy to him now, but that doesn't mean a bit that doing something new is easier! Also we don't know what "would have been"... 
  
  Since these areas of his life are now governed by long-trained habits (10 years or more), obviously he can focus on other things, which appears to him like he was much more disciplined in general. But in general means simply in these areas of life.
  
  Also, perhaps his own general ability to push himself and work hard methodically is far above average (and possibly rather constant over adult lifetime), which is what allowed him to build those habits in the first place... 
  
  Basically he now doesn't use up a lot of "discipline" on those "basic" areas of life, and can use this "energy" on something else. That doesn't mean he improved his self-discipline. It seems to me that over time he setup good, optimized routines for all that he does effectively; one result is that he is physically and mentally stronger now (exercise, diet etc. all are known to improve mental and emotional capacity a lot!) and he was able to organize his habits and life so that he can focus on higher level, bigger objectives where he just can't waste time on washing up etc.
  
  He then calls this improved situation in his life "improved self-discipline", but it is simply a set of new habits and better mind-body condition which allows him to operate on a different level (be more successful etc.).
  
  So this second part only strengthened the following model in my mind:
  
  - some things should be done on a regular basis (I call them "maintenance projects", ones where regular work brings good results)- turning these things into habits is a great way of having them done (maximize efficiency);
  - once they are habits - which may take months or years to build - we can focus on more important, bigger goals and achieve them with more ease since the baseline is working on autopilot for us.
  
  I don't see self-discipline as a muscle anywhere in the picture so far. Let's go on to the next part.
• Part 3 (Willpower) - this article seems to refer to scientificly researched area. Yes, willpower is in limited supply, and some people seem to be able to distract themselves from dangerous thoughts and tendencies which on the outside may have the appearance of strong will  (famous marshmallow experiment comes to mind).
  
  Pavlina states that knowing this, one should use that limited supply of willpower to organize his environment  so that sustaining "good" habits is easier. I like this idea, and won't argue with that :) It's actually known technique in the self-help industry.
  
  I am a fan of "environment control" when building habits (examples: changing diet, doing workout etc.). In other words - by setting up specific environment, make it hard to fall into bad habits and easy to maintain good habits, and you'll succeed. No revolution here, and if it says anything about willpower or self-discipline it's that we should never rely on them too much! :)
  
  He sums it up nicely: "By the end of the day, you’ve used your willpower not to diet directly but to establish the conditions that will make your diet easier to follow." But is it willpower we use to setup environemnt? Is it that "hard" emotionally to get rid of sugar or remodel house?
  
  
  I think that's the way to go with new habits. It might be one of the least controversial ideas in the whole self-help industry :)
• Part 4 (Hard work) - this article shows that he is a hard worker, and I guess most of us would agree that hard work is good and brings great results over time :)
  
  If someone is naturally a hard worker, someone focused on improving oneself and his surroundings, that's great. But what if someone isn't? How is self-discipline related to choosing "hard" work (that which challenges you, per Pavlina's definition)
  
  So again, I agree with the value of hard work and even with his specific definition of hard work, but how can one do more of hard work if he wishes to? What's the method? He never discussed it, and that's what I was looking for.
• Part 5  (Industry) - this article states that our lifestyle implies certain tasks that require a lot of time investment from someone - could be us, could be someone we hire or ask for help. 
  
  Not a word about self-discipline here. He simply suggests to be wise and only do the stuff that really needs to be done, and even delegate if possible. I have nothing to add. 
• Part 6 (Persistence) - His definition of persistence in article 6 is the same as his definition of self-discipline in article 1 ("Persistence is the ability to maintain action regardless of your feelings." vs "Self-discipline is the ability to get yourself to take action regardless of your emotional state.")
  
  This article is mostly about when to change direction (goals), but it does have a hint at what keeps Pavlina persistent: a clear vision of the future he really desires. "Persistence of action comes from persistence of vision. When you’re super-clear about what you want in such a way that your vision doesn’t change much, you’ll be more consistent — and persistent — in your actions. And that consistency of action will produce consistency of results."
  
  Again, this is hardly surprising or controversial. Some sources on facilitating change (like "Switch") are adamant on providing crystal-clear direction when we want any kind of change to happen.

So in the end, the general mechanisms or values stated by Steve Pavlina in these articles are very close to what I believe, e.g.

• hard work brings great results, 
• it helps to be clear about what we want, 
• if you control your environment, changing habits gets much easier
•  it's good to be realistic about what you can achieve (my restatement of his article on "acceptance")

I am not sure that by building arbitrary new habits we improve our self-discipline, but it could be so. Human behavior seems to me much too broad a topic to nail it down with such a simple concept as "self-discipline", here's some reasons why I think so:

• what's emotional regulation role in what appears as "self-discipline" or willpower? (I mean the struggle between executive center of the brain and the amygdala or other areas; not an expert, but I mean the part that is supposed to be made stronger by meditation)
• since we know some traits of emotional intelligence can be improved in adults with relatively simple practice, isn't it more useful to see  self-discipline just as one aspect of emotional self-regulation, which is just one aspect of emotional intelligence? If so, what does research on EI tell us about ways to improve self-discipline?

You see, I now like to think in terms of behaviors and things (as opposed to opinions and ideas):

• what actions do I perform specifically (what do I say and when, where do I go, what do I look at, what question do I ask myself at what time) to achieve change/objective I am after?
• what things (e.g. tools) do I bring into my life to make a new habit? to "appear" more disciplined? to do more hard work? to get more done? I.e. how do I redesign my work/home environment?

Actions. Things. These are controlled and real. If specific actions and things bring results I want, that's great.

In the absence of these specific instructions, I am of course willing to look at other concepts - emotions (if I feel them); metaphors (if I can understand them). 

So what I'm looking for is perhaps a detailed, step-by-step instructions that will lead a randomly selected person to becoming a disciplined hard worker :) Any suggestions outside of what's already discussed above?

Methodical work as a habit

Methodical work leads to success. 

Methodical work means being disciplined, working a lot, staying motivated, persevering despite setbacks. 

Methodical work brings results, but the work itself often stays invisible to others.

My personal challenge - and in general the key to long term growth of any person - is to stay motivated, disciplined, to do the work on a regular basis. In other words, I wish to work methodically towards my long term goals.

It's  hard. Why? Well, I guess we all know the answer. It's tiring. More often than not humans crave rest, fun, relaxation, pleasure, peace, quiet.

Work frequently means indecision, ambiguity, effort, anxiety, stress. 

Short term desires are easily satisfied. Instant gratification is easy to get, especially when we have personal freedom, time and money. 

Long term goals, even if well understood by an individual, simply lose to what some call "lack of strong will". 

I am leaning towards the belief that this thing called "strong will" doesn't exist. It's imaginary. It doesn't have its own brain area. It's not that most people don't have it (but some do). Nobody does.

If someone is called disciplined, motivated and methodical, it simply means that he has a habit of working. This habit is stronger in him than a habit of satisfying other (short term) desires. He works more often and with more ease than he watches soap operas or eats donuts.

Working is a habit. It's a habit to choose work-like tasks and actions over non-work-like tasks.

As most habits in most people, it can be trained. I'm training it right now. Not sure how exactly - haven't found a single book on the topic so far. So I'm looking at what hard working people do and how they think.

I recently read a book about methodical work titled "The War of Art".

Now, "The War of Art" has two aspects. One of them is positive, another not so much.

The positive is that the book contains a great description of what methodical work looks like in the real world. The author calls a person doing methodical work "a professional". The book contains detailed description of the behaviors and mindset of a professional (as opposed to an amateur).

A professional does the work every day. He knows his trade well. He doesn't fall victim to everyday excuses. He understands it's going to be tough to work every day. He knows he'll face fear or anxiety of publishing what he did; he doesn't trick himself into believing he'll never get tired or afraid. He doesn't stop when others criticize his work.

A professional does the work every day.

I want to be a professional in that sense. I don't think I ever was; I was more of an amateur (inspired and agitated, but easily distracted), sometimes guided by fear (especially in school, but also at work, afraid of losing face). I'd rather be a professional though, guided by a habit of hard work.

So that aspect of the book, what a real pro looks like, was nice. A good summary of what methodical work is and what it takes to do it. (It's not free! Workaholics usually sacrifice their personal relationships, good health or other life opportunities!)

The other aspect of the book is spiritual. It's pretty bad.

The spiritual dogma of the book sounds so ridiculous to me that it was really painful to find it in the same book as the no-nonsense description of a pro. The author believes that there are gods, or God, demons, angels, Muse, "other dimension" beings all around us. The book mixes all this together in a "surely you must believe in something like this!" soup. Terrible. 

The author believes that all great work comes not from people, but through people. Where does it come from exactly? Why, obviously there must be some ethereal beings that inspire selected artists (the professionals) while not inspiring others (the amateurs). They reward hard work with inspiration.

I do not approve of such nonsense. It's a classic example of a human being replacing what he doesn't know or understand with fantasy that makes sense to him. I think that the usual case is that a person is so uncomfortable with not having all the answers about the foundations of the world that they accept whatever nonsense reaches their ears.

Luckily it is quite easy to skip those "spiritual" parts since the book is divided into a series of extremely short chapters (1-2 pages each). Start a chapter, estimate how many angels show up, skip if more than zero. Worked well for me.

I am now very much focused on how to build a habit of methodical work. Doing some research, but also trying myself. Building that mindset of a pro. Incidentally, I'm a StarCraft player and I watch Korean pro league; it's quite informative as well. These are pros like any other and they also work hard, starting at an early age.

It might be the habit that's extremely hard to build. Once I acquire it though, perhaps I could share the trick with others. Would be really great to be able to help others become methodical in their work -- for a lifetime. Imagine a society that is more methodical at work than other societies around. What an advantage! Or more broadly, what a boost to human civilization if it was typical of people to be hard working citizens?

Also, once I build that habit it should feel great and bring great results quickly. As you may have noticed, I strongly believe that it's learnable and that it's indeed a habit. Could be wrong. That would be sad.

It's going to be hard work to change the motivation to work from "I love doing it so I keep doing it" or "I fear not doing it so I keep doing it" to "I will do it now because I said so, despite really craving something else at the moment". But I believe this is what long term success requires.

Do you?

Everyone wants to be around optimists

Summary: Most people prefer to spend time with optimists, but because pessimists are more numerous, and because optimists frequently avoid pessimists, few have the luxury of spending time only with optimists. Optimist and pessimists thus create separate clusters.

Sources: I've done little research on this topic, so I'll just point you to three topics which you can read about a bit on Wikipedia: Explanatory style, Optimism, Martin Seligman (psychologist who discovered the state of learned helplessness and seems to have worked on optimism & explanatory style), and a long article on optimism vs pessimism. 

The reason why I'm writing about it is because I think it's such a brilliant description of attitudes of people around me -- emotional and verbal (explanatory!) attitudes. I used to be on both sides of the spectrum at different times in my life, and I also have spent lots of time with both very pessimistic and very optimistic people. I have seen how these groups affect me, and what kind of emotional reality they create in me. I was moved by the simplicity of the distinction dr Seligman describes in his short video below. You can guess which group I decided to stick with :)

Definition: Who's an optimist and who's a pessimist? Watch the first minute of the video below.

  

Definition summary:

When a pessimist has a bad experience or a setback, he thinks:

- It's going to last forever

- It's going to undermine everything

- It's my fault.

An optimist with a bad experience thinks:

- it's temporary

- it has little to do with me

- it only affects one small part of my life

Now reverse each one for reaction to a positive experience.

Now a few thoughts based on my personal experience.

• once you get this explanation in your head, it gets very easy to quickly spot optimists and pessimists around you - just listen to how people explain their life circumstances, problems, successes and failure, how they distance themselves (or not) from external forces like weather, boss, job, politics etc.
• it might look like optimists are irrational, even delusional. It very well could be. I think this is not a problem for most optimists, because it mostly applies to their life's history -- not to their plans! For example, when an optimist is planning what to do next, he'll generally see things quite similar to everyone else - but he'll get so much more motivation and support from their (perhaps completely inaccurate) beliefs!
• for the most part it is the optimists that share smiles with everyone for no apparent reason, speak in excited tones about anything, and generally appear to have a good day more often than others 
• I don't care if there's a "pure pessimist" and a "pure optimist" out there - it's more important to classify someone's general explanatory style as mostly pessimistic or optimistic.

Here's why I think this model of optimistic vs pessimistic attitude is such a useful tool for handling relationships with others:

1. optimists share lots of joy, hope, happiness, smile and - broadly speaking - positive emotions with others. It's not to say that they only share these things, but typical meetings of optimists have this positive tone. 
2. pessimists share concern, worry, critical analysis, stories of problems and - broadly speaking - how life is a burden to them or to others, and how things won't ever change for the better.
3. because of 1. and 2., almost everyone prefers to spend time with optimists
4. there are fewer optimists than pessimists in societies (I also believe that for example in Poland the ratio is at least as bad as 4:1 for pessimists, or worse. This is a hunch though - no analysis done.)
5. many optimists have much more power in life than pessimists (they have more energy/hope to try new things, more friends, better jobs, more money, thus more freedom) and realize that they can choose who they spend time with. Not surprisingly, they wall off pessimists because pessimists steal positive energy and introduce too much anxiety and frustration into optimists' life.
6. clusters of optimistic people are created. pessimists cluster together as well, probably because having pessimists around is better than having nobody
7. many people spend most of their life without a single optimist around them (I believe it's completely destructive), falling into learned helplessness in important areas of life   

And a few concluding thoughts (again, these are my own hunches and combination of opinions of some of my mentors - not research-backed results!):

• It might be possible to change one's style. I can't say I have a clear example in my mind though! If any of you do, I'd love to hear the story :)
• it should be relatively simple to fake optimism when interacting with others, at least for a while, and in fact some aspects of this attitude are shared in many self-help, team-work and communication resouces. I'm not sure how to fake emotions, but for verbal communication some typical tips are:
  • do not complain. DO NOT COMPLAIN! It's so trivial, but apparently so hard to do (I still do it from time to time, then apologize for complaining to the people around me and quickly change the topic :). There's a fine line between complaining and sharing one's bad experience :) Perhaps just laughing and making a joke out of it is all that it takes...
  • when trouble comes, become "constructive', i.e. admit that you/someone has a problem (one of the hardest things to do for humans :) and focus on finding & executing a solution (not just finding and rejecting every single one after critical analysis, without trying :)
  • praise others, even for small accomplishments
  • praise yourself, even for small accomplishments
• if faking works for a while, perhaps it works longer term, too (it's just practice in looking at life events in a different way and paying more attention to good things)
• family is first important environment where it's possible for someone to be surrounded exclusively by pessimists.

Happy optimizing your life :)

Your job is to learn

Most of what I do at work is something I never did before. Repetition is rare, and if it happens, it usually leads to trouble. Methods may be similar over time --- but content changes all the time, and we naturally change methods along the way as old methods stop working.

Knowledge work at its core means learning constantly; it also means constantly doing new things.

Repetition at work leads to high efficiency, but it also leads to boredom - which I, for example, don't tolerate well; and I met many others who say boredom at work sucks.

Unfortunately, at least in Poland there are still probably millions of people who associate "learning" with "school". They think that "education" is what happens before the age of 18 (secondary education) or 24 (university).

The primary role of the government in a country like this should be to change the mindset of people, so that they understand that their future prosperity depends on continuous learning.

I get sad when I meet otherwise smart adults that do nothing to learn/grow on a daily basis, either at work or at home. At best, they defer to their employers to be the sole provider of learning opportunities. So many people don't seem to feel the need to improve.

So again...

A naive and dangerous mindset:

"I have good education, meaning I went to a good university. I am skilled at what I do and employers will pay me well for that skill for years to come. If there is ever a need to learn something new, employer or client or partner will indicate it or I will notice the need early enough, learn that new thing, and keep going".

A productive mindset:

"My job is to learn all the time: acquire both skills and knowledge. Most jobs that don't require learning will have low market value (i.e. low wages). The best employers or business partners - the kinds it's best for me work with - already expect me to be eager to learn and by doing so, to quickly adapt to new requirements of any kind of job environment".

Learning all the time is your job! Unless, of course, you want to keep doing the same thing over and over again for poor money and get bored to death.

Don't announce your goals

This summer I decided to go for a trip. I wanted to spend all the colder months, from October to March, in warmer climates. I planned to go to the south of Europe first, stopping for a while in Croatia, Greece or some other country at the Mediterranean. 

Many people were asking me "what are you planning to do?", and I kept telling them about the idea of the trip. I hoped to meet some great people, get to know other cultures better, and above all else - not suffer from cold weather (which I hate more than most other things in life).

Everyone was excited about my trip. I was excited too. I departed in the first week of October and headed for Czech Republic, where I had friends to visit.

I planned to spend around 6 months on the road. I returned home after 6 days. It was boring and tiring.

Of course people asked "hey why did you return? What happened?" So I explained with patience.

I decided to stop announcing my plans so much. I'll keep my goals and plans to myself, and announce what I already did - not what I'm planning to do. 

I announced a lot of crazy and a lot of reasonable plans to my friends and colleagues, and you know what? I didn't do many of these things. I don't think announcing is healthy.

If I announce something and then not do as I said, I feel bad (for various reasons). Perhaps others also think less of me, too. And I don't see much benefit in announcing - other than that it satisfies curiosity of people who ask me about my plans, and is an easy response for me ("you want to know what I'm up to? Why, of course I'll tell you. I am about to...").

Now, incidentally, two friends of mine have sent me this short TED talk by Derek Sivers: he suggests (and has some research behing his thesis) that if you announce that you'll do something, it makes you less likely to succeed. He also has an article about it.

By the way, I noticed that people often do not distinguish the following to statements:

I will do it. (certainty)

Perhaps I will do it. (uncertainty)

In both cases, if I don't do it, people think I failed to live up to my commitment. I think they are wrong, but it's probably better to be very careful with qualifiers in statements - people really have a hard time remembering them, or perhaps even have very different meanings attached to them (e.g. some interpret "perhaps" as "probably not" while others as "most likely yes" etc.).

Anyway, I think this whole area of announcing your goals to others, whether or not it actually motivates you to accomplish the goal, whether others hold you accountable, what you do when others fail to do what they promised etc. is very interesting --  and I hope science will give us some definitive answers about these topics in the future.  

The need to explain and our brain's terrible ability to satisfy that need

Whenever something happens and is observed by people, sooner or later a question pops up.

"Why?"

Why did Facebook succeed? Why did that guy die so early? Why did her marriage fail? Why didn't I win the competition? Why did she reject me? Why did noone prevent Hitler from raising to such power? Why won't people buy the product? Why did I get the headache?

I ask this question myself all the time, and I see that others do, too. In every aspect of our lives, we ask this question, often without noticing.

What's amazing is that we almost always find an explanation, and we do so instantly. Isn't that ridiculous? Exactly how is it possible that we always think we know why something happened?! Where is this illusion coming from?

Ask anyone from tech industry about the reasons of success or failure of some high profile company and you'll see that they have no trouble answering. In fact, most of the time they won't even reflect on the process - they will just start producing hypotheses (without presenting them as such) and, if prompted, also "evidence".

I know hate being wrong. I was wrong so many times before... and though I don't like it, I know I will be mistaken in the future, too. It was somewhat painful to read books like "The Black Swan", "How we know what isn't so" or "Stumbling on Happiness". They all discuss the matters of false belief, illusion of correctness, cognitive biases and unpredictability or lack of explanations in our lives. Also I have a friend who was a great guide for me in how I changed the way I think of "correctness", credibility etc. of our explanations. Thanks, P. :) These were worthy lessons.

Some typical answers when someones asks about reasons behind success, failure or certain behavior of other people: 

• "They were first to market so they had the first mover advantage."
• "They were later to market, so they learned from first mover's mistakes."
• "They didn't listen to their users so they failed to satisfy their needs."
• "They didn't listen to their users who weren't able to express the real needs so they satisfied those real needs better."
• "He's mean. He's just showing me that he's got the power here."
• "He was distracted. Surely he didn't want to hurt my feelings."

And on it goes... We do it all the time. Our brains are good at producing stories that "fit" what we see. 

It may be worth realising that:

• most of the time these explanations are false
• most of those explanations are very general and biased, not taking into account the silent,  contradicting evidence (cases where the opposite happened, but which are unknown or aren't recalled in a given moment) 
• often we aren't even aware of the fact that we are in the "explaining" mode. It usually feels like discussion of facts (which are known & seen) and feelings (our internal states we usually know best) where in fact it's a discussion of unknown and hidden processes we rarely have any information about.
• our brains do all of this nearly effortlessly and automatically
• our brains create the illusion that those explanations are correct (because they "make sense") and important (i.e. worth paying attention to, worth defending when others challenge them)

It requires extraordinary effort & humility to not fall into this trap. What it means?

• try to "catch" myself when I try to explain an event or even excuse something
• once I catch myself, actively stop myself from "explaining". Go on with without an explanation. It's hard, but yeah, just live with the facts for a while, and accept them for what they are.
• accept that I will never know true cause of most of what happens around me, and especially I may never understand (or noone may!) the causes of complex events. Some complex events include Black Swan events, such as which company becomes dominant in some industry or why some guy wins the election and the other doesn't. It also includes much smaller scale and trivial events, such as why someone looks at me in a certain way, why I get rejected by a girl, or why I have a headache tonight.
• have the courage to say "I don't know" when others ask me questions like: "why did you do it?", "why did you quite your job?", "why did you like this movie?".
• have the courage to say "I don't know" when I am perceived as an expert in some field of work, and someone wants me to explain causes of some process I am not 100% sure I understand very well (through deep experience with the nature of this process).
  
  For example, when someone asks me a question "why is usability testing with other people better than having a good designer just evaluate the interface?" I can explain the process with confidence because I spent a couple of years doing both and observing others do both, and I know the typical blind spots of an expert which contribute to the value of observing other users work with the application (even if I don't fully understand why those blinds spots still exist despite expert's years of practice!).
  
  When someone asks me "why is Twitter so popular?", even though I read dozens of articles about it, I have some data on Twitter, I have been working "in the field" and spoke about this and similar sites and processes with many people, I realize that without the perspective of Twitter owners, lots of data on internet users behavior and traffic patterns, analysis of tweets' contents en masse etc. it may simply be impossible to tell what the real reasons are.
• luck / chance is a hidden force we are poor at detecting and understanding, and very frequently we see patterns in noise 

The practical observation for me is that more often than not it's much more productive to keep experimenting (try different approaches and observe the results). If it's hard to get to real causes, what's left is simply trying and seeing what sticks. The benefits are that it's harder to delude yourself (results are observable facts ; what you did is observable fact and repeatable). It is sometimes better to treat people's motivation and behaviors as black boxes, and just see "when I do X, what happens is Y", and try as many X's as possible to learn what gives you the result Y you like.

Of course you can produce explanations, and perhaps discover the real ones in the process. So much the better - you can then explain it and teach it to others. But it's not really necessary to live day-to-day.

I know that it's hard for me to supress this "explanation machine". I often feel ashamed after I play the guessing game just because someone asked me the question with this word "why" and I didn't notice what I'm doing. Sometimes we are experts about the process - but more often then not we aren't, and so is the case of other people. When others claim that something happened "because" - especially for big, significant events - take it with a grain of salt, and treat the explanation as a random hypothesis, not as a statement of fact. People don't discern well between facts and opinions, and explanations are stated very frequently as facts. Don't believe them, because most of the time they are people's interpretations and guesses of invsible, complex and unknown processes.

Process of change

Summary: Willingness and ability to change oneself are vital skills. By change I mean changing habits and acquiring new skills, not just acquiring knowledge. I realized that in my case the process of conscious change (or personal development) is usually sequential.

This post is about my experience with change, and a theory of change I came up with recently to describe it. While experience is hard to question, the theory is merely a proposition. I leave it up to you to relate it to your own experience and observation. I never bothered to verify it, though at this point I think it is quite an accurate description.

By change I don't just mean learning. Learning can be interpreted as acquiring knowledge, which for me is easy and definitely not enough to reach the end goal. End goal is usually increased happiness or improved effectiveness. Knowledge doesn't make people happier or more effective. Change does: new behaviors, better handling of emotions, more productive mindsets.

In this article, change is synonymous with removing bad habits, establishing good habits, and learning new skills.

I have become a bit of a personal-development freak over the past five years. Initially I focused on productivity at work. Over time personal growth in all areas of life became highest priority for me. I was unhappy a few years back, and I realized I really needed to change something. It took several years to see the effects, but I have almost revolutionized my emotional life, improved general attitude towards other people and established a few good habits. It took hundreds of hours of hard work, reading, talking to people, psychotherapy, exposure to risk, experiencing failure. It was worth it though.

I now believe that willingness & ability to change are vital skills, especially for young people. There are two reasons. First, such broad exploration is a good way to discover what we like the most. It is necessary to maximize our happiness. Second, it decreases the risk of falling behind others when the world around us changes - if we learn how to adapt quickly, we will be able to respond to potentially dangerous market shifts or social revolutions. It is beneficial for an individual to try many ways of living, many kinds of work, and many kinds of relationships in order to practice adaptation and learn more about one's own preferences.

I treat all contexts of change equally: it could be personal or work life, a small detail like daily routine or complex issues like the way we deal with stress.

Sometimes change occurs "automatically", without conscious effort on our part. For example, we change what we do when we move to live in a new place: new people, new job, new market conditions. You could call it "forced adaptation". I don't care about that. By definition, it happens to us once in a while. What I am concerned with is conscious act of changing how we live when we are not forced to change. A process in which we recognize we want to do something differently, and we find a way to actually do it.

In my case conscious change follows the following "model":

• Step 1. Realize there's something you can improve: a skill to learn; a bad habit to break; a recurring problem to solve
• Step 2. Have the motivation to change: recognize it's important to change and some urgency of this need
• Step 3. Learn how to change: what does the new behavior look like, research the topic, learn from others
• Step 4. Actually make the change: change a habit; learn & practice a skill

I do not mean to suggest that this model applies to everyone. Interestingly, I have found two papers (paper one, paper two) mentioning nearly identical model established by some psychologists in the 1980s. I haven't read the original papers yet, but it was fun to see that I came up with the same thought framework just by reflecting on my own experience!

It can take a lot of time to go through it all. Each step has its own challenges. Most importantly, there is a lot that needs to happen before actual change: I need to be aware of the opportunity to change, have the motivation, and know how to change. The model may sound trivial, but if I fail to go through steps 1-3 *explicitly* in my head, I usually don't succeed in making long-term change. Going all the way through requires admitting that I am not perfect, motivating myself, and perseverance to do the hard work.

Step 1 is usually triggered by challenges, suffering, reading, feedback from others or observing them in action.

Step 2 is mostly about deciding whether or not I want to change now. Without conscious decision to change, most efforts fail.

Step 3 is targeted research. I observe others, read books or the Internet, use formal training, sometimes come up with my own solutions or ideas. It is all about "How do I do it?" Sometimes it is as trivial as never lighting a cigarette again. Other times it is a long project involving buying books, talking to others, gathering more feedback on my behavior and coming up with tricks that will make change easier.

Step 4 is taking the effort to do things differently: stopping the bad habit, starting a new habit, learning and practicing a new skill.

Establishing habits is different than acquiring skills in that habits require perseverance, whereas  skills are more about mastery. I will probably write more about habits, since it is a fascinating topic, and a great life challenge for most people to change them.

Long-term vs instant gratification in daily habits

Summary: There seems to a big gap between what I'd like to see myself doing and what I'm actually doing.

When making decisions about what to do next, I frequently follow this mental path:

"I should get X done... Well, maybe later. I'll do Y instead." (And I proceed with Y.)

Usually, activity X isn't fun and feels like a chore, even if I believe in its positive long term effect; activity Y provides instant gratification.

I do not fully understand why the gap is so persistent or why is it so big. I feel like when in focused state I am able to come up with solid decisions and plans, but when I am given a choice to execute on those plans, I tend to choose lowest effort activities instead.

I explain it to myself as "lack of discipline", "lack of perseverance" or "lowest effort decision making". I envy those who can play for the long term.

I talked about this to a bunch of friends, and they see the same gap in their own lives. Similar realization is expressed here and there in popular culture. Take the movie "Scent of a Woman":

Now I have come to the cross-roads in my life. I always knew what the right path was. Without exception, I knew, but I never took it. You know why? It was too damn hard. Now here's Charlie. He's come to the cross-roads. He has chosen a path. It's the right path. It's a path made of principle that leads to character. Let him continue on his journey. 

(Quoted thanks to IMDb community: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105323/quotes?qt0272334)

Some examples where this feeling kicks in:

 

• eating healthy. I tend to eat a lot of junk even though I believe health is critical long term and I desire to be in good health. I know how to eat healthy (to a degree), but unless I have it in easy access (e.g. cafeteria at the office serving something healthy and tasty), I usually eat whatever is easiest to get and whatever tastes best. Which usually means junk.
• exercise. I have extensive periods of almost complete lack of any extensive physical activity, despite having read significant amount of books based by researchers that convinced me of its importance. Exercise makes me healthier (that I read in books), and it makes me feel better (that is from experience). But most of the time I avoid it, unless it's a very enjoyable experience, like playing soccer or going for a bike ride after a long break.
• prioritizing at work. I tend to fall into the trap of acting on urgent matters first even though after even a little thinking the set of tasks I consider important is entirely different. It's a constant battle between incoming stimuli or requests and what reasonable plans made in isolation from those stimuli.
• other changes in behavior. Whenever I come up with a new rule for my own behavior through intellectual process (reading, talking to people, introspecting), it takes weeks if not months to implement it. For instance, I'd like to get more social and spend less time on individual entertainment activities (watching favorite TV series or playing computer games).  I have seen the benefits, and I believe this is good for me. But I tend to stay within my regular habits and do the thing I used to do before. There are habits I never managed to change despite several attempts.

There's a big difference between my actual behaviors and what I consider optimal strategy for myself. It seems to be concentrated around changing habits, a few areas where I'd like to act differently.

Now, I have a long-term strategy I am willing to commit to. How do I play that strategy rather than falling into instant-gratification behaviors that deviate from it?