Got my first girlfriend, lasted 6 years, 6 months after that started dating my wife. My entire adult life has been spent putting other people’s wants and needs in front of my own. Thats not neccesarily a bad thing some or most of the time, but ive done it essentially all the time.
1 Like
Yeah but what if your willpower and your motivation are what you want to change. Then you’re kinda stuck in a loop that can’t ever get started.
I worry that those are some of the things you can’t change. For example @NhlNut suggests that maybe “Introvert/extrovert, type a/b, competitiveness, sex drive, intelligence, memory” can’t be changed much.
I was always fascinated by the Nike “Just Do It” campaign. You want to run a marathon? Just do it. Nothing is stopping you from getting up every day at 6 am and training.
Ironically I have fairly good willpower when it comes to not doing things. In that case, my laziness works in my favor. I gave up smoking pretty easily. I don’t have trouble giving up certain foods or alcohol if needed. I have more trouble when it comes to making myself do things, like exercise or work. I struggle to ever stick to an exercise plan.
I just can’t bring myself to care about work. Maybe I should just accept that. Not everyone has to work hard at their job and excel at it. I get good reviews from my boss, and he lets me do my own thing (I work from home full-time). Despite my good reviews at work I feel ashamed at the low amount of effort that I put in. It’s a weird situation. There’s probably some other psychological thing going on
We’re similar in regards to work. I don’t think it’s a negative thing, personally. I want to have a good enough job and do well enough at it to make the $$ to be comfortable, and I’ve achieved that. People who totally tie their self-worth to it, or treat it like leveling up in a video game and obsess over it, are an interesting breed and I’m not sure if it’s a good thing overall.
Yeah the willpower to do stuff is a tricky one. It’s a combination of doing it often enough to become automatic (I think there’s a saying about 21 days being a ‘magic number’ but apparently it varies widely) and having some kind of motivation for doing it. Like with exercise for me, running never clicked because there was just zero internal reward; I didn’t get much better at it and never felt great. But when I randomly took up lifting weights, I got noticeably stronger quickly, really enjoyed the progress of adding weight to the bar every week, and my wife was like “rawr” when she would see me with my shirt off, lol. That was enough to stick with it well past the point that it became an ingrained habit, and now missing a workout feels kinda “gross” almost as if I forgot to brush my teeth or shower or something.
Idk, maybe consider what “motivation” means. There must be something more fundamental. What’s often missing for me is a sense of purpose. It makes focus near impossible. Like, why should I do this? Or why should I do this rather than that? I can’t do things without at least temporarily pushing away a lot of competing thoughts.
1 Like
You know what that’s called? Smart thinking. If you can’t find a point for it, it’s not worth doing. The game isn’t called 77-5, it’s called 82-0. No one would play it if the goal wasn’t perfection.
One of my most hated sayings of all time is, ‘Perfect is the enemy of the good’. No motherf***er, ‘Good is the enemy of the perfect’. I could do every project I work on at 70% and never get a note. I try for 100% on everything or it’s not worth doing for me. I wanted that 110% completion on Crash Bandicoot dammit!
I’m a big proponent of this way of thinking and living. Everyone should put their happiness first. Not in a Cartman dickish “Fuck you, I’ll do what I want” kind of way, but your first responsibility in life is you. This doesn’t mean you don’t end up having to do things you don’t want to do, but it does mean you get to prioritize your happiness. It’ll make you a better partner, too.
The pre-flight safety instructions always tell you to put your mask on first before helping others. It’s good life advice. Help yourself before you help others. You’re important, and your happiness matters.
3 Likes
I might repeat simplistic statements like that but I don’t take them very seriously. The world is complicated.
I started to think about motivation along the lines of Maslow but didn’t get far. It does seem like there must be some specific source of dissatisfaction and it might help to identify it. There might not be a solution though.
1 Like
People can change a lot, even in ways one may not think they can. It’s more-or-less liberal dogma that sexual orientation is immutable (even if some people don’t realize they might be more bi then they realize they are, perhaps due to lack of appropriate stimulus or repressing such feelings due to shame), given the many documented failings of conversion therapy and the like, but then there’s the case of pokerjo over at the old digs who strongly preferred women when living life as a man but then switched to preferring men after transitioning to being a woman. I also recall a story about a guy who developed pedophile urges due to a brain tumor, got cured of them when the tumor was removed, and then had them recur when the cancer came back. I’ve also been surprised and intrigued by the stories and studies of people on GLP-1 inhibitors not just losing weight but shaking off other addictive behaviors like alcohol consumption and the like. Another classic example of a behavioral change with a simple cause is lead exposure leading to a greater propensity for violence and criminal behavior.
This seems like an odd list of things to declare as things that don’t change, because they are some of the things that clearly and most obviously change about people as they age. Competitiveness and sex drive both gradually subside with age in men as testosterone production wanes. Competitiveness and self-confidence are also things that trans men generally report increasing dramatically when they start on testosterone therapy. Intelligence and memory may not fail at the same rates in everyone, but even the sharpest people in their 80s are almost certainly not as sharp as they were in their 30s.
So yeah, it’s pretty clear that people can change in big ways, but that doesn’t mean your brain biochemistry isn’t wired against you in that regard, nor is there necessarily enough understanding about said biochemistry for there to be a pill or shot or hormone or behavioral change that will undo or alter that wiring.
Saw this recently
2 Likes
Yeah, Im starting to see that.
Had a bit of a backslide today as I hit the anger section of the grief cycle. That one sucks. Feeling angry sucks, and having that anger thats making you feel bad be caused by someone you love sucks even more.
Ive got an appointment today with our counselor though, so its a good thing to bring with me today. I understand that anger is a part of grief and its healthy, but im still not a fan.
For some reason, I always thought the grief cycle was linear, but im reading that most times it isnt, which is helpful. Because ive hit acceptance a few times now and anger feels like a backslide.
1 Like
People can change.
See also: Fetterman, John
1 Like
It takes sustained disciplined effort over a long period of time to change just about anything, and also a capability for self evaluation and a will to improve that is strong enough overpower one’s ego and impulses in a sustained way. Very few people are self critical enough to have a real growth mindset without falling into the trap of being so overly self critical that they become depressed and defeatist. Very few of those are also disciplined enough to not fall back into old habits.
I have fundamentally changed many things about myself throughout my adult life that have made me a better person and my life has become a much happier life but that’s basically what it took. And there are plenty of other things about myself I would like to change but feel it’s not possible.
2 Likes
It feels like im getting closer and closer to this every day for certain things in my life. Good for you man, this change thing is a real trip, and its not easy
If I may ask, what was something major that you changed? Do you feel it took a lot of willpower/effort? Prior to the change, would you have identified that trait as a core trait?
Ditto. We don’t have kids, so I don’t really have to provide for our family’s legacy or anything. I have to do well enough so I can keep my job, and take care of the house and pets, but that’s about it. “Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don’t see another dime; so where’s the motivation?”
I am pretty anti-religion in most respects, but I understand why people gravitate towards it. It fills in a sense of purpose (even if in my view it’s ultimately based on air).
1 Like
Quitting cigarettes - I smoked from ages 16-28 and relapsed 3-4 times before successfully quitting.
Overcoming social anxiety. I had a period in my mid 20s where I would just work and go home and drink while on the computer. I’d put off getting a haircut for like 3 months because I was terrified of human interaction. I’m now married with 2 kids, and mentor lead and coach dozens of people at my job. The human interaction drains me but I can do it. I’ve never been diagnosed with aspergers or the like but I still feel there is some innate ability everyone else has to read a room that I just do not have and never will. I have over decades trained myself to be capable of focusing my attention and logical brain on body language and can reason it out when I need to if that makes sense, but I know 99% people naturally do this with their heurisitic brain.
Quitting alcohol - my dad was a lifelong high functioning alcoholic and I was on the same path for about 45 years. I had a combination of liver issues and his death at the same time a few years ago that just gave me enough motivation. Had I not relapsed quitting cigarettes a few times I think I would not have gained the ability to psychologically maintain the willpower. I also lost 50lbs over this time without GLP1 or any other medication, just diet and exercise.
Navigating through depression: I don’t know how to put this but my second child is severely disabled and I went through something like a grieving process for the life that I sort of envisioned when I got married and we got pregnant. Over time I’ve just completely reset my expectations and how I find joy and feel like I’ve been able to come out of the other side of the self pity, with a better capacity for self love. Like I’d been neurotic and depressed my whole life and then a bunch of shit beyond my control made things worse and I just kind of learn to accept myself a little bit and let go. I’d always been a toxic perfectionist and I still mostly am, but I’ve learned to be mindfully self caring and self forgiving because I need that to maintain resiliency and continue to be a great parent
Every one of these changes took an incredible amount of willpower, discipline, and rewiring of my brain or developing new skills as an adult. Many of them also were dependent on timing and support of other people, mostly my brother and two friends. I also have the benefit of a few really amazing mentors at my job (well i’ve had 3 great bosses and 15 shitty ones in my career) but the 3 great ones were life changing relationships.
5 Likes
If one you is unnormally one you then if one you become normal one of you
do one you change
Unhinged