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
If you want to quit smoking you get rid of your cigarettes.
if you want to lose weight you throw away your junk food.
Keeping junk food in your house when you're trying to lose weight relies on self control and willpower to avoid eating in a caloric surplus. Same logic applies to not going grocery shopping when you haven't eaten all say since you're likely to indulge and buy some stuff you don't need for example
I’m no more a victim now than I was before and I’m not weaker for using the better technique.
But everyone can try what makes it tick for them. Once upon a time, I stored a big tub of ice cream in my freezer. Avoiding it gave me a dopamine hit. So for months I’d eat well and my identity of being someone who could resist it made me eat well. Now I don’t have that identity so I use other techniques. That’s just how it is.
No need to be a Luddite. Science gives us tools to be better.
Rich people always think they worked hard to be rich, while poor people rarely think they deserve being poor.
Attributing success to internal factors while externalizing failure is actually psychologically healthy, at least much more than the reverse, but it still leads to certain cognitive biases. Yes, some level of magical thinking, "You just need to want it" is actually sometimes helpful on the PERSONAL level but it is just a convenient lie we tell ourselves to keep pushing on. It is a very harmful lie when people try to understand society in general with this.
The truth is that we can only break habits when external and internal circumstances align to allow us to do so.
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.
And it's more about how rare it is than saying it's actually impossible.
There is one caveat:
You can make it easier by making better decisions sooner. I stopped buying shit food. I started making better food more often. I planned my day around exercise.
No temptation from being at the pub. No temptation from snacks and sweets at home. Not temptation to skip a day because I had already exercised and would exercise further.
We are powerful and building structures in our life is arbitrage from when we have excess power to when we need our power most.
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 entirely on ones fortitude, rather ability to craft an environment that plays to the strength of will, so to speak.
> 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.
> 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...
Similar to the title, is is again framing it as an either/or situation.
Reality is that strategy+ willpower is the winning approach. Making change will almost always require strength, but strategy can make that requirement lower.
Throwing out your cigarettes/beer/ junk food makes abstinence easier, but it doesnt make abstinence easier than buying more.
It is like an article with starting and concluding with "bleach is safe to drink", and then discussing the dangers throughout the body.
I dont think everything needs to be dumbed down - but parts of it are literally false and contradictory.