I think many people fail at this because they approach other people’s problems with an “if I were you” starting point. But that’s changing the whole essence of the problem: them being not-you. Might as well suggest “If you were a spherical cow...”
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Why would your first step in solving a problem be replacing the most important part that you understand the least with an irrelevant substitute that you happen to understand the best?
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This is the “yes, and...” improv approach to being changed.
It’s also Miller’s law applied to accepting subjective postures at face value. Assume their life posture is valid and ask what circumstances it could be valid for. Then look for ways to change the circumstances.
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One sign you’re doing it right (or it’s being done right to you): the change is somewhat unpredictable. A whole life reorientation/reconfiguration. Not a simple stimulus-response or a cause effect goal-pursuit effect. This is not incentive shift in a fixed solution structure.
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It’s an equilibrium shift. They’re restating and resolving their “life” problem in a new way around shifted constraints. Neither you, nor they know where they’ll land. It won’t be a simple “they’ll do more X, less Y” or “X instead of Y”. They’ll reinvent who they are.
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True even for deceptively structured life changes like hiring someone away from another company. They aren’t just changing jobs for more money, to do the same thing for more. They’re usually reconfiguring their “life” solution.
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Significance of this: positive change in a life usually means more creative freedom. Results unpredictable. You can go the other way with children or insecure adults (Ie add or tighten constraints to change their life solutions) but doing it to competent adults is coercion.
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The only situation where it’s difficult to operate this way in is when the other person is a close/intimate part of your life. Because in that case your life solutions are entangled. You can’t shift a constraint in theirs without shifting it in yours as well.
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This is codependency. You are part of their solution and they are part of yours. Change both or neither. And given the unpredictability, any shift could strengthen or weaken the connection itself.
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Life trajectory agency is like space mission orbit design agency. There’s a small delta vee onboard fuel budget to work with after launch, enough for small course corrections. All bigger moves have to come from gravity slingshots.
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Tip: if an idea seems to require “willpower”, don’t suggest it.
“Willpower” is the phlogiston or luminiferous aether of life advice. There’s no such thing. It doesn’t exist. Show me a sudden shift in “willpower” levels and I’ll show you a constraint that has recently moved.
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Note. This thread is NOT about “changing incentives” in the economics sense. Changing incentives is about causing predictable changes driven by a fixed solution. That works for things like offering a discount to drive sales. Changing constraints causes an unpredictable re-solving
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This is not a behaviorist approach OR a cognitivist approach. It’s a complex system gambling approach. You’re betting that disrupting an equilibrium is more likely to result in a better new one than worse. It’s a change-is-good bet.
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One last point. Assuming you understand the constraint structure of anyone’s life, even your own, from the legible part, is like assuming you can guess the shape of the submerged part of an iceberg from the 10% visible
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Wait, me telling people to eat less and exercise more *doesn’t* help them get in shape???
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I wonder: if nobody every suggested eating less and exercising more, more people might do it because they were excited about their unique health idea.
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Same goes motivation.
"You just don't have the motivation!" Is more often than not a red herring created to absolve the consequences of a systemic rot.
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I read a thing saying it's also about whether you perceive there being a choice or not. "Wow that must have take willpower" "Well I had to do it, so" Not helpful but interesting.
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Instead of willpower, I think of adding/removing 'friction' to something I want to do/not do. Killing wifi so I have to leave the house to use the internet=adding friction.





