<story><title>The best way to exercise self-control is not to exercise it at all</title><url>https://psyche.co/ideas/the-best-way-to-exercise-self-control-is-not-to-exercise-it-at-all</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ApolloFortyNine</author><text>&amp;gt;Research in my own lab and others suggests that, if you want to improve your self-control, what you should do instead is focus on proactively reducing, rather than reactively overpowering temptation. Fortunately, there are several ways and opportunities to do this.&lt;p&gt;Am I the only one who has, many times, encountered people who say &amp;quot;I don&amp;#x27;t buy junk food because if I do I&amp;#x27;ll end up eating it?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This is one of my gripes with psychology articles&amp;#x2F;self help books. So so many topics are simple &amp;#x27;revelations&amp;#x27; that many of us have figured out by the time we are 20. Can&amp;#x27;t eat a cookie if you don&amp;#x27;t have any cookies.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve read some good psychology books (&amp;quot;Thinking fast and slow&amp;quot; was great), but most of the others I&amp;#x27;ve read I could have have read the one page summary and realized I don&amp;#x27;t need to read it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>labster</author><text>&amp;gt; This is one of my gripes with psychology articles&amp;#x2F;self help books. So so many topics are simple &amp;#x27;revelations&amp;#x27; that many of us have figured out by the time we are 20. Can&amp;#x27;t eat a cookie if you don&amp;#x27;t have any cookies.&lt;p&gt;I recall Scott Alexander talking about this on one of the SSC posts -- can&amp;#x27;t remember which -- about the fact that people miss developmental milestones for reasons.  And you can ask the question: What developmental milestones am I missing?  Or: which cognitive tools do I need for my toolbox?&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s good to teach things that &amp;quot;you should already know&amp;quot;, because maybe you&amp;#x27;re one of today&amp;#x27;s lucky 10000.</text></comment>
<story><title>The best way to exercise self-control is not to exercise it at all</title><url>https://psyche.co/ideas/the-best-way-to-exercise-self-control-is-not-to-exercise-it-at-all</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ApolloFortyNine</author><text>&amp;gt;Research in my own lab and others suggests that, if you want to improve your self-control, what you should do instead is focus on proactively reducing, rather than reactively overpowering temptation. Fortunately, there are several ways and opportunities to do this.&lt;p&gt;Am I the only one who has, many times, encountered people who say &amp;quot;I don&amp;#x27;t buy junk food because if I do I&amp;#x27;ll end up eating it?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This is one of my gripes with psychology articles&amp;#x2F;self help books. So so many topics are simple &amp;#x27;revelations&amp;#x27; that many of us have figured out by the time we are 20. Can&amp;#x27;t eat a cookie if you don&amp;#x27;t have any cookies.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve read some good psychology books (&amp;quot;Thinking fast and slow&amp;quot; was great), but most of the others I&amp;#x27;ve read I could have have read the one page summary and realized I don&amp;#x27;t need to read it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>afarrell</author><text>&amp;gt; many of us&lt;p&gt;But not all. What is condescending to one is a necessary insight to another. Personally, I am very grateful to people who are willing to say obvious things.&lt;p&gt;I also occasionally re-listen to the audio of self-help books in order to remember things I learned which are simple yet hard.</text></comment>