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I sometimes encourage myself to do tasks by setting up a cognitively dissonant scenario in my head. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, Wikipedia explains it as: cognitive dissonance is the feeling of discomfort when simultaneously holding two or more conflicting cognitions: ideas, beliefs, values or emotional reactions. My first thought when I think of cognitive dissonance is doublethink from 1984, always with a blind eye to the real truth; a willful self-deception. What I did was to set up a fake rewards system for myself.
Example one: flossing my teeth. I have fairly good dental hygiene, at least that’s what the dentist tells me. I don’t brush twice a day every day, but I do brush at least once a day almost always, unless for some reason I’m without access to my toiletries. Flossing on the other hand, as some people may relate to, can be a bigger struggle. Even though it takes less time to actually floss than brush, I still would just not feel like doing it. “Meh.”
Eventually though, I got myself on a pattern. I made a deal with myself: that I would floss every other day. It seemed reasonable; I didn’t have to bother with flossing every night, but I still kept up a regular schedule. And for a long time, this worked. By telling myself, “okay, I’ll floss tonight so I don’t have to tomorrow,” my brain never rejected the idea of flossing. And then on those off days, I would know that I don’t have to floss because I would do it tomorrow. This is essentially a minor positive feedback loop. Action: floss -> Reward: don’t have to floss tomorrow. So what I did next was I began to floss every day. But I would still tell myself, “I’ll floss so I don’t have to floss tomorrow.” And the weird part was, it still worked. But then the next day, I would floss again, telling myself the same thing. So I am telling myself I won’t floss, even though I know I will.
Example 2: Making a sandwich for lunch tomorrow. When I was in my freshman year of high school, I started making myself a lunch at home to take to school, and I would make it before I left for school in the morning. Most of it is easy, just put stuff in Ziploc bags and be on my way. The most work-intensive part of making the lunch was making the PB&J sandwich. It required getting a knife, getting out the peanut butter, getting out the jelly, getting out the bread which we stored in a gallon freezer bag in the fridge. Then put the peanut butter on the bread, wipe off the knife, put on the jelly, and put everything away. As Day9 would say, how BLAH. How dreadful and awful and boring.
So what I began to do was make the sandwich the night before. Then I’d put it in the fridge and then next morning while making my lunch, I had a ready to go sandwich. Easy. But, as everyone will unfortunately do, I left my lunch at home one day on accident. So that night, I still had a sandwich. So the next morning when I go to make my lunch, I still had that sandwich. But I hadn’t made that sandwich last night for today. That was some other day’s sandwich. So I made a new sandwich, and put it in the fridge, and brought my other sandwich to school. The next morning, the same thing. I made myself another sandwich, but brought the previously made sandwich to school. Obviously I was still making a sandwich every morning now, which had previously been a chore and a hassle. But now, it was a preemptive sandwich. My sandwich schedule had time-skipped into the future a day. And thus we have cognitive dissonance again. I knew that I was making a sandwich in the mornings, which used to be awful. But now, it is for the next day, so that I don’t have to make myself a sandwich then. And so on and so forth.
 
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You need to brush three times a day, floss, wash your mouth with listerine every morning and night, and wear a mouth-guard while you sleep, otherwise your teeth with turn brown and black and green and purple and explode and cavities and coughing up blood and vital organs, non-stop pain and agony, damnation to hell.
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If you want to see lots of cognitive dissonance read any discussion about circumcision.
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floss is such a weird word
it's like
flogging for your teeth
:O
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On April 21 2013 02:15 Mothra wrote:
If you want to see lots of cognitive dissonance read any discussion about circumcision.
Wouldn't that be cognitive dickssonance?
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On April 21 2013 03:01 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 02:15 Mothra wrote:
If you want to see lots of cognitive dissonance read any discussion about circumcision. Wouldn't that be cognitive dickssonance?
lol. Yes... perhaps it is a dickstinctive sub-classification.
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I figure that if I want to do something to create a change in my person, I will eventually grow tired of not having that change and start trying harder than before, until the effort put forth is enough that I actually do the thing. So far it works sometimes. I still don't brush my teeth as much as I should, but I my teeth have not suffered thus far. Kinda kills any motivation to improve things even when I know it's better in the long run.
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On April 21 2013 04:50 32 wrote:
I figure that if I want to do something to create a change in my person, I will eventually grow tired of not having that change and start trying harder than before, until the effort put forth is enough that I actually do the thing. So far it works sometimes. I still don't brush my teeth as much as I should, but I my teeth have not suffered thus far. Kinda kills any motivation to improve things even when I know it's better in the long run.
Yeah it gets harder when the "thing" is something you should do every day. Then you have to make yourself do it every day.
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On April 21 2013 05:17 Carbonyl wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 04:50 32 wrote:
I figure that if I want to do something to create a change in my person, I will eventually grow tired of not having that change and start trying harder than before, until the effort put forth is enough that I actually do the thing. So far it works sometimes. I still don't brush my teeth as much as I should, but I my teeth have not suffered thus far. Kinda kills any motivation to improve things even when I know it's better in the long run. Yeah it gets harder when the "thing" is something you should do every day. Then you have to make yourself do it every day.
Yes it does that's why it only works sometimes. I have been doing some things on a daily basis. I have been doing chinups several times daily for a few months, and I have started a few other things as well. I still have not gotten project consistency down though, I have like 15 projects that I cycle around when I get bored of the old ones (every four months or so I pick an old one back up). Most have not gotten off the ground in much of any way. Still it is progress. If your method of self motivation is preferable, then I should not tread on it.
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I mean, I wouldn't call it a method as in it's something I can implement at will. It just happened a few times and worked out. Maybe I should try to apply it to more things though.
"I'll study today so I don't have to study tomorrow" kinda thing.
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don't your PB&J sandwiches get all soggy and gross though?
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I like how many times you said the word 'sandwich'.
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On April 21 2013 03:06 Mothra wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 03:01 farvacola wrote:On April 21 2013 02:15 Mothra wrote:
If you want to see lots of cognitive dissonance read any discussion about circumcision. Wouldn't that be cognitive dickssonance? lol. Yes... perhaps it is a dickstinctive sub-classification.
These jokes are getting really dicksturbing O.O
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On April 21 2013 08:53 MinscandBoo wrote:
don't your PB&J sandwiches get all soggy and gross though?
I put peanut butter on both sides of the bread, so no.
On April 21 2013 09:18 Roe wrote:
I like how many times you said the word 'sandwich'.
I control+Fed it. Holy goodness.
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On April 21 2013 01:48 ninazerg wrote:
You need to brush three times a day, floss, wash your mouth with listerine every morning and night, and wear a mouth-guard while you sleep, otherwise your teeth with turn brown and black and green and purple and explode and cavities and coughing up blood and vital organs, non-stop pain and agony, damnation to hell.
no one will want to kiss you if you don't. Its the sad truth...
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On April 21 2013 16:26 MysteryMeat1 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 01:48 ninazerg wrote:
You need to brush three times a day, floss, wash your mouth with listerine every morning and night, and wear a mouth-guard while you sleep, otherwise your teeth with turn brown and black and green and purple and explode and cavities and coughing up blood and vital organs, non-stop pain and agony, damnation to hell. no one will want to kiss you if you don't. Its the sad truth...
Except drunk hoochies at dance clubs of course!
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EPT
