How to put bad habits to good use | Hacker News Reader

How to put bad habits to good use

theguardian.com

58 pointslxm26 comments

What happened to a little tough love now and then? If we just give excuses or write off known methods that work as “compassion” or “self love”, what even drives someone to make a significant change in their lives?

When I was bigger, it wasn’t being kind to myself that helped me lose weight. It wasn’t holding those bad habits either.

When I was lazier, it wasn’t being mindless and disorganized that helped me do more.

When I was determined, it wasn’t telling myself “it’ll be okay” if I didn’t follow through with a goal.

I accepted the fact that I was overweight, lazy, and not motivated. Instead of saying “that’s okay, you’re human”, I made drastic change to the ideal version I wanted to be. This isn’t productivity porn, this is just reality.

I’m either getting old and out of touch or this article just doesn’t make sense to me at all.

Compassion/self love is what made me change my lifestyle and overcome excuses. If you have compassion for the work that your organs are doing, you are going to be more motivated to do the things that keep those organs healthy, while doing less of the things that damage them. One day I heard someone talking about how the heart has to work harder pumping blood around if you sit all day. I couldn't shake the thought, so eventually I started moving more and adopted a cold shower routine despite hating the cold. I started giving a shit about my cardiovascular health as a result of compassion. I didn't have to crack the whip either, making lifestyle adjustments just felt like the right thing to do.

Compassion is not about making people feel better for not taking care of their situation/body/work/goals/life/relationships, it's about acting with a level of care for the things that matter most.

That's great to hear. I do believe in the power of compassion & self love. Especially how you define it. I just was not understanding the point of the article:

> Forget new year resolutions and stop striving to be someone you’re not. It’s time to embrace your messy, imperfect, soft-bellied self

Isn't the point of working on yourself to become someone you're not right this moment, but strive to be? (i.e. the better version of you)

A psychiatrist had changed my perspective from yours to the poster’s by pointing out that genuine self-forgiveness seems to be more effective than self-flagellation in allowing for change.

By accepting who you are at this point (without a negative connotation), the path towards becoming your ‘better version’ is easier to travel.

Examples of this change in difficulty come in the form of reducing the angst towards visiting gyms/being seen working out, and in wanting to eat better to help yourself as opposed to telling yourself that you need to eat better so you won’t be the way that you are.

Self forgiveness also helps in reducing procrastination by allowing yourself to start a task without the negative associations of past procrastinations.

People are blocked by different things to overcome personal obstacles. For some people fear and anxiety of making progress or failing is the blocker and they need the linked kind of advice. You didn’t have this experience, which is fine as long as you realize your path to success isn’t going to work for everybody.

Right but the article is quite contradictory of "mindfulness" for example.

> We can do the same by giving ourselves permission to feel uncomfortable things such as sadness or anxiety, giving them time and space to occur, rather than always chasing them away with busyness, booze or digital distraction.

and

> Mindfulness is not a mental health panacea – despite new Nice guidance suggesting that mindfulness should be recommended before medication for depression. Instead, be more mindless. “You don’t want to be mindful every single second,” says Biswas-Diener, who also studies mindfulness.

Is it for or against mindfulness? I can't tell.

It’s against the commodification of mindfulness/wellness. See girlboss/hustle culture. Unfortunately our society oversimplifies to the point becomes another marketing tactic.

A lot of people use self-shaming as a strategy for change. And, from experience, I know it works. But, the toll of it on one's mental heath isn't worth it. At least, for some of us, all that shame adds up and causes issues down the road.

The world has enough problems for you, you should be your own friend, not another source of abuse. Friend doesn't mean enabler, though. Good friends don't let their friends do bad things.

Everything in moderation!

Aside from the usual Guardian dalliance with identity politics, this article comes across as either nihilistic, or making the case for contentment with what we've got rather than to strive to improve oneself. The latter is perhaps what we collectively need to hear as an alternative to the productivity porn, but it's a depressingly low bar to me.

All of these can be true at the same time:

* holding yourself to a standard

* striving to better yourself

* caring about your own mental health

* giving yourself time to rest/recover

* being kind to yourself when it comes to past failures

The article goes a bit too far with lowering expectations.

our discourse often seems to lack the nuance, that two opposing ideas can (and should) be held in our heads at the same time.

that we should hold ourselves in unconditional positive regard and that we can strive for more

imo, this article is attempting to push the pendulum back towards the positive regard as, and i would agree, the author feels that were too far into striving

> the usual Guardian dalliance with identity politics

I especially liked the "people who live in bodies" bit (or "black bodies"!). Your body is not a house that some "real you" inhabits. You are your body. You are bodily. That's part of what it means to be human is a bodily creature. There is more to you than the bodily (pace materialists whose view of the bodily itself is deficient and mechanistic even as strictly bodily), but it is a part of you.

I don't know where this strange, almost dualistic "othering" of one's body (to borrow their term) comes from, but it does square with the gnostic hatred of the body and the physical world that is in vogue. Perhaps a combination of envy and an overreaction to the cult of the body.

I hate the guardian so much. They can phrase ideas that I agree with in the most irritating way possible. Perhaps I should put that hate to good use?

Practically every guardian piece depresses me, every subject they write about has to be twisted somehow to infer systemic this or that, even when not actually relevant. It's a shame really because like others commented here I think their investigative pieces would be good otherwise, they just ruin everything.

I agree, if you had to get a team together with the sole purpose of crushing people's spirit and grinding people down with opinions while appearing to be somewhat wellmeaning, the guardian would be a stellar example of that.

I don't click Guardian links and haven't done for years, even if I'm interested. It's gross.

I’m guessing this is a reaction to their opinion pieces. I find their investigative reporting to be top quality.

Agreed.

I need to achieve this level of zen

yeah, welcome it and ask "hey, thanks for popping by. why are you here though? im not sure theres anything i need protecting from, so what are you trying to protect me from?"

I've had an adage that I remind myself of occasionally: "It's OK to struggle, as long as you do struggle."

This can apply to losing weight, balancing work/life, making time to read, etc. I think it's a good balance between "It's not OK to struggle, and you need to be perfect every time." and "It's not OK to struggle (ever), and you just need to accept that you can't do it.". This article (and others I've seen like it) seems to fully embrace the very bottom end of that scale.

I think that aligns well with recognizing that it's not a dichotomy of success and failure anyway, it's a vast spectrum of outcomes and possibilities where the majority are varying types of progress.

This is hog wash. Also They had to sprinkle bad things about white Europeans.

To me this long-winded and unintentionally abrasive piece reads as confirmation bias to nihilists and hedonists. Misery loves company I guess.

This reminds me of the TV Show "Dexter".

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