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Comment by scrollbar | Hacker News Reader

> Instead of relying solely on penalties for engaging in a bad habit, introduce a positive action right after to replace it.

This seems counterintuitive as I would expect this to reinforce the bad habit. No citation or explanation given. Any ideas?

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I understood it as "do the bad habit, regret it, do a new good habit right afterwards." The aim is to rob the bad habit of whatever reward is attached to it and mentally transfer the reward to the good habit instead.

How about a third mindset, where after a bad habit, I do a good habit and feel that my bad is compensated by good one?

It will continue to encourage subconsciously that bad habits are o.k. if I do something else to compensate it.

For a simple example, I eat a lot of sugar and then do a 10minute exercise. Then feel good about it that my sugar eating is fine, as I will exercise afterwards anyways. But the exercise is separated from any rewards or motivation and will likely often get skipped when my willpower is low(time when bad habits set their claws on mind).

You could do that, but then you're being wilfully dishonest with yourself. At which point you'll find that you're not getting any closer to your goals (assuming those who switch out eating sugar for doing exercise want to lose weight). And if you're being (subconsciously) dishonest and self sabotaging, then the level of mind/abstraction this guide targets is not relevant

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