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How Much Can You Change Yourself? | Scott H Young
Self-Improvement And Self-Discovery Work Together
We live between rigidity and malleability. It means that both self-discovery and self-improvement matter.
- Self-discovery matters because the goals you set, and the life philosophy you hold, needs to be informed by the parts of yourself that tend to be fixed.
- Self-improvement is important because we are able to modify many of our traits. Self-improvement also leads to self-discovery. The more you experiment and strive, the more you learn about yourself.
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The first views on motivation
- At first, psychologist William James thought that only the initial act was conscious, thereafter behaviour was a spontaneous cascade of habits. He suggested we struggle with motivation when ...
Mathematics of motivation
When Ivan Pavlov and his dogs led to the discovery of learned behaviour through repeated exposure, and Edward Thorndike discovered the Law of Effect that stated that rewarded behaviours tended to increase, many psychologists were impelled to separate psychology from armchair introspection and formulated their theories as mathematical formulas.
- The Drive x Habit Theory. Clark Hull's formula was sEr = D x sHr, which states that excitatory tendency (E) is the result of the drive (D) combined with the habit (H). The drive is nonspecific, such as hunger or thirst. The habit, however, depends on the stimulus (s) and response (r). But the theory turned out to be wrong and even opposite in many cases.
- Expectation x Value Theory. Drawing on ideas in economics and game theory, Edward Tolman and Kurt Lewis formulated an alternative account by evaluating motivation based on expectations. Tolman expressed the ideas as the mathematical formula: Subjective Expected Utility = Probability1 * Utility1 + P2U2 + P3U3 + … where subjective expected utility of an action equalled the motivation to act. But, if you expect a reward, why act and not simply passively wait for the expected reward?
Motivation as change
Donald Hebb realised that existing theories were too focused on reacting to the immediate environment. Thoughts, ideas and goals could be just as strong for triggering action as sights and sounds.
Together with John Atkinson, they noted that the study of motivation had undergone a "paradigm shift", where motivation couldn't be seen as how actions get started, but how the organism decides to change its behaviour from one thing to another.
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Key Ideas
"People don’t judge you so much for who you are as they judge you for how you communicate yourself.&quo..."
Scott H Young
Be Funny and Interesting
- Humor: It takes a lot of practice until you can figure out the natural timing and flow of a joke. Practice makes perfect.
- Interest comes from having an interesting life. You can be interesting by telling stories or by simply being quick to bring up an interesting fact.
Interest is similar to humor whenever people discover something they didn’t expect.
Tell Great Stories
- You need to have an interesting point to make it worthwhile.
- Your most interesting point should be the last thing you say in your story.
- Keep it short.
- Keep it personal. People prefer stories about people they know.
- The more you tell a story the better you get the natural timing and emphasis.
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Key Ideas
Studying happiness
Religion, philosophy, and the arts have long considered happiness a subject important to study.
The sciences, however, have only recently caught up:...
Subjective well-being = Genes + Circumstances + Habits
- Subjective well-being is preferred by social scientists instead of happiness because it's not so vague and subjective.
- Research shows there is a big genetic component in determining the baseline you always seem to return to after events sway your mood.
- Circumstances could make up between 10- and 40 percent of your subjective well-being. But their effects never last very long.
- The one variable that affects long-term well-being and is under our control: habits.
Habits = Faith + Family + Friends + Work
- Faith doesn’t mean any faith in particular. Just find a structure through which you can contemplate life’s deeper questions.
- When it comes to your family and friendships and how they should be, just cultivate and maintain loving, faithful relationships. There is no magic formula.
- What makes work meaningful is not the kind of work it is, but the sense it gives you that you are earning your success and serving others.