One of them was about building a habit. You find a small meaningless thing to do, it must have no purpose at all, and then you do it once every day for as long as it takes to become a habit, probably a month or two. E.g. you could fill a glass with water and throw it out.
I did the exercise (I would kneel for a few seconds when taking a bath) for a couple of months, and I think it worked for me. I've recently used the same tactic to build a useful habit.
Now building a new habit is not necessarily the same as changing an old habit.
I also found out that kneeling changed my perspective. I could think about a situation with some level of tension, kneel, and then my perspective on the same situation would be more humble and appreciative. YMMV.
Ashby gave the example of an autopilot - if you flipped the yoke controls so that up was down and down was up, a traditional autopilot would go into a positive feedback loop and crash, but the Homeostat would adapt to the new dynamics.
He postulated that this was a model for some systems in the brain and perhaps all learning (he wrote an entire book about it) and there's some evidence he was right. If you put goggles on someone that flips their vision upsidedown, they adjust after a few days... and have to readjust again when you take them off! (This was a real experiment.) YouTuber SmarterEveryDay found he could learn to ride a "backwards bike," but it destroyed his ability to ride a normal bike. You may have experienced this first hand if you've ever played a video game where the controls were flipped temporarily: it's disorienting, sure, but you quickly adjust.
Because of these phenomena, I think Ashby was right about the Homeostat being a useful model of the brain. It explains why so many apparently contradictory diets "work" - simply making a major changes resets the homeostat in your brain where it may settle into a better calibrated equilibrium eventually.
It implies a simple strategy: are you happy? If yes, we're done. If no, change something, and return to the question. (I've seen this as a flowchart online somewhere but can't find it now.)
One kind of growth I love to see is when someone becomes less confident in their opinions over time. A lot of people “grow up” by just being super confident and stubborn about new ideas.
every step in that direction is success, every bit is something you weren't doing before and is something to be happy about. it doesn't have to be big at all - have you done one push-up today? do one. it doesn't matter if the answer was yes or no, adding one is one more than before and is achieving what you want, and it eventually adds up.
the nice part about this kind of mindset is that there's no end when you stop, and no failure when you miss a day. there's just a new ever-changing normal, always leaning where you want it.
kace91•33m ago
I didn’t really ever think that explicitly, or say it aloud, it was just an obvious implication on my mind.
Turns out the only thing separating me from someone who is good at sports, or being buff, was doing it frequently and not half assed. Applies to most of life when it clicks.
Btw, if anyone’s reading this and feeling motivated:
>It began slowly, but I began. Knee press-ups to start, later adding assisted pull-ups.
>If anyone was watching, it would have looked stupid. A grown man barely able to push himself off the floor. But I showed up and put in my reps, day by day, week by week, in the privacy of my bedroom.
That works, but if you haven’t done any work before you’re better off joining a gym. Precisely the advantage is regulating weight more discreetly, and equipment helps for that.
blueflow•23m ago
Is this kind of thinking normal? Kinda like looking into the world and going like "i must be like that specific thing over there"?
zukzuk•9m ago
We seem to associate certain behaviours and patterns with categories of identity, and changing those behaviours in yourself implies an acceptance of that “other” identity.
I remember this distinctly about 20 years ago when I thought about not eating meat anymore. Choosing not to eat meat was easy, but “becoming a vegetarian” felt alien, and took some mental effort. I didn’t see myself as “one of those” people.
I suspect it has a lot to do with how important group identity is to us, as social primates, and how we tend to package one behaviour with a bunch of others. It’s like doing pushups will suddenly make you a “jock” (and maybe the irony is that, to a certain degree it will, as these thing tend to turn into slippery slopes).