*Published 2024-08-25* This is already covered by so many thinkers and writers that I couldn't possibly enumerate them all here. Nevertheless, it's a point so valuable that I still feel like it warrants writing about. --- ## More puppet than puppeteer. The gist of the point is that most of the time we exercise relatively little "will power" in our lives. The ability to consciously intervene in a focussed manner is something that takes a large amount of cognitive energy. Sustaining such an effort for a prolonged period of time is something that gets increasingly difficult as we move from minutes to hours to days. . In fact, the outcomes in our lives are often dictated predominately by our low-effort, semi-conscious interactions with the parameters of the environments we find ourselves in. A really good example of this is diet, but it's applicable to almost any situation where we are required to interact over a longer-term period with a set of tasks or expectations. Those of us who have found ourselves in the position of needing or wanting to lose a bit of weight will be familiar with the challenges of dieting. Like any of these moments of epiphany or intense determination to make a change, we just can't sustain the kind of focus required to achieve these sorts of goals through sheer force of will. It costs too much brainpower. One answer to this particular set of challenges is of course: habits. But that's already a very well-documented subject which I won't stray into. I'd like to focus instead on how we tend to frame these types of situations -- and how we often get it wrong. There is a phenomenon known as [**Fundamental Attribution Error**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error) which is described on Wikipedia as: > ...a cognitive attribution bias in which observers underemphasize situational and environmental factors for the behavior of an actor while overemphasizing dispositional or personality factors. In other words, observers tend to overattribute the behaviors of others to their personality (e.g., he is late because he's selfish) and underattribute them to the situation or context (e.g., he is late because he got stuck in traffic) "Situational and environmental factors" could be anything really e.g. * The weather * Other people * How tired you are * If you're sick etc ...and any other interferants or mitigating factors. We tend to give ourselves a hard time when we don't achieve personal goals, or when our performance doesn't match what we know we're capable of. But when we compare one outcome to another we're usually subject to a double whammy of biases: 1. We probably overestimated our own impact in a previous positive outcome 2. We probably underestimated the role of situational & environmental factors in the current, more disappointing outcome. The point is, **we really don't have that much control**. ## Great.. now what? So what is this, some sort of fatalistic or nihilistic whinge? Not at all. Okay, fine. We are in a car speeding down a motorway and we only get to make periodic, surgical alterations to the course. If that's the way it is, then here are some half-baked ideas I'm trying (to varying degrees of success). ### 1. Rig the game Probably the most important thing to realise is that a vast number of so-called "environmental & situational" factors can actually be controlled or influenced by you. There's a tonne of these: * Don't work well when you're tired? Go to bed earlier or drink coffee. * Don't work well with certain people? Fix the issue or work with different people. * Make bad food choices when you're hungry late at night? Buy healthy snacks. * Only work well under pressure? Take on more commitments (or if you're overwhelmed easily, do the opposite). * Struggle to do that manual, task or chore? Automate it or pay someone else to do it. Stop relying on effort and will-power. They are awful. Set up the playing field so that your natural, semi-conscious responses will take you where you want to go. ### 2. Focus on the big decisions This is somewhat the same concept as number 1 in that you're focusing on changing the parameters of your life and letting the emergent, organic stuff that happens as a result do the rest. But this one is a bit broader in scope. When most of us look back, we can identify a handful of really "key" decisions. The decision to quit our job and start that company, the decision to move to another town to put our kids in a great school etc. For me, the antidote to the relative lack of agency we seem to have when it comes to the everyday, is the power we wield when it comes to the big life decisions. These are the building blocks of your story and will have profound impacts on where it goes. Thus, these decisions should be identified and treated with the consideration and care they are warranted. Part of this (a big part) is being mindful enough to identify these decisions instead of letting them pass us by. By understanding fundamental attribution error, one can make peace with the fact one didn't perform well at work yesterday for whatever reason. But I imagine, when lying on your death bed, it will be those big ticket items -- "why was I too scared to leave that job I hated for 30 years" -- that really fill you with regret. Spend less time beating yourself up for the everyday outcomes you won't remember in a week and more time thinking about the big things. You're steering the ship of your life not rowing on the benches. ### 3. Give yourself a break (and don't get too full of yourself either) Even when you know about fundamental attribution error or correspondence bias or whatever you want to call it, it's still incredibly difficult sometimes to not berate yourself (or to get carried away with yourself) when actually your impact was fairly minimal. You're probably doing the best you can, like most people are. It's okay that you saw the rain and decided you couldn't face going for a run tonight. Or that you didn't do that housework you told yourself you would do today because you were just too tired. Sometimes we're pedalling uphill, sometimes it's downhill. Just go with it.