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greyenlightenment  investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...  3mo ago (greyenlightenment.com)   1836 thread views

Why does advice work so poorly?

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It’s generally at least something the person understands how to do.

My point is that "just work harder" is to some extent something people (me) don't understand how to do, so everything that hinges on this (most advice) falls into this category. There is a lot more to discipline and human psychology than just flexing your indomitable human spirit if you want something hard enough.

"Work harder" isn't bad advice so to speak but it's not that useful. So, by extension, "Just wake up every morning and exercise for 30 minutes" is also not necessarily that useful.

"Work harder" isn't bad advice so to speak but it's not that useful.

This gets into the core problem with much advice: It is rarely actionable and usually of the form "you should be like this" instead of "you should do this specific thing that you both know how to do and are capable of currently doing".

A classic example is "eat less to lose weight" which isn't actionable for most people (they'll just get hungry and fail to eat less) as opposed to for example "log every meal and snack you eat to make it easier to avoid pointless eating and try to eat these sorts of foods that keep you satiated longer".

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