Self-directed behavior
Achieve your life goals with SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR! With abundant strategies based on research, this psychology text guides you through exercises for developing skills in self-analysis and teaches you how to apply these skills in different settings. Case examples demonstrate how other students have successfully used the book's techniques, including one student who used shaping to gradually increase her ability to study, and another who learned to be more sure of himself on dates by consciously modeling a friend's confident behavior.
Stats for nerds
5recommend
7mentions
6people
2009–2023years
86% recommend14% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- The author of that book has been writing about behavior for years. And yet when I once sent him a picture of B. F. Skinner, he didn’t know who that was.
If you really think you need to optimize yourself, I’d recommend to skip the millennial bestseller lists and to closer to the source.
A few recommendations:
Self Help Without the Hype (R. Epstein) Tiny Habits (BJ Fogg) Self-Directed Behavior: Self-Modification for Personal Adjustment (Watson/Tharp) Don't Shoot the Dog (Pryor)
Really, just the first one will likely be enough.
- Kudos to OP for spring cleaning, but the idea of many of these being subscription services to begin with is outrageous to me.
Software as a service rarely makes sense on a scale of 1.
- 1Password (Family): $59/year. Replace with a shared spreadsheet.
- Bear: $20/year. A markdown editor for Apple devices.
- CARROT Weather: $40/year. For the weather.
- Day One: $32/year. A personal journal app that runs on "unlimited devices." Why, unless writing the journal with a team of ghostwriters?
- Lost It!: $28/year. Supposed to be Lose It!—a weight-loss app? Replace with books: The Blue Zones, Spark, Self-Directed Behavior.
- Habitica: $63/year. Habit tracking, gamification. Replace with books. These are tactics, not technologies. Learn the tactics once and use them for life.
- Ulysses: $67/year. A writing app for Macs. What could justify a recurring fee?
- Squash 3: $41/year. A batch photo editor for Mac for resizing photos. Like the free IrfanView or many others.
- Self-directed behavior - Watson
This is a textbook for behavior change course, but it is 100% practical (project to pass subject is to change some kind of behavior)
Only tested information Science-based. This book can change your life but you wont find it mentioned anywhere
- As somebody who has suffered basically the exact same thing, one book that has immensely helped is: https://www.amazon.com/Self-Directed-Behavior-Self-Modificat...
Essentially I found that I could tackle any task, but on the first flash of some other more exciting idea, feeling or sensation, I would drift off.
The book boils doing to finding your own Antecedents that Lead to Particular Behaviors that you want to change.
- A book that I have found very useful for both developing new habits and breaking existing unproductive habits is "Self-Directed Behavior" by Watson & Tharp. It's based on scientific research, but the ideas are presented clearly and in a practically useful way. It's also about more than just the introduction or changing of habits - it also helps you analyze them, understand them, measure them, reinforce them, etc.
It appears to be sold as a college textbook so the latest edition is horrendously expensive, but this also means you can easily find used copies of older editions. Mine is at least 15 years old and still very useful.
https://www.amazon.com/Self-Directed-Behavior-Self-Modificat...
- For any kind of self-modification project, I strongly recommend the book "Self-directed behavior" by Watson & Tharp. It's the thinking man's (or woman's) self-help book, with general all-purpose advice for any kind of change. Very practical and very useful.
