Confirmation Bias and Cognitive Dissonance have always been two of my favorite psychology concepts.
Over the years I’ve realized just how strongly confirmation bias can affect a person’s outlook on life, and the actions they take (or, more accurately with those I know, don’t take) to improve their situations. I’ve also found that it can be helpful when trying to start a new habit, running for example. When I was running I suddenly started noticing how many people were outside running every day. It seemed everyone I met was a runner. It helped to create momentum in my desire to be outside exercising. And I’ve used this bias to help myself be a little more frugal by surrounding myself with blogs focused on frugality or saving and listening to Dave Ramsey‘s podcast just about every day. A bit of a reversal of the “but, Mom, Everyone has one!” attitude I had in grade school and junior high.
While I’ve learned how to get confirmation bias to work for me, I’ve lately, with the birth of the Little Frog, been feeling the affects of cognitive dissonance. There are specific attitudes about life and habits that I feel are important to teach the little man. Gretchen Rubin, who is slowly becoming a very wonderful role-model in my life, calls them “Commandments.” Since I first read her commandments I’ve been trying to work on my own, but it wasn’t until my son came along that I could really put them into words.
Because suddenly I knew I was going to need to teach them.
Suddenly they
And then, yesterday, I get another dose of the wonderful confirmation bias (because everyone is thinking about cognitive dissonance right now …), as well as a little boost to keep my son’s lessons in mind while I go through my day. Preach What You Plan to Practice was a rather interesting article on how cognitive dissonance helps people to change their own unhealthy habits. By telling others that unsafe sex is bad and then being asked about their own habits, college students were subjected to their hypocrisy. This resulted in a change in condom use which lasted at least six months for a large percentage.
So, I am creating my commandments. They are now and, I hope, will continue to be what I consider important for living a good, healthy, respectable, and regret-free life. Writing them down has helped, so far, to keep them concrete and fresh in my mind. Hopefully when they are taped to my wall they will increase the dissonance between my beliefs and my actions. They are:
- Do what needs to be done. (Stolen straight from The Happiness Project, I admit, but it resonates so strongly.)
- Treat everyone with respect, whether you believe they deserve it or not. We are not here to judge. (Man, this is a hard one for me.)
- Exercise your body and your mind a little everyday.
- Don’t complain about the everyday stuff.
- Don’t reward yourself for the everyday stuff. (Like behaving when you get your haircut or need to do the shopping.)
- Do reward yourself for the tough stuff, do take breaks, do allow yourself time off from the everyday stuff.
- Send thank you notes. Write them by hand.
- Keep your home tidy enough to invite anyone in at any time.
- Collect memories, not things.
- Kindness is more important than wealth.
- Make, and love, mistakes.
- Being on time is a sign of respect, but don’t rush, and don’t make yourself crazy if you’re late.
- Don’t rush. One year at a time, one month at a time, one week at a time, one day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time, one moment at a time. Enjoy the process.
I know, there are more than 10. And I think they need to each be tighter (I really love how Gretchen’s are only a few words apiece). But for now they’ll work and searching for perfection will just allow me to procrastinate further. As the weeks go on, I’ll try to put my thoughts down about each one: why I think each is important, how I expect to teach it. I hope that you’ll help me with examples or ideas on how to live these in my life, and how to share them with the Little Frog.
I would love to hear the precepts you live your life by; feel free to share them in the comments. I’d also be interested to know if you disagree with any of mine.
