i had learnt earlier about fixed and growth mindset and it felt logical. people who would just accept their fate wouldn’t work towards trying to improve vs people who realise that they can just practice and improve at anything.

this blog - You can’t think your way into better habits says at a point that -

One common bit of advice is to take a “growth mindset” approach to doing difficult things. The issue is, after multiple large meta-analyses, there’s not much evidence growth mindsets actually do anything. It’s worth noting studies investigating growth mindset interventions involve actually sitting subjects down and having them do an exercise like writing an essay, not just watching a Ted Talk or reading an article. This is consistent with the broader findings that behavioral interventions that target beliefs and attitudes have very small impacts on behavior.

interesting. and does make sense. intentions help but they only count for one-off decisions. for daily decisions, you revert back to the default. i get a huge sense of motivation and courage and agency after watching oppenheimer/planet earth, but it fades away fast.

environment and habits are then what we have.

which reminds me of something my past self wrote - Long Term Parkinson’s Law. I just took a glance over it and it feels weird to read your past self. cringy kind of.