Don't Change Thoughts, Change the System

00:04:44 — Don’t Change Thoughts, Change the System

The thoughts themselves are not what we are trying to change. A raw thought is like incoming flow: something we cannot really control, and if we tried to control it we might trigger a negative feedback loop causing more of the same unwanted thoughts. Instead, the goal is to create situations conducive to dealing with thoughts we do not want to act on, and to building patterns that produce thoughts we do want to act on. As a simple model, imagine three stocks of time investment: exercise, social media consumption, and reading. Each of these acts as a secondary variable feeding into flows of healthy and unhealthy thoughts.