Loading practices
Loading practices
Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Bringing the future closer
Notice what you do in the first three seconds after hearing something you did not want to hear. The explaining, the yes but, the small correction of a detail. Each one teaches the person not to bother next time. Try thank you first, then a question, and keep your defence for later or for never. What comes to you depends entirely on how the last attempt was received.
'If you are thankful, I will give you more' (Quran 14:7). Receiving something well is what keeps more of it coming, which is true of honest words too.
إبراهيم
وَإِذۡ تَأَذَّنَ رَبُّكُمۡ لَئِن شَكَرۡتُمۡ لَأَزِيدَنَّكُمۡۖ وَلَئِن كَفَرۡتُمۡ إِنَّ عَذَابِي لَشَدِيدࣱ
Remember that He promised, “If you are thankful, I will give you more, but if you are thankless, My punishment is terrible indeed.” ’
Qur’an 14:7read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A randomised trial with 1,006 smokers found that supporting people's autonomy and competence increased their autonomous motivation and sense of competence, tested against ordinary community care. It concerns how support is offered rather than how criticism is received, so the read across is loose. What it does suggest is that the manner of an exchange shapes what comes out of it, for both people in it.
Geoffrey C. Williams; Holly A. McGregor; Daryl Sharp; Chantal Lévesque; Ruth Kouides; Richard M. Ryan (2006). Testing a self-determination theory intervention for motivating tobacco cessation: Supporting autonomy and competence in a clinical trial.. Health Psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Defending yourself ends the discomfort now and ends the honesty for good.
Two things depend on the same small gap: looking back at how the last one went, and looking ahead at how this one is likely to go. Neither can happen once you are already moving.
'It's bad for your health' and 'grades matter later' move nobody, least of all someone who has never seen what either one looks like.
No single strategy fits every situation. When something that worked last year does nothing now, the fault is usually in the match rather than in you.