Who Profits From Self Improvement ... So What Who Cares, 5(1)
Hello!
I will always be grateful to artist Nikol Lohr for introducing me to the idea of the annual list -- the idea that you just write down all sorts of things you want to do for the year, from the small to the ambitious and then go for it. Here is Nikol's list from 2018 -- see how varied and interesting it all is? (She's got planners if you want to launch into your own Überlist practices.)
Before encountering the idea of the annual list, I did resolutions like many people do resolutions -- dutifully assuming the point was to become a better version of myself. The problem was obviously me, the answer was obviously to improve how I went about the practice of being me.
After meeting the Überlist, I started looking at resolutions differently: Stop focusing on who I was, start paying more attention to what I did. How did I want to spend my valuable time? What activities actually made it valuable? Why wouldn't something like "learn how to make bread?" be as worthy of inclusion on a list as "get the promotion"? Getting that bread -- in any sense of the word -- is a life-improver.
One attraction of the Überlist is that the number of items matches the year -- so 99 items in 1999, and so on -- and this gave one room for both ambitious projects like "run a marathon" and small accomplishments like "learn how to make jam." I did a 19-item list this year -- putting 119 things on an Überlist was not going to happen -- and now my Type-A tendencies are screaming about what I'll need to do to tick everything off the list.
According to some people who make their living telling folks how to be happier and more productive, the answer is simply to know how you roll and use that to your advantage. But a little self-knowledge may not be enough -- behavioral economists have found that levying a little loss aversion into goal-keeping could be effective too:
In one study published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2015, people who put $150 on the line to quit smoking were much more successful than those who simply got rewarded $800 to do the same thing (52 percent compared to 17 percent). The reason for this is simple: Humans tend to fear losing what they already have much more than they desire to gain something new, even when that gain far outweighs the potential loss.
(@ me if you read that and immediately flashed to Stephen King's 1978 short story "Quitters Inc.")
Another strategy? Simply rewrite the story of what you're trying to do. Replace one belief with another. Edith Zimmerman wrote about how she stopped drinking and what worked for her was replacing one belief about her drinking with another -- and that belief sapped her of all desire to keep drinking. As she wrote, "There was no willpower involved. When you believe a new thing, you don’t need a lot of effort. "
Or you can set up a series of either-or choices with a "more/less" approach -- more thrift stores, less e-commerce, more water, less alcohol, etc.
The point is, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. No approach will help someone become a "better" version of themselves without requiring some degree of acceptance of the person they already are.
So what? Never underestimate the power of a resolutions narrative that doesn't turn the focus back to quick fixes and off-the-shelf solutions. Expect to see a lot more press extolling the art of self-aware incrementalism. As a recent Wired article posited:
If 2018 was the year of peak self-care, 2019 might shape up to be the year of peak self-optimization. This year the internet meme machine has churned out new New Year’s resolution formats focused on fine adjustment rather than vague, unattainable goals.
Incremental improvement apps are the types of mobile phone apps that encourage you to get hydrated, meditate, exercise, track your food, thanks to reminders, gamified interfaces (a little plant that wilts if you don't regularly log your water intake!) and quantifiable data. This excellent Vox article breaks down how we acquire habits. It's a self-reinforcing loop: first, there's a cue triggering the routine that defines the habit, then there's enacting the routine, then there's the reward. For example, my morning coffee habit is based on getting out of bed, making that first carafe of coffee, then savoring the results while I wake up. The article also points out that no habit sticks unless we can identify the triggers for the routine and the reward that incentivizes us to do it again. And that technology may not actually be that helpful.
“People are actually less likely to develop new habits if they’re using a device to pay attention for them instead of paying attention themselves,” [Charles Duhigg, the author of The Power of Habit,] told Vox. “But if you actually use the device and take its data and turn that data into knowledge, then it can actually improve your odds of changing.”
So if you're the type of person who ignores the push notifications on your phone, you're not going to start drinking more water, no matter how nice your new water bottle or how sad your little plant in the app gets.
Who cares? Anyone who has ever hoped they were one incremental app download or water bottle purchase away from really changing their life.
There's also the question of why you want to change your life. Where did that message come from? And who profits by it? A recent Quicken survey found that 56% of people polled plan on spending money to help keep their resolutions. Amanda Mull, writing for The Atlantic, points out:
In the United States, self-improvement often boils down to being thin and amassing wealth. In [a poll conducted in December by NPR, PBS Newshour, and Marist], almost a third of those intending to make resolutions singled out eating habits, exercise, or weight as the problems they hope to fix, and another 10 percent chose finance-related goals. Down the list, being kinder, becoming more spiritual, or worrying less received only faint support.
[...]
At the very least, it’s worth noting that the top resolutions tend to be the ones for which it’s easiest to market products or services. Gym memberships, workout clothes, and meal-delivery plans are easily targeted to someone who feels pressure to change their physical self, but it’s less clear what kind of subscription pairs with the intention to be kinder.
I thought about Mull's piece when reading the recent Anne Helen Petersen piece for Buzzfeed, " How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation." In it, she talks about the toll relentless self-optimization takes on adults in the U.S. -- and how that's driven by the modern business climate and acute awareness that there are no societal safety nets for someone who's not constantly hustling to be their best self.
So if you're in the mood to make a list for 2019, maybe "Ask who benefits from keeping us unsatisfied with our lives and perpetually feeling as if we're not enough" goes on it. There's not an app for that yet. But the year is young.
P.S. One of my 19 goals on my annual list -- let's just call it the Itsylist, since it's certainly not an Überlist -- is to write, edit and produce 50 issues of SWWC this year. Let's see what happens.
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Your pop culture recommendation of the day: I have been greatly enjoying Carolita Johnson's series for Longreads, "A Woman's Work," and her most recent illustrated essay, "A Woman's Work: The Outside Story," is a relatable work if you grew up during the heyday of women's glossy media. (It's also a great look at who gets to defy those beauty standards.)
What I'd like to see is how or whether the radical diffusion of an audience away from print and toward hyper-personalized social mediums has changed how adolescents regard their appearance qua the wider world and I hope to find an answer to that question this year.
Johnson's essay, in which she details specific products as mileposts on the way to adulthood, is a potent reminder of that beauty products work because they allow us to oscillate from the intimate (personal grooming) to the public and back, and that back-and-forth can help define our senses of private and/or public self.
For another angle on how beauty products and grooming can help mold a sense of identity, I highly recommend reading Sali Hughes'
Pretty Iconic, a book in which she walks through why some beauty products matter to the industry at large and why some matter mostly to her. (I know, I've recommended it before on Two Bossy Dames. It's different when it's your own newsletter.)
Hughes' book is packed with both industry and cultural history, but you don't really realize it because each chapter is so chatty and engaging. Even if you are uninterested in why liquid exfoliants are a big deal, you'll find that the wider meditations on Dior's Poison are well worth your time.
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