🧐 What truly traps ordinary people is not laziness or lack of self-discipline, but an invisible system | Misunderstanding "change"!？
Dan Koe's article has been trending across the internet these past few days;
Can you really fix your life in a day? Finally, I had a chunk of time, and I read this article thoroughly with that question in mind!
After reading, I found that while it has some clickbait elements, it is still extraordinarily impactful!
Its core message is to shift the common perception of "change" from "forcing oneself to be more disciplined" back to psychological motivation + feedback loops + environmental systems.
Its value lies not in the so-called miraculous life hacks that some people rave about, but in breaking down behavioral change into a more fundamental mechanism, allowing us to better understand ourselves and the mechanisms behind our behaviors:
Goal (mostly subconscious) → Perspective/Attention Filtering → Behavior → Feedback → Habitualization → Identity Recognition → Continuing to choose the same goal.
For example, have you ever felt this way:
You clearly know you need to change, understand all the reasoning, have even written plans, and made several firm resolutions, but before long, life quietly pulls you back to your original position.
This is not because you are not trying hard enough, but because you may have misunderstood "change" from the very beginning.
The real brilliance of Dan Koe's recently trending article is not in teaching you how to push yourself harder, but in clearly explaining "why we always fail to change" for the first time.
Once you understand this chain, you will realize that many so-called "failures," "lack of self-discipline," and "procrastination" are not character flaws, but rather the system operating stably.
- What this article is about:
Dan Koe's 7 parts actually build upon each other:
1️⃣ You can't reach where you want to go because you are not yet "the kind of person who would be there."
Most people view change as "forcing themselves to do the right thing" (second level: action level).
He argues that true change is "making behavior feel natural" (first level: identity/self-image level).
I am reminded of that saying: You don't know you are you; if you know you are you, then you are no longer you. Many people, when doing things, cannot trace back to the root purpose, going with the flow to do what others think is right or what seems right, rather than doing what is truly right according to their own conscience.
Key sentence: The results you want must be supported by a lifestyle that can produce those results in advance. Otherwise, even if you achieve them in the short term, there will be a rebound.
You can understand it as:
The goal is not to make you "work harder," but to make you "more like that kind of person."
2️⃣ You can't reach where you want to go because you actually don't want to go there.
This section aligns with Adler: all behavior serves a certain goal, but often the goal is subconscious.
For example, procrastination may superficially seem like "lack of self-discipline," but at a deeper level, it could be "avoiding judgment/avoiding evidence of failure/avoiding responsibility."
In short: Don't blame yourself for not trying hard enough; instead, find out what your current behavior is "protecting."
3️⃣ You can't reach where you want to go because you are afraid to go there.
He describes "identity" as a cycle:
Goal → Filtering Attention/Learning → Behavior → Feedback → Automation → "I am this kind of person" → Maintaining Consistency → New Goal
The difficulty lies between "6→7": When something becomes "who I am," you will instinctively maintain it, even if it is not good for you.
4️⃣ The life you want exists at a certain "level of consciousness."
He introduces stage theory (Loevinger/Cook-Greuter, Spiral Dynamics, Integral Theory). The core application is:
Some bottlenecks are not due to "wrong methods," but because you are still using an old stage of consciousness to solve new stage problems.
The leap from 4 (Self-Aware) to 6 (Individualist) to 7 (Strategist) is significant:
Many people get stuck at "seeing the problem but not knowing how to organize their lives."
Here, it is important to note: stage models are "maps," not "truths." They can be very helpful for self-reflection, but labeling others can be very dangerous.
5️⃣ Intelligence = the ability to steer in the sense of control theory.
Redefining intelligence using "control theory":
Have a goal → Act → Perceive the current situation → Compare with the goal → Correct based on deviation → Act again.
The "ship and lighthouse" diagram you provided illustrates this: you cannot go in a straight line all at once; you rely on continuous correction.
6️⃣ 1-Day Restart Protocol: Dig for motivation in the morning, interrupt autopilot during the day, and consolidate into a plan at night.
This part is very practical: create tension with "anti-vision," provide direction with "minimum viable vision (MVP vision)," and then zoom in on the year/month/day lens.
7️⃣ Make life a game: tasks, bosses, rules, stakes.
What he aims to solve is:
Why can you get addicted to scrolling on your phone or playing games, but struggle to stick to doing important tasks?
Because games inherently have: clear goals, immediate feedback, progressive difficulty, reward systems, and identity investment. Borrow these structures instead of relying solely on willpower.
- Where this article is particularly useful
I believe the most valuable points are three (and also the easiest to overlook):
1️⃣ "You don't change because you are using it to achieve a certain purpose."
This can pull you back from "self-blame/shame" to "mechanism/strategy."
You will start to ask:
What is my procrastination protecting?
What benefits (security, dignity, explainability, recognition) am I gaining from maintaining the status quo?
Can I obtain the same things in a healthier way?
2️⃣ Anti-vision drives action more than vision.
Many people write beautiful visions, but they lack pain.
Anti-vision concretizes the "cost of remaining unchanged," which directly increases the "gravity" of action.
3️⃣ "Correction ability" is more important than "perfect planning."
Many people fail not because they don't try hard enough, but because:
They started off in the wrong direction.
Or they become emotional (self-blame/giving up) when encountering deviations and do not iterate.
The control theory perspective will shift you from "I can't do it" to "I need shorter feedback loops."
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