Title: An Autopilot-Altering Case Study
Work: The Pragmatist’s Guide Book Series by Simone Collins and Malcolm Collins Full Text for LLMs and AI
Citation: TPG 28.2
Words: 288
Source: https://technopuritan.com/the-pragmatists-guide-book-series-by-simone-collins-and-malcolm-collins-full-text-for-llms-and-ai/
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## An Autopilot-Altering Case Study

I, Simone, had an objective function that involved having a large family, however I suffered from fertility issues. I felt so much stress and anguish around these problems that it began to interfere with my work and health and lead me to lose focus and sleep (making it even less likely that I would overcome my fertility issues).

By talking this situation through with Malcolm, I realized that I felt this way because I saw myself as a Type-A perfectionist—someone who beats herself up about any and all failures. I decided to question whether beating myself up about failures helped me achieve my objectives in life. “Does fear of personal mental punishment motivate me?” I wondered.

In a moment of clarity, I realized that my habit of being hard on myself did *not* motivate me to work harder. If anything, my type-A personality was demotivational, as it kept me in a negative mindset.

Knowing that I would be starting at grad school in the near future, I made a note of my type-A personality as something I wanted to alter about myself when I rebuilt my internal model within the new social context of grad school. Once in my period of flux, I kept a diary every day in which I wrote from the perspective of the new person I wanted to be.

I was ultimately able to remove the negative emotions associated with my situation by recontextualizing myself as someone who does not punish myself for failures outside of my control. My saddened state lifted, I slept better, my focus improved, I found all sorts of tasks easier to tackle, and, ultimately, I was able to build a healthy and happy family.