
Why Trying New Things Is So Hard to Do - x43b
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/business/why-trying-new-things-is-so-hard.html?
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wccrawford
I can't say I've ever had a problem trying something so easy as a new soda. In
fact, I've switched sodas a lot for various reasons including taste, often
trying new ones when they come out.

I thought this article would be about learning new skills like art or
programming, which I actually _do_ find hard to get into.

For those, I know why it's so hard: I'm so good at the things I do daily that
new things are quite painful to see how much I fail at them. I end up just
going back to the stuff I'm good at instead.

~~~
duopixel
What about things that you've never tried, and that you might not even know
that you like? You've already climbed the difficulty curve of programming in
X, so you don't want to put so much effort in getting to the same level with
Y. You're putting in a lot of effort to reach the same spot.

The author (as an economist, I suspect) equates new experience with
consumption, but there is a huge range of new experience available if you do
away with the frustration of trying to find something better than you
currently do. Say, experimenting a range of sports (rock climbing, hiking,
weight lifting, skateboarding) as act of knowledge rather than attaching to
the results it gives.

It seems rational that there is more benefit in new experience, good or bad
than repeating pleasant experience. Going to a new travel destination will
give you more memories and anecdotes than going to your favorite vacation
spot. And yet we're all a little bit coward and tend to stay in our comfort
zone.

~~~
wccrawford
That's a good question. I find them especially taxing because I tend to be a
thorough person, so I tend to look for tutorials and watch them first. If it's
something that doesn't really lend itself to a technical explanation (art!)
then it really just mystifies me and I have trouble even starting.

For example, my wife and her sister went to one of those wine-and-painting
things and produced what I think are actually pretty good paintings with no
real practice beforehand.

It horrifies me because I know I'll want it to be better than it is. (And my
wife felt that way about hers, despite how I felt about hers.) So I haven't
done it.

I did, however, buy a book and art supplies and do 3 of the 50 projects before
wandering off to something else. I really do intend to go back to it, but
haven't.

------
leggomylibro
"Like most people, I conduct relatively few experiments in my personal life,
in both small and big things."

...

"Habits are powerful. We persist with many of them because we tend to give
undue emphasis to the present. Trying something new can be painful: I might
not like what I get and must forgo something I already enjoy."

I'm drawn to a quote written by Sir Terry Pratchett every time I read this
sort of article. So tl;dr,

>"They think they want good government and justice for all, Vimes, yet what is
it they really crave, deep in their hearts? Only that things go on as normal
and tomorrow is pretty much like today."

~~~
barrkel
_They think they want good government and justice for all, Vimes, yet what is
it they really crave, deep in their hearts? Only that things go on as normal
and tomorrow is pretty much like today._

These two statements are not contradictory, of course; the primary reason we
have government is to avoid unpleasant surprises, whether they be crime,
fraud, war, unemployment, sickness or natural disaster. If things go on as
normal with tomorrow like today, government is working well enough - unless
today is unendurable, in which case it's broken.

~~~
leggomylibro
Yeah, I think the point is that it's a characteristic which makes it very easy
for bad actors to manipulate concepts of governance and justice.

People might balk at negative changes at first, even very sharp and sudden
ones, but they probably won't continue to fight them over the scale of years
or decades as the 'new normal' sets in.

------
baxtr
My feeling: The author does not understand the human psyche well enough.
People don’t buy coke because of the taste only. They buy coke because the way
they feel, whenever they drink coke. A branded coke gives a whole different
feeling than a generic one, which depends on several factors like brand image,
price, peers, etc. Works even with pain drugs.

See “Predictably Irrational” by Dan Ariely for several examples of this
effect.

~~~
fizixer
> People don’t buy coke because of the taste only.

Despite agreeing with you, I never get why people do this. I'm a big diet coke
addict. But my local store has a generic clone which tastes exactly the same.
I always buy the clone.

~~~
baxtr
Because it’s a lie people tell themselves to get a good feeling, at least 2-3x
a day (the author 6x).

You are immune to the lie :-) you gotta have a different lie to feel good.

BTW: I didn’t come up with the stuff. A splendid book about that topic is “All
marketers are liars” by Seth Godin

------
csnewb
I love trying new things, it's the easiest thing to do. The hardest part is
developing the habit to continuously do that thing.

~~~
jschwartzi
It's easier when the new thing is more enjoyable than the old thing. Then you
naturally gravitate toward it.

It's harder when the new thing is less enjoyable but will eventually pay off.

------
leepowers
> Yet I’m clearly making an error, one that reveals a deeper decision-making
> bias whose cumulative cost is sizable: Like most people, I conduct
> relatively few experiments in my personal life, in both small and big
> things.

I think this is related to learning. Once you've learned a particular task
(say, writing a unit test) you don't "relearn" it every time you want to
execute the task again. Instead you "reenact" it - it's more automatic and can
be done more quickly and with less focus and concentration. Each unit test is
unique - but the tooling and concepts that surround it are already there.

Reenacting vs. learning may be one reason behind brand loyalty and habit. It
simply takes more mental effort to re-evaluate and re-learn than to coast off
a previous decision. It's more work, even if it's something minor like trying
a different brand of soda. We can only "spend" so much attention and care
during our waking hours.

The value of a habit is that you make a decision once and project it into the
future as an automatic response. The notion that these automatic responses are
somehow flawed or need to be optimized away, or optimized to produce some
economic advantage, is suspect.

What _is_ valuable is understanding that these automatic responses are as much
a part of human cognition as our deliberative attention. We should be re-
evaluate them periodically and try to understand the effect they have on the
trajectory of our lives.

------
EGreg
To try new things and experience success in new areas, here is step 1:

MAKE IT SAFE TO FAIL

That's right. Spend time and energy thinking about opportunities to practice
and fail over and over while minimizing the fallout.

For example, are you afraid to launch that app on the store until you've done
all your beta testing and your metrics show high engagement?

Don't be afraid. Launch it and simply DON'T PUBLICIZE IT. Who knows, Apple
might approve it and you may get 5-10 organic new beta testers a day. You lose
nothing for trying.

That's the mindset that will get you far :)

~~~
kbutler
The "MAKE IT SAFE TO FAIL" was contradicted by the article.

"This is a pity because experimentation can produce outsize rewards. For
example, I wouldn’t be risking much by trying a generic soda, and if I liked
it enough to switch, the payout could be big: All my future sodas would be
cheaper."

You don't get much safer to fail than trying one soda.

The article was about trying new behaviors different from habits, rather than
trying big new things, and was disappointing overall.

------
MaxBarraclough
Yet another clickbait headline. From a Harvard professor, no less, assuming
the title is the author's.

The article explores the consequences of our reluctance to break from habit,
rather than explaining _why_ we find this hard to do.

More accurately, it explores why we so rarely do it. If we were discussing it
being truly 'hard to do', we'd need to first establish that we consciously
want to break from habit, but then fail to follow through with action. The
article doesn't take this route.

The closest it gets to delivering on the title is _Yet the fact that many
people needed a strike to force them to experiment reveals the deep roots of a
common reluctance to experiment._ This is not then expanded upon.

~~~
Lewton
> From a Harvard professor, no less, assuming the title is the author's.

The probability that the author got to choose the title is very slim

~~~
ghaff
Also newsflash. Headlines have been clickbait to a greater or lesser degree
since before there were clicks. Yes, they exist in part to tell you what the
article is about but their main function is to intrigue you about the
contents.

~~~
MaxBarraclough
So I should be ok with being lied to to get clicks?

This journalistic blight may indeed have been happening for a long time, but
it still discredits the source and should disqualify it from HN.

Some titles are actually honest. Who would've thunk?

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account0099099
I like how the article starts off with:

"I make bad life choices, now listen to be for advice on...."

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HaoZeke
Trying is easy.. Sticking to something new is what's really hard.

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pb060
I’ve never really done it but I’ve always thought that adding some randomness
to my choices would make my life much more balanced. In a way, also
experiments can be biased.

------
baxtr
I cannot access the article. Has anybody an alternative link? Or a summary?
Thx

~~~
frgtpsswrdlame
[https://outline.com/L2ESsK](https://outline.com/L2ESsK)

