The Model: summary

[I replaced this post with a series on The Model. Click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.]
For the past six weeks I’ve posted on the Model, my model for human motivations and emotions. The Model forms the foundation of what I consider the best way to view and live life. For those who have been reading along, I recognize it may have been a bit dry or academic. I expect later posts will make life and living the lifestyle you want seem easy and obvious, but require referring back to the Model, in which case this summary will simplify learning it.
Today’s post summarizes all those posts, which will probably end up a chapter in my book, which is now a manuscript and book proposal. They also compose the major part of the first day of my seminar. I’m keeping them mostly in the order I wrote them, but to organize them by topic I reordered some.

Introduction and overview

Examples of models

Models: passive and active

Models: exercises

Building the Model from first principles: environment, beliefs, perception, emotions, behavior, and reward

Now that we’ve developed the Model, let’s understand it.

Discussion and examples of the Model

People familiar with other methods of improving your life may see similarities between my Model and the model underlying cognitive behavioral therapy. I’ll develop the comparison more later, but for now I’ll compare the two models briefly.

The Model and cognitive behavioral therapy

Now that the Model has some context too, let’s understand it in more depth.

The Model in more depth

Everything so far has been about the Model itself. Now let’s look at its implications for us in our lives.

What the Model tells us about our lives

Now it’s time to move on to the Method.

This Post Has 41 Comments

  31. Todd March 24, 2013 Reply

    I enjoy reading your posts about mental models and would like to do further reading, but I don’t know where to start. Do you have any books you could recommend?

    1. Joshua March 25, 2013 Reply

      Hi Todd,
      Good to hear from you.
      I’m about to start a long series of a few dozen posts on the mental models I use daily or weekly which I intend to give an extended example of how I’ve consciously created a series of beliefs that makes my world work for me, so first: stay tuned for real-life examples. I’ll start that series in about a week.
      Next, my About page — https://joshuaspodek.com/about — lists two books that taught me a lot about mental models: The Fifth Discipline and Are You Ready To Succeed. I found both excellent, though the first is long and covers a lot of other things and the second a bit new age-y, which is why I’m in the process of writing a book of my own on my Model and Method. My Model is just one extended mental model that I find helpful in living a better life.

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