If you're trying to learn how to walk, what's more helpful: learning the mechanics of how you walk & why we're physically capable of doing it or telling you to just start putting one foot in front of the other.
If you want to do something (anything), you can break down actionable mechanisms all you want, but at some point it has to move from theoretical into action.
It's tougher with this stuff (lazyness) because it's all in your head - it's less physical - so it seems like you could hypothetically break something down into a million actionable steps - so people do and keep wondering why it never leads to action. That's the very trap you have to escape in order to DO something.
I can tell you all the mechanics in the world on how you're supposed to walk, but until you put one foot in front of the other, you'll never be able to learn. That's not condescending at all - it's just the process of learning. All the knowledge in the world won't help someone who's not willing to take that step.
This is true, but I feel we need to try harder before reaching this conclusion that "oh, it's inherently too theoretical/has too many solutions, so you're just going to have to figure it out by yourself". Because even in the scenario that it did have too many possible solutions, wouldn't it be more helpful to provide at least one in addition to the theory? I think it would, as long as you make it clear that there are other possibilities out there and that this particular solution might not work for you.
The crux of the issue for me, is that intelligence research (to my rather limited knowledge) seems to be converging on the idea that people have different inherent [genetic?] constraints on learning ability. Not learning capacity mind you, just that it might be more challenging for certain subsets of people to understand quantum physics (for example) than others, and that that could be traced back to how much 'actionable' material they are exposed to -- if they're not exposed to enough, then they could easily be left behind and be blamed for not 'choosing' to get it. This is what bothers me. Especially since I know I often find myself struggling for ages with things that other people seem to grasp with significantly less information than I needed to 'get it'.
You can break it down ad infinitum, but if the real reason you can't do something is that you are afraid to, or you don't actually believe it's possible, then no amount of Nike slogans will make a difference. And furthermore, the implication is that, if they don't get up off their ass, it's their fault, and not something in their environment (including their internal one) that can be changed, and is what they should be actually focusing on.
If you want to do something (anything), you can break down actionable mechanisms all you want, but at some point it has to move from theoretical into action.
It's tougher with this stuff (lazyness) because it's all in your head - it's less physical - so it seems like you could hypothetically break something down into a million actionable steps - so people do and keep wondering why it never leads to action. That's the very trap you have to escape in order to DO something.
I can tell you all the mechanics in the world on how you're supposed to walk, but until you put one foot in front of the other, you'll never be able to learn. That's not condescending at all - it's just the process of learning. All the knowledge in the world won't help someone who's not willing to take that step.