My 1st article for the New York Times -- the psychology of financial willpower

Ramit, I noticed a pattern in HN: people who are trying to make it share their work (articles, webapps, ideas), self-promote, and ask for help. While people, such as yourself, who already enjoy significant success, come to HN to help, mentor, offer jobs, etc. So I am wondering... How is it that most of your contributions here are about you and how well you are doing? You figure at this point, if the community was interested in your work, someone else would be posting it. I am mainly curious to know HN policy on self promoting and spamming, because I see it as detrimental to the quality of the site.

This is the 1st of 4 posts I'll be doing for the New York Times (their Bucks blog) on the psychology of willpower, automation, and earning more. This one is about how people believe if they just "try harder," they can save more money...yet willpower fails repeatedly. I included research from social psychology and personal finance, and 3 tactics to overcome our failure of willpower. Hope you guys enjoy it.

I've read opinions that seem contradictory to your thesis (these both appear to be derived from the same study). [1] [2]<p>While they aren't addressing the same <i>types</i> of discipline, I'm wondering if this sort of self-fulfilling outlook they describe can be applied to the financial situations you address, or if you can explain where they might be misinformed.<p>[1] <a href="http://news.softpedia.com/news/Willpower-Is-Not-a-Limited-Resource-161127.shtml" rel="nofollow">http://news.softpedia.com/news/Willpower-Is-Not-a-Limited-Re...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.stanforddaily.com/2010/10/25/willpower-can-be-an-unlimited-resource-study-says/" rel="nofollow">http://www.stanforddaily.com/2010/10/25/willpower-can-be-an-...</a>

Interesting subject, but I felt like the suggestions lacked substance--cutting down discretionary expenses as generic as "eating out" ties into the question of willpower and the battle of "trying to save on everything". If willpower really is unlimited like the study jiganti referenced, how does one transfer the concept of something like Flow (which the Stanford article inadvertently focuses on) into financial willpower (which is more of a day-day decision-making process)?<p>Also, small typo in 8th paragraph - I think you meant to say "extraordinarily".

Congrats!!!