[Ozzie_osman]

You're actually triggering two things with this trick.

First, the piece you call out is delayed gratification (ie focusing on the future over the short-term).

But there's a second piece hidden in there, which is identity-orientation. "I'm the type of person who does X". Tying actions to your identity is actually really powerful.

[MagicNights]

This is one of many solutions to the framing problem. John Vervaeke discusses it and the theoretical background in his awakening from the meaning crisis lecture series.

Lecture 13 especially https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkWNBdBDyoE

Meditation, therapy, exercise, certain religious practices, etc. Also break people out when they are stuck in loops of vicious cycles. Different people have different combinations of what practices work for them. And there's no way to know what works before you try it.

In OPs article, he mentions the distinction between knowledge and information. He means self-knowledge, the stuff Socrates talked about

[HPsquared]

The "identity" part is good because it works in the immediate present time.