"After a million self-help programs and motivation books that haven't been of much help"
Which self-help programs and books?
Ask HN: Lack of self-discipline driving me hopeless. Tips?
51–60 of 108 posts
Re: Ask HN: Lack of self-discipline driving me hopeless. Tips?
#52You sound like me a few years ago. I since found out I have ADD. You might have it too. You might want to get checked.
Have the treatments worked for you? I've come super close to getting tested for ADD, each time resisting out of fear that it'll only be another temporary fix(in pills). May be I'm wrong reading stories like yours.
>Have the treatments worked for you?
Yes. Sometimes completely, usually partially.
>I've come super close to getting tested for ADD, each time resisting out of fear that it'll only be another temporary fix(in pills).
OK. I believe you should get tested anyway; testing does not mean you have to follow through with treatment. Benefits from knowing you have ADD include being able to read about it. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Attention-Deficit-Disorder-Unfocused...
About the pills: it turns out ADD is a chemical problem. I have heard about it being treated with therapy (talking to people) but really, the real fix is pills. In my case at least, there is a hole in my brain shaped like amphetamines (Adderall, Ritalin) and if I take amphetamines I have nothing to envy people without ADD. When I first took them I felt something I had never felt before: an incredible sense of urgency and desire to work.
Is it a temporary fix? In some senses yes, in others, no. It can be temporary in that SSRI's induce tolerance, much like cigarettes or coffee. But this is hardly a Red Queen scenario. Most people with ADDs reach a dose they're comfortable with and can work with from here to forever, with some caveats your doctor can tell you about. I would not compare it to padding your schedule to deal with time overruns due to procrastination. This is a fundamental change in the way your brain works.
And if you don't like the idea of taking pills, consider this: there's really no other way out if you have ADD and are part of the 80% of ADD patients who respond positively to pills.
I highly recommend it.
Re: Ask HN: Lack of self-discipline driving me hopeless. Tips?
#53"After a million self-help programs and motivation books that haven't been of much help" Which self-help programs and books?
You name it. Toni Robbins, Eckhart Tolle, Think and grow rich.
After a while they just become noise if you don't have the self-discipline to follow them.
Re: Ask HN: Lack of self-discipline driving me hopeless. Tips?
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
While OR's reply is really helpful (and funny enough, because I was in the same situation as you were in when I was graduating school and I followed pretty much OR's suggestion, weight lifting, taking up guitar and a rec basketball league and generally not stress out and enjoy life and it worked really well ... for awhile until my old depression/anxiety came back), I feel that they are topical medication to much more…
I considered that. When I returned to school, I promised to stay away from start-ups for at least a year. My life sucked even more perhaps. Hopping onto my current startup brought some joy--though not long-lasting. But nothing has brought me long-lasting joy and that may be the crux of the problem.
So startup is a important part of what makes you happy, but focusing on it solely will not make you happy.
Now you are going to have to find out what are the missing ingredients that will make you happy, and what you are willing to give up in your startup dream (as hard it may be) to achieve those missing parts.
Because focusing solely on startup's or on banking on the success of your startup will not help those other parts of your life.
Re: Ask HN: Lack of self-discipline driving me hopeless. Tips?
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have the treatments worked for you? I've come super close to getting tested for ADD, each time resisting out of fear that it'll only be another temporary fix(in pills). May be I'm wrong reading stories like yours.
>Have the treatments worked for you? Yes. Sometimes completely, usually partially. >I've come super close to getting tested for ADD, each time resisting out of fear that it'll only be another temporary fix(in pills). OK. I believe you should get tested anyway; testing does not mean you have to follow through with treatment. Benefits from knowing you have ADD include being able to read about it. http://www.amazon.co.u…
This is very insightful. Thank you!
Re: Ask HN: Lack of self-discipline driving me hopeless. Tips?
#56Hey dude, I strongly identify with your feelings - I know that place very well. Here is the way I hacked it out: 1. Regarding relationships with girls\friend - After years of having too many friends, I understood that almost everyone I met wanted to be friends of mine, this lead to an overload of friends, and made me be not a good friend of a lot of freinds. Once I realized that, I decided to stop socializing with ev…
Pain is one thing and it's understandable to fight pain while running a startup. But where I'm at now--this indifference to life--is scarier than pain. It's weird. I should be able to work through it though! Thanks for the uplifting words.
Re: Ask HN: Lack of self-discipline driving me hopeless. Tips?
#57"After a million self-help programs and motivation books that haven't been of much help" Which self-help programs and books?
You name it. Toni Robbins, Eckhart Tolle, Think and grow rich. After a while they just become noise if you don't have the self-discipline to follow them.
The best bit to get out of many of these guys is that each of us needs to find our service to others. What can you do to benefit and serve other people? When you find the answer to this question, you will be led to both success, and meaning.
Re: Ask HN: Lack of self-discipline driving me hopeless. Tips?
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Have the treatments worked for you? Yes. Sometimes completely, usually partially. >I've come super close to getting tested for ADD, each time resisting out of fear that it'll only be another temporary fix(in pills). OK. I believe you should get tested anyway; testing does not mean you have to follow through with treatment. Benefits from knowing you have ADD include being able to read about it. http://www.amazon.co.u…
This is very insightful. Thank you!
No matter what you choose to do, I hope you get better :)
Re: Ask HN: Lack of self-discipline driving me hopeless. Tips?
#59Don't change who your are.Take a Job and do stuff that fits you.You will be more productive and best at what you do like that.I am a completely dis-organized person.I sleep when I feel like it,I do stuff when I feel like it etc...So I chose freelancing which suits my style and I am a happy man.
"Its not becoming like someone else,its accepting who you are"
Good Luck
Re: Ask HN: Lack of self-discipline driving me hopeless. Tips?
#60I'm only bringing this up because no-one did but read up on bipolar disorder and see if any of it clicks with you. There's a wide spectrum of bipolar disorders (it's not all just super mania and super depression) and what you're saying sounds like it could be connected to this (the flip flopping, the doing OK one moment, not so good the next). Of particular interest should be bipolar II: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…
Yeah I've read up on it and it's one of my default "jokes" to new friends("dude! you've no idea how bipolar I am")--only they don't know that I am not really joking. Still I have a lot of stigma about officially getting tested for this stuff.
There really isn't testing per se for this sort of stuff... its more like you make a doctors appointment, meet with them 1-4 times to given them your personal history of all relevant stuff, and then theres a subsequent discussion about viable courses of action. (Is there really a stigma in talking to a doctor in general?)
If its just a case of having trouble doing the initial jumpstart of getting started looking into stuff, ask one of your friends who you're close to and comfortable being open with to help you get the ball rolling on looking into such, or just make yourself commit to at least making a appointment with your general practitioner.
(getting around irrational social anxiety issues which can act as obstacles is hard, and apparently the best adaptive approach is to reframe the ominous task by breaking it into lots and lots of smaller steps, and forcing yourself to only think about the current step and never about later steps, rinse and repeat)