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Screw motivation, what you need is discipline

wisdomination.com

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Re: Screw motivation, what you need is discipline

#51

Post by reitzensteinm »

This seems to me to be a bit like saying "screw hammers, what you need are screwdrivers."

There's a brilliant talk by John Cleese that floats around HN every 6 months or so on how to be creative; if you haven't seen it yet, and you're interested in such a topic, please please please watch it:

http://vimeo.com/89936101

If you agree with Cleese's premise, I think it follows that what you need is motivation for the open mode (the blue sky, blank sheet of paper period), and discipline for the closed mode where you put your head down and get the work done.

If you try to use discipline when your job is to daydream about possibilities (whether you realize it or not), you'll just steamroll over any insights, ideas, creative thoughts with a get-it-done attitude. Your forced march straight off a cliff will be legendary.

But then, when you've got a good idea fleshed out and you just need to execute relatively mindlessly, working only when you feel motivated will be extremely counter productive, and in my mind, is where a lot of the "the last 20% takes 80% of the work" feeling comes from. You learn the true meaning of the phrase "work expands to fill the time allotted", and if you're bootstrapping by moonlighting, this is essentially infinite.

I've been stung badly by both errors in my career, with the worst case for each leaving me burned out, disillusioned and seriously considering a career change.

As an aside, I know you have to write authoritatively and with a simple premise to get good traffic to a blog, but reality is usually messy and complex, with a wealth of examples and counter examples. So often it feels like we end up with (and please forgive the straw man) a series of posts in quick succession bouncing around the blogosphere like "getting the most out of your hammer" "hammers considered harmful" "screwdrivers as hammer replacements" "hammer techniques for dealing with legacy screws" "full tool belt carpentry drowning us in complexity". And which is right? All of them, and none of them, at the same time.

Re: Screw motivation, what you need is discipline

#52

Post by mariusz79 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #43
aidenn0 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know of any adults who have successfully cultivated discipline? Based on those I've known since elementary school and still know today, perhaps 80% of the discipline I see in people can be explained by how much discipline they had at 10 years of age.

Ok, so what can one do? I have a genetic discipline disorder, as 23andMe could confirm you, if I could be bothered to do the screening. I possess exactly ZERO self-discipline, and in retrospect, I guess I never had any. I own my career to not having enough discipline to do my math homework at 13 - that's when I picked up programming. The lack of self-discipline is becoming an obstacle in professional lie though. How…

Start small and don't expect results any time soon. How small? I.e touch the phone when you wake up until you count to 20.. do it for a week. Add another small task (i.e clear kitchen table before going to sleep) and work on both of them. Try to do each task for 4 weeks minimum. After six months you will be doing so much of the small stuff that I will begin to impact your life in a really positive way, and you're self-discipline will grow.. Big time.

Re: Screw motivation, what you need is discipline

#53

Post by jacquesm »

mariusz79 wrote: post #52
TeMPOraL wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so what can one do? I have a genetic discipline disorder, as 23andMe could confirm you, if I could be bothered to do the screening. I possess exactly ZERO self-discipline, and in retrospect, I guess I never had any. I own my career to not having enough discipline to do my math homework at 13 - that's when I picked up programming. The lack of self-discipline is becoming an obstacle in professional lie though. How…

Start small and don't expect results any time soon. How small? I.e touch the phone when you wake up until you count to 20.. do it for a week. Add another small task (i.e clear kitchen table before going to sleep) and work on both of them. Try to do each task for 4 weeks minimum. After six months you will be doing so much of the small stuff that I will begin to impact your life in a really positive way, and you're sel…

That's very good advice.

Re: Screw motivation, what you need is discipline

#54

Post by jokoon »

I disagree.

Discipline is learned. You need something that structures and builds your discipline.

You need a minimum amount of purpose that comes from outside. You can't learn discipline by yourself, it needs to be encouraged and taught.

It's usually the role of society to put people into a position of productivity and personal progress. It's very tricky. Sometimes it just doesn't work because people just can't see how their inspiration could bring value to society, often because society is not set to recognize certain domains of work. That's a major source of stagnation.

The author talks like individuals work alone for personal achievement. Nobody works for personal goals. Everyone works in a societal context.

Discipline is another word for a very structured habit in a society of productivity. Procrastination is just caused by lack of insight and unbalanced processes, so it's usually a plain lack of communication, management or motivation.

Discipline is just civilization regulating habits to create motivation out of thin air. Without a minimum amount of motivation, discipline won't happen.

Re: Screw motivation, what you need is discipline

#55

Post by Herodion »

matt4077 wrote: post #39
Herodion wrote: post #30

Discipline is not really a conscious choice since you can enhance it through medication. So if you have the right makeup then you don't need motivation to do things while others can get roughly the same effect by taking Ritalin.

"A choice", i. e. free will, and something that can be changed via medication aren't mutually exclusive. I'd think most people would agree that getting up early is somewhat in your control, but it gets a lot easier if you have an energy drink at 4am. There's the theory (see the book by Baumeister) that willpower is like a muscle. It can both get tired and be trained. So the right mindset might not be "I will be disci…

Yes, I was a bit too simplistic in my post. But the point is that a person who builds discipline like a girl builds muscle will be out of the competition no matter what he does. In such cases it is better to focus on other things to circumvent the shortage of discipline, such as finding more motivation etc, in the same way as girls shouldn't do jobs where they have to lift heavy objects.

Re: Screw motivation, what you need is discipline

#58

Post by ThrustVectoring »

The short version of the advice: build an identity as a disciplined and conscientious person, and use that to motivate you.

This is both useful and dangerous. Useful, because it makes doing work feel like accomplishing goals. Dangerous, because it makes doing work feel like accomplishing goals.

If what you care about is being diligent, then any work will fill in. An hour of sending out job applications feels just as "disciplined" if you send out three instead of twenty.

Make sure your work is actually accomplishing your real goals, and then put the work in.

Re: Screw motivation, what you need is discipline

#59

Post by mr_olive »

I second the OP. The "emotional" motivation has brought me quite far in my life. I always enjoyed learning. I got into programming because it was easily triggering the "reward circuits" in my brain. But as life follows, there are more and more things that need to be done, but require quite some mental effort to start.

So I decided it is time for a paradigm shift. I would rather do things I consider worth doing, instead of doing those that my brain finds attractive and immediately rewarding. I am following this paradigm for a few months now, and can confirm that satisfaction coming when the job is finished is truly rewarding.

Related reading: "The obstacle is the way", by Ryan Holiday. A very concise introduction to stoicism philosophy. The life approach presented by the author has many common points with those of OP.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18668059-the-obstacle-is...

Re: Screw motivation, what you need is discipline

#60

Post by Htsthbjig »

jacquesm wrote: post #2

This is probably the best post to hit HN all month. It's a thing that I notice over and over again, the ability to execute and persevere is strongly correlated with individuals that show (self)discipline. The ability to get out of bed (even when you don't want to) to work real hard (even when faced with a hundred or more distractions, or on something that you may not even like) and the ability to keep a long term goa…

"The ability to get out of bed (even when you don't want to) to work real hard."

If you have problems getting out of bed, I recommend that you work on it first.

If you have problems getting out of bed it is because you don't sleep enough, or if you are fat or old you can interrupt your sleep at night(sleep apnea).

Both motivation and discipline is needed for success, but the basics are your food, exercise and rest.

If you don't sleep well, eat what you need, exercise, or rest, your body will prioritize it over anything else.

As an exercise, try not to sleep for two days, and try to think in something, it is really hard.

Do the same two without eating. Write down what you perceive in detail.

Try to stay in bed one entire day if you believe exercise is not important.

You will learn how your body reacts to extreme situations and you will be able to identify the same perceptions much more attenuated in your normal life.

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