Motivation is what gets you started. Discipline is what keeps you going.
The author argues that discipline is what gets you started and motivation is what keeps you going.
Screw motivation, what you need is discipline
41–50 of 121 posts
Re: Screw motivation, what you need is discipline
#42Did you ever notice that nobody ever talks about how to cultivate disciplne? If it wee as easy as "just go do it" than everyone would. The latest analogy of discipline is of a muscle. Do more and it gets bigger, right? Not exactly. While true in some aspect, it leads to bad choices on later decisions you make, at least in creative work. Three ways to improve discipline: 1. Develop a mindful meditation practice. It wi…
It's actually easy to "Just do it"
I will roundly reject your 3 steps to discipline, as they are wishy-washy and completely irrelevant to actually creating self discipline.
Here's a few steps that might help someone who isn't trying to be a massive poseur.
1. Be really really hard on yourself. Tell yourself constantly that you are not good enough, and you MUST do better, in fact it's pathetic how little you have accomplished.
2. Work, work, work, work, work... think you have time for fun? Think again smart girl|boy, now, WORK HARDER.
3. Develop a sense of humor about the horrible pain you are putting yourself through. That way, you'll be able to pile some more on, while telling yourself to wipe that stupid grin of your face.
Also eat well, otherwise you may get sick or fat or die... all of those things would be pathetic, beat yourself up some more.
Alternatively, join the army.
Of course, you can side step all this pain and suffering and just get on with it! Now get back to work!
(I hope my parent commenter understands this is firmly tongue in cheek, but I'll point that out anyway.)
(PS. of course, much truth is spoke in jest.)
(for a real response, see Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.)
Re: Screw motivation, what you need is discipline
#43This 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…
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 does one fix this?
Re: Screw motivation, what you need is discipline
#44Re: Screw motivation, what you need is discipline
#45This 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…
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.
Yes. My boss is one of them. Cal Newport writes quite a bit about doing deep work. [1] Tobias Lutke of Shopify seems to be another. [2]
Most people are similar to how they were when they were in school, because most people don't deliberately put themselves in contexts in which they are forced to grow and develop.
Discipline, in my opinion, is seldom something that you develop entirely for its own sake– rather, it tends to be something that you develop to achieve some greater goal. Along the way you may find that discipline is a worthy pursuit by itself, but few people wake up at 20 and go "Jeez, I want to be really really disciplined!"
It's more like, you have some itch you want to scratch, and you realize the only way to do it is to train yourself.
[1] http://calnewport.com/blog/2012/11/21/knowledge-workers-are-...
Re: Screw motivation, what you need is discipline
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Inspiration is the spark, motivation is the challenge, discipline is the engine.
Sounds like motivation is optional ;-)
How about this:
Inspiration is the spark, motivation is the fuel, discipline is the engine. :)
If you run out of fuel, the engine cant help you find more. That's why I think the OP is somewhat wrong.
Re: Screw motivation, what you need is discipline
#47Did you ever notice that nobody ever talks about how to cultivate disciplne? If it wee as easy as "just go do it" than everyone would. The latest analogy of discipline is of a muscle. Do more and it gets bigger, right? Not exactly. While true in some aspect, it leads to bad choices on later decisions you make, at least in creative work. Three ways to improve discipline: 1. Develop a mindful meditation practice. It wi…
Meditation has been the best practice to cultivate discipline for me. Where it reveals itself is when you start down a road of procrastination, a conversation with yourself to avoid doing something, you can just stop that internal chatter and get back to what you should be doing. "Just doing it" is the product of that meditative mind.
Re: Screw motivation, what you need is discipline
#48Daily Rituals (book) which covers the work habits of ~160 famous writers, artists, philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians. Nearly every single one had a strict schedule to force work into specific time slots rather than letting inspiration strike, they tended to be morning people, and they tended to work shorter days but worked everyday. While still anecdotal, an interesting read on how many great minds spent their work days; nearly each one seemed to follow this same notion that you favor discipline over motivation.
Re: Screw motivation, what you need is discipline
#49I have been thinking, reading and writing about motivation / discipline / procrastination / akrasia for years now. I'm always looking for really good material on the subject. Unfortunately for some strange reason, most of the posts I've seen that get to the front page of Hacker News are woefully oversimplistic. Even discipline is something that requires some sort of motivation to cultivate. It is something that you h…
Very well said! Do you have any particular blog post (or other writing) where you go into more depth about this stuff?
Re: Screw motivation, what you need is discipline
#50This 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…
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.
I'd offer myself up as an example. I used to suck at it but it got gradually better over the years.