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The Anatomy of Determination

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Anatomy of Determination

#71

Post by tezza »

pg wrote: post #39
jack7890 wrote: post #17

Would be curious to know how he actually evaluates determination when analyzing startups. How can you tell?

It's hard; that's our biggest problem. It's straightforward to tell in a 10 minute conversation how smart someone is, but very hard to tell how determined they are. When we pick wrong it's almost always by misjudging determination.

May I ask if there is an upper bound beyond which you start worrying that a candidate is too determined?

Any component of your formula could be very large/small resulting in large values of Determination.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that burn-out and flip-out become more problematic; also in some proportion to both wilfulness, ambition and the difficulty of the challenges.

Re: The Anatomy of Determination

#72

Post by tome »

zaidf wrote: post #30

How do you build self-discipline? Offtopic: my surgeon dad always says medicine is over 50% determination. And in fact if you are too smart, you will probably quit and opt for a supposedly more rewarding, less painful profession.

Out of my own curiosity: why's medicine painful and unrewarding? I would have thought most non-medics believe it's one of the most rewarding professions to be in, along with nursing and teaching.

Re: The Anatomy of Determination

#73

Post by gaius »

nico wrote: post #25
ankeshk wrote: post #7

1. Easy way to become better at controlling will power is controlling your diet. Yep - glucose increases will power. http://psr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/short/11/4/303 2. "Environment trumps discipline" I'd read an article that said that for most people - their income will be very close to the average income of their 5 closest friends. Create the environment - and discipline will come on its own. 3. Ambition either co…

About point 3, I think you have cause and effect backwards, most likely your 5 best friends are either friends from college or work, or maybe neighbors. So it's not like having wealthier friends will make you earn more money, but rather earning more money will probably lead you to have wealthier friends.

You're one level removed from cause and effect. Having wealthier friends won't make you wealthier by itself - but having more ambitious/hardworking friends will encourage you to be more ambitious and hardworking yourself. Similarly hanging out with athletes won't suddenly make you fit - but it will provide the support you need to pursue your own fitness goals.

Re: The Anatomy of Determination

#75

Post by gaius »

ankeshk wrote: post #12
radu_floricica wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 1: Glucose is necessary, not sufficient. You don't have it and willpower suffers. You have in excess and you just get fat.

Good point. I think it would also be interesting to ask religious folks how they get willpower to fast. Fasting means lack of glucose in your body. Yet fasting is a showcase of willpower. So maybe some interesting answers may come from them...

Well, fasting isn't literally no food. Ramadan for example is no food between sunrise and sunset. You can eat pies all night if you want to.

Re: The Anatomy of Determination

#76

Post by gaius »

nico wrote: post #29

In highschool there was this guy who used to study a lot. Everybody said he was studying too much, and that he needed to study that much because he wasn't that smart. Finally he graduated with one of the best averages in our class. Then he got into the best engineering school in Chile, and I remember thinking that maybe he wouldn't be able to make it, or that he wouldn't have such good grades. Well, I was wrong. He g…

Reminds me of one of my classmates from undergrad. We were in the same hall in the first year, then we were housemates for the next two (in the final year he went back to halls and I, ermm, dropped out). Anyway, dude was a machine. He was smart, too, mind, but he put the hours in, working late into the night studying. And during the day he dominated every class, and make it look effortless.

His elder brother was a total slacker, cared only about smoking dope, doing yoga and getting laid. So there's some nature vs nurture there.

Re: The Anatomy of Determination

#77

Post by zaidf »

ankeshk wrote: post #12
radu_floricica wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 1: Glucose is necessary, not sufficient. You don't have it and willpower suffers. You have in excess and you just get fat.

Good point. I think it would also be interesting to ask religious folks how they get willpower to fast. Fasting means lack of glucose in your body. Yet fasting is a showcase of willpower. So maybe some interesting answers may come from them...

If you're talking about Ramadan, I'd say it's mostly habit reinforced from an early age.

I have lots of will power in general but limited self-control. Yet fasting is a piece of cake. It wasn't always like it. I remember when I initially started around the age of 9 I would fast till noon instead of sunset. Then gradually by the time I was 11 I could fast till sunset.

I've read in several places about monks and their years of meditating literally changes the circuits in the brain giving them hyper self-control. Check out the book Evolve Your Brain.

Re: The Anatomy of Determination

#78

Post by kuldeep_kap »

Great post, again!

I think if you read the article again with categorizing all things into symptoms and cause, you'll get better understanding. Most people confuse between two and try to instill symptoms into themselves and mostly end-up at wrong end. You cannot simply say that from tomorrow I'll be more determined on my goals. There has to be passion, love and solid drive for what you do, as mentioned at the end of article. I think veterans and people who have been constantly successful at what they are doing would agree that love for what you do is an important component to success otherwise you will simply run out of your breathe by constant push without any passion.

Re: The Anatomy of Determination

#79

Post by zaidf »

tome wrote: post #72
zaidf wrote: post #30

How do you build self-discipline? Offtopic: my surgeon dad always says medicine is over 50% determination. And in fact if you are too smart, you will probably quit and opt for a supposedly more rewarding, less painful profession.

Out of my own curiosity: why's medicine painful and unrewarding? I would have thought most non-medics believe it's one of the most rewarding professions to be in, along with nursing and teaching.

4 years of pain in the ass medicial school 3-5 years of SUPER pain in the ass residency where you work 15-20hr days for $40,000.

Then depending on your concentration you can make between 150-300K.

Both my dad and my brother(who is in med school) chose medicine because of the medicial needs in the family than the monetary compensation.

Re: The Anatomy of Determination

#80

Post by araneae »

gruseom wrote: post #10
araneae wrote: post #4

Is there any hope for someone who is extremely willful but not all that disciplined? :/

Have the discipline to read the whole essay; it explicitly addresses that.

Not really. He says it's possible to become more disciplined, but there's no support for that in the text beyond just the statement. On top of that, there have been all these HN links about how the traditional ways to make oneself disciplined only serve to make the willful types less likely to do them. Nothing kills one's desire to accomplish something more than trying to force oneself to do it.

All in all it's an unhelpful essay.

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