
Get Disciplined, Not Motivated - joelrunyon
http://joelrunyon.com/two3/get-disciplined-not-motivated
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hollerith
I suggest not putting too much faith in these self-help posts.

The human mind is complicated. Advice that seems helpful could in reality be
harmful.

Certainly, the distinction between discipline and motivation is meaningful.
And sure, all else being equal, discipline is more useful than motivation
towards leading a successful life. But maybe things are not equal.

Am pretty sure there were times in my life when I worked on increasing my
discipline (i.e., on cultivating productive habits) when I would have been
better served by focusing on increasing my motivation (particularly, by asking
what sorts of things do humans typically find motivating, which of those
things have I found motivating in the past, and how might I cultivate my
ability to take pleasure in one or more of things).

It is fairly clear from Einstein's writing that it was mainly motivation (and
in particular curiosity) rather than discipline that fueled his career. For
example, he complained in writing about the design of his PhD program because
it extinguished his natural love for (i.e., his motivation to do) physics. I
tend to think that it would be very unlikely for a human being to be able to
exert the degree of effort Einstein exerted on his physical research using
just discipline (i.e., if the human being were not motivated or energized by
the process of doing the research).

I mean, if you try to increase your discipline, and your attempt succeeds,
then that is great. You should make more attempts to increase your discipline
even further. But I have found that there is a limit to how much I can do
that. And certain self-help authors have caused me to ignore evidence that my
attempts at increasing my discipline are no longer having any positive effect.

Added. Also, I think the intense concentration and intense demands on working
memory and "fluid intelligence" that programming makes on a person often makes
the person less aware of alternatives to willpower, sustained concentration
and discipline as ways of becoming a more capable and productive person.

~~~
joelrunyon
Hollerith, I actually agree with you, but the problem with motivation is it is
fleeting. how many people do you know have been _motivated_ to do something
and started, but then gave up when they hit an obstacle or it got tough.

So many people bust themselves up because they think they need more
motivation, but what they really need to do is transform that initial
motivation into creating habits of discipline that are driven by their
motivations. Then, when their motivations wane, they can keep on going.

~~~
hollerith
Not all motivation is fleeting: the reason Einstein complained in writing
about the few years in which his motivation had been extinguished by his
experience in grad school is that during the rest of his career, his
motivation to think about physics was consistently strong. And I think some of
the people reading this have a consistently strong motivation to provide for
their wives and children.

Sure, there are times in everyone's life when one needs to apply discipline
because that is the only way to get something necessary done. And it would be
foolish to neglect to apply that discipline and instead to wait for a natural
human motivation to do that thing.

And sure, the ability to apply discipline is extremely valuable and one should
do whatever one can to increase this ability.

And I would for example suggest to readers who have not tried it yet to see if
strength training causes an increase in their ability to apply discipline
_even in parts of life that have nothing to do with physical strength or
stamina_ because strength training tends to improve the health of the
mitochondria in the muscles, which might improve the health of the
mitochondria in the rest of the body, particularly the frontal lobes of the
brain, which would tend to increase ability to apply discipline because IIUC
the frontal lobes are almost uniquely dependent on an adequate supply of
metabolic intracellular energy.

I just want to point out to readers that there are now many many sources of
information about these matters and to suggest that they be initially
skeptical of any new source, particularly if he is selling something or likes
giving pep talks.

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eupharis
A great distinction. But I tended not to read it with physical goals in
mind... I find it strange these days how many geeks seem to have heroic
physical goals.

"Like every other guy on earth, I’ve wanted six pack abs forever."

I suppose I've wanted it at one time or another, in the abstract "that'd be
nice to have" way I've wanted, say, a jetpack. But I've never been interested
in putting the time or effort into achieving that level of fitness. I'd much
prefer the jetpack. Or even better, learning something new.

An hour or two of hard running every few days to get a nice head-clear and
endorphin rush, to be reasonably fit and healthy... then I'd much prefer to
play video games and study algorithms.

~~~
onan_barbarian
IMO one is better off training to _do_ something rather than acquire a
external physical characteristic. Most of the people I know who train
consistently and have impressive physical achievements (a) enjoy training and
(b) train for intrinsic goals, often quantifiable goals.

Like "enter competition X", "win championship Y". Or some tangible set of
lifts or times in a run/row/swim, etc.

Wanting to have six pack abs is a ridiculous goal. For some, it's ridiculously
easy and sets the bar way too low; for others, irrelevant or even
counterproductive.

On the other hand, wanting six pack abs will get you in the right frame of
mind to have a nice heart-to-heart conversation with all those skeletal women
running grimly along on the treadmills for hours. They, too, depend on
extrinsic motivations that are chiefly concerned with appearance.

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smalter
My dad is the most disciplined person that I know. He got his math PhD in 2.5
years. He said that when he was in grad school, he'd wake up every morning at
4am, work without interruption until 8am, take a 1 hr nap until 9am, work
until 5pm, stop work, and then sleep at 9pm. He kept a strict diet of only
eating green veggies and never eating meat (plus, he couldn't afford meat).

I've never had any discipline. In college, I decided I'd finally get some
discipline and I would do exactly what my dad did. I woke up at 4am every
morning, took a 1hr nap at 9am, worked until 5pm, went to bed at 9pm. I wanted
to be just like my hero.

In short, it was a total disaster. I was tired constantly. I slept in class
all the time. I performed decently in school, but I remember it as a pretty
unpleasant time. It was a pattern that was very hard to get to work inside of
a college dorm where I also had a roommate sleeping in the same room. I found
myself always thinking, "What would dad do?" Not, "What's right for me?" I
beat myself up a lot when I couldn't live up to the kind of man my dad is.

I gave up on the idea of discipline, and it's been great for me. When I
reflect on when I'm happy or unfulfilled with work, I don't think of it in
terms of words like "motivation", "discipline", "inspiration", etc., because
those words just express patterns and modes of approaching work that
work/don't work for other people. I think, "Why am I tired?" "Why would I
rather watch TV than work on my company?" "What are the short-term / long-term
tradeoffs?" etc

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lazydon
Insightful - Motivation v/s Discipline. Motivation may be a start but
discipline is what carries you through. One of those articles that makes me
say "I never looked at it this way".

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ufo
As someone who had to deal with a bit of depression in the past I think the
article got things backwards. Get motivated first, and as your time becomes
limited (instead of just being wasted) discipline and organization naturally
follow.

~~~
wahnfrieden
I've found discipline helps most when it's not yet needed. When I have an
expanse of time, it's easy to end up being unproductive without discipline.
Once I'm working under the pressures of time constraint, discipline is easy
because it's necessary and not really an option.

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ChuckMcM
I believe there is a variation on this theme in the Marine Handbook. I am not
sure if it is harder to see yourself as undisciplined or unmotivated though.

Strangely I get more done when I don't have enough time because I don't get to
think about what I'm not going to get done, instead I'm just trying to get
most of it done. That's a pretty non-intuitive result for me.

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boothead
This is a great post, I particularly like this quote:

    
    
        "Motivation is the start, but if it’s not solidified into
         discipline,  it usually fades away into regret pretty
         quickly once you realize you never acted on it."
    

I think it's worth mentioning Stephen Presfield's concept of Resistance here
from his book "Do the Work" [1]. I often find myself fired up with a new task,
but lacking the follow though that discipline would give me. It's too easy
when I want to do something that I don't know how to do (write some Haskell
for example) for my little monkey brain to jump off to some interesting shiny
thing (HN). Resistance explains this as a way of protecting yourself from the
pain of struggling to understand and the risk of failure, by replacing it with
something easy and non-challenging.

[1] Read it: <http://www.stevenpressfield.com/do-the-work/>

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enraged_camel
It takes motivation to become disciplined. Once you do get disciplined though,
you don't need as much motivation to continue doing what you are doing.

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stretchwithme
“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing –
that’s why we recommend it daily.” - Zig Ziglar

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nicholassmith
I decided to get fit and healthy a few months ago, and boy was I motivated and
stuck at it for a week or two well, but I was pretty undisciplined and slipped
pretty quickly. I had to essentially codify it into a quick routine, get up
and do x, after x do y, when z is true etc. Amazingly treating it essentially
as a programming task helped me stick to it more, because once I'd 'written'
the routine in to my life it was pretty easy to just go through it every
morning.

Motivation is a weird thing, we all start with the best intentions in the
world but sticking with the good habits is damn hard.

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trimbo
This is fantastic. A must read, IMO.

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alliemobley
Take this with a grain of salt, and some science on the matter.

[http://www.iijiij.com/2012/09/01/science-shows-that-self-
dis...](http://www.iijiij.com/2012/09/01/science-shows-that-self-discipline-
taxes-the-soul-014481)

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sageikosa
Motivate yourself to be disciplined, and discipline yourself to be motivated.
False dichotomy solved!

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allbombs
I was motivated to share this fantastic post with other people on social
networks

