Personal blog on discipline, motivation, weight loss, startups and the future, with some politically charged posts.
HN commenters link its survivorship bias explainer as the best they've seen and its discipline post, while one criticizes the author's racist remarks.
Ha, runs directly contrary to this blogpost [0] that's done well on HN a few times.
> At its core, chasing motivation is insistence on the infantile fantasy that we should only be doing things we feel like doing. The problem is then framed thus: “How do I get myself to feel like doing what I have rationally decided to do?”. Bad. The proper question is “How do I make my feelings inconsequential and do the things I consciously want to do without being a little bitch about it?”.
Just goes to show you shouldn't take these pop psych self-help lessons too seriously. The one I cited more aligns with how I tick, but I doubt there's a one size fits all optimal approach to habit-forming/productivity -- even at such a meta level.
[0] - https://www.wisdomination.com/screw-motivation-what-you-need-is-discipline/
Unfortunatey, we are highly unpredictable and emotional machines. You're going to have to deal with ups and downs, moments of euphoria as well as depression, no matter what.
The key is to stay disciplined, and if you believe strongly that what you're working on solves a real problem no one else is solving appropriately, then keep working on it, very hard.
While at it, keep looking for people to join you on your adventure and hopefully success will come along the way.
Also, a good read: http://www.wisdomination.com/screw-motivation-what-you-need-is-discipline/
I found this one practically actionable and helpful
> Motivation, broadly speaking, operates on the erroneous assumption that a particular mental or emotional state is necessary to complete a task.
> That’s completely the wrong way around.
> Discipline, by contrast, separates outwards functioning from moods and feelings and thereby ironically circumvents the problem by consistently improving them.
https://www.wisdomination.com/screw-motivation-what-you-need-is-discipline/
1. Working in an industry will reveal all sorts of problems. Being a customer may also. If you've ever asked yourself "why is this so difficult/stupid" you may have a good problem to solve.
2. Burnout is a lack of discipline but is often thought about as a lack of motivation. Get clear on the differences:https://www.wisdomination.com/screw-motivation-what-you-need-is-discipline/
What do we need our passion for? To motivate ourselves? IMO, we have a problem when we expect to feel motivated to do stuff.
I think we need to learn to do stuff even if we "don't feel it" yet, that state comes later as a reward for doing.
Long ago I read an article that made me think about this: http://www.wisdomination.com/screw-motivation-what-you-need-is-discipline/
Unfortunately, will power means nothing.
What you need, as I learned, is discipline, which is really hard to train. you basically have Work hard on small things one at a time until you build the habits you want.
On that topic, this is pretty interesting:
https://www.wisdomination.com/screw-motivation-what-you-need-is-discipline/