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Comment by breckinloggins | Hacker News Reader

> Is there a failure mode from having too much willpower?

Yes.

I was a terribly undisciplined child and carried much of that with me into college and early adulthood, so I spent over a decade doing "self discipline workouts".

I'm happy to report that it worked: I now have the ability to tell myself "you need to do X" and I will indeed do X. No matter how unpleasant. No matter how long it takes.

I'm unhappy to report that it worked: I can willpower myself into burnout easily and only notice how unhealthy I was being when I force myself (or my partner gently forces me) to take a vacation.

Overall I'm happy with the tradeoff, but it is possible to become an incredibly unhealthy version of yourself by overcorrecting on procrastination.

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Reminds me of an article I read about some people who were unhappy in their careers as doctors. Basically, they had such strong willpower that they were able to force themselves to do all the years of hard work and studying to become doctors while over riding all of their feelings of not liking the profession. Basically, they were victims of their ability to over ride their feelings to achieve any goal they had set.

This is so interesting but not sure if this is healthy. For things that really bring you benefit in the end like gym it seems reasonable. With hating your profession and overriding it can IMO cause some serious mental issues but maybe I am wrong.

Hah this sounds familiar. My life is a series of waves of high productivity and career growth, followed by troughs of burnout and depression. I just don’t know if I’m wired to be hyper productive, or if anyone is, really.

I'll happily buy this skill off you - it's still better than attempting to willpower myself into doing anything and failing.

You just need to find the right loot box to upgrade your abilities

You don't have to buy it at all, though. It's free!

Looks like OP explained his system below, but it's really just an instantiation of The General System:

  1. Try something.
  2. If it worked, go back to step 1, and try to do better.
  3. If it didn't work, go back to Step 1, and try to do better.

(There are some tricky parts to the system, like defining "works" and "better" — but on the other hand, everyone has to define those for themselves anyway.)

Also, FWIW, "failure" might not be the most useful way to frame whatever's happening for you. Sometimes, I like to say instead, "an embarrassingly high price to pay for learning a simple lesson... but at least I've learned it now."

(Usually, when I frame it that way, it also becomes clear that I passed up many earlier opportunities to buy the lesson for a much cheaper price. And that's sort of a nice realization, too, because it restores a fair bit of agency.)

What is a self discipline workout?

Someday I should write an entire blog post about that, but basically:

1. Promise yourself you will do thing tomorrow

2. If you do thing tomorrow, make another promise and repeat (but maybe a more challenging thing)

3. If you fail to do thing tomorrow, make another promise and repeat (but a WAY less challenging thing)

Example:

1. I will do 1 pushup tomorrow

2a. Tomorrow happens, I do pushup. I promise myself I'll do 2 pushups tomorrow.

2b. Tomorrow happens, I don't do pushup. I promise myself I'll bend my knees in something vaguely resembling a squatting stance tomorrow

I definitely recommend books like "Atomic Habits" and "The Power of Habit" for getting ideas that might work for you.

"Someday"

Nobody's perfect, and besides... I haven't promised myself yet, so technically it isn't procrastination! :)

When someday arrives, I'm going to be really friggin' busy

how does it work though? sounds like you are being rewarded for not holding your own end of the promise (next day you do less challenging thing). I'm not saying punishment should work better but curious how it works.

> sounds like you are being rewarded for not holding your own end of the promise

That's a risk, but I find that overall I pick things just hard enough to be challenging but just easy enough to make myself do. Then I do those things consistently until they become my new baseline and I increase the challenge. (2 pushups, 10, 20 pushups + putting on jogging shoes, ...).

The big idea is to pick things that you're almost certain you'll do. Falling back to smaller promises should be the exception.

> curious how it works.

Slowly, with lots of restarts, but the advantage of this method is that no matter how many times you fall off the wagon (and no matter how far you fall) you have something simple to start again.

Starting over at the proverbial "1 pushup" after you've spent time and effort building it up to so much more than that definitely sucks, but it's far better than other alternatives I've tried (such as waiting until I have the massive motivation needed to restart from exactly where I stopped).

Edit: I think it works for me because it slowly builds up self trust, which then becomes a positive feedback loop.

I can corroborate this method and perspective on why it might work. With a backstory similar to yours but earlier in the journey to transformation / success, I’ve found that locking in “wins” and completing the cycle of intent to follow-through turned out to be much more valuable and helpful than I ever imagined when I was slogging through the long era of seeking change but preemptively dismissing all visible paths.

Thanks for sharing and thanks for putting possible future obstacles / challenges on my radar!

I used (and use) a similar approach to develop the habit of writing everyday.

For example, if I'm scheduled to write for 3 hours and I feel too much resistance, I write for less time. Maybe 2 hours. If I'm super resistant, I invoke the 'nuclear option' and write for no more than 30 mins, or even less.

Much more important than hitting some predetermined target is writing everyday no matter what. To be forthright, it's not particularly difficult once I get going. The writer in me wants to write; that guy just needs a little coaxing sometimes.

I learned of the 'nuclear option' from an unfortunately titled book by Jerrold Mundis called 'Break Writer's Block Now'. The title is pretty cheesy but the book is gold. It's designed to be read (and applied) over an afternoon, perhaps 3-4 hours. It works. The proof is me. I've been a professional screenwriter for several years now as a result of daily effort.

I guess the most important thing I've learned is that punishment doesn't work (at least for me). But gentle, consistent practice does.

Total sidebar: Have you read The War of Art?

The Mundis book sounds like a very practical take on writer's block; Pressfield's take in The War of Art is more of a metaphorical approach.

I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts if you happen to have tried both!

Yes, I've definitely read and used them both. I think your understanding of the difference is well-conceived.

There's some conceptual stuff in the Mundis book that provides a framework for understanding the why of his approach, but the majority of it is a 'Do this' and 'If this happens, do this' type of pragmatic approach.

What I found is if I followed the book's suggestions, I got a lot of writing done. That simple. Same for a good friend who is a comics artist, except for the obvious fact that he draws.

I found the Pressfield book somewhat useful but the simple fact is, I just don't turn to it anymore. I didn't find it skillful to anthropomorphize an abstract concept like 'Resistance' that I had to wake up and defeat everday. I think it's possible to have a really productive and fulfilling creative life without thinking of it like some kind of a daily fight.

I return to the Mundis book time and time again.

Finding the way into a healthy self-discipline is such a personal and creative act. The process that ultimate worked best for me is to give an approach a sustained trial (30 days or so) and then reflect on how it went. Assess and try again. After going through a lot stuff that didn't work (for me), I found the thing that did.

Perhap those reflections are useful in some way.

That was quite useful; you've convinced me to buy the book.

There's a lot to be said for empiricist approaches from real practitioners. I'm looking forward to checking out his techniques.

This advice is gold. It's not just about writing. Anything you want to accomplish long term, you need a consistent "at least a little step every day" approach. No matter if it's a new language or fitness goals or learning an instrument or whatnot. A step every day. Consistency is key. It doesn't help to make one big chunk of time once in a full moon.

Time aggregate is a huge leverage and immensely undervalued.

0. I am going to start that workout tomorrow. /s

This is how I use my calendar.

I would have "do one pushup" as a calendar appointment at a specific time during the day.

My calendar today has; "write morning pages", "clean brewery", "run 30 min"

Looks interesting, i ll save it to read later.

* May not work for the neurodivergent

No type or amount of discipline training has ever dented the impervious armor surrounding my neocortex.

Yeah this is a problem faced by perfectionist types who end up being very successful but hate their lives every day.

Out of curiosity, what did you do as "self-discipline workouts"?

This sounds similar to the book 'atomic habits'

What workout?

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