{"id":1311,"date":"2017-03-30T13:19:25","date_gmt":"2017-03-30T07:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/?p=1311"},"modified":"2017-12-11T18:38:48","modified_gmt":"2017-12-11T13:08:48","slug":"i-am-ambitious-talented-and-intelligent-but-i-lack-willpower-discipline-and-organization-i-am-an-impulsive-procrastinator-of-the-hig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/2017\/03\/i-am-ambitious-talented-and-intelligent-but-i-lack-willpower-discipline-and-organization-i-am-an-impulsive-procrastinator-of-the-hig\/","title":{"rendered":"I am ambitious, talented and intelligent, but I lack willpower, discipline, and organization. I am an impulsive procrastinator of the hig&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>Be careful about advice\u2014which includes the currently-top-rated answer\u2014telling you &#8220;you have to want it.&#8221; Desire and motivation are NOT your problem, nor were they mine when I was in the same boat. Your issue is your subconscious mind and current habits. You need new habits.<\/p>\n<p>Motivational advice makes you feel good, but it&#8217;s not consistent.<\/p>\n<p>To Shana, who asked you &#8220;how much do you want it?&#8221;, I would ask you both if you&#8217;ve ever not wanted to pursue your goals. In my years, I&#8217;ve always wanted to be in good shape\u2014 24\/7\/365. That desire has never changed. What <i>has <\/i>happened is my motivation to pursue that goal and do the work in particular moments has always been volatile. And because motivation is based on how you feel about an activity in any given moment, it&#8217;s unreliable. The &#8220;get motivated&#8221; strategy is all about trying to get into that motivated mindset, where taking action is easy, but it incorrectly assumes that when you&#8217;re unmotivated, that you&#8217;ll even want to &#8220;get motivated.&#8221; It&#8217;s a strategy full of holes, yet spewed out by all the self-help parrots.<\/p>\n<p>The other lever of action is willpower\u2014doing things even when you don&#8217;t feel like doing them (i.e. are not motivated). Because your subconscious is used to doing things a certain way, anytime you intentionally veer off that path, you lose willpower energy. Studies have found that willpower is limited, and generally speaking, typical goals will burn you out and put you on the couch to watch TV (or waste time in however you&#8217;re accustomed to doing it). It&#8217;s too much change.<\/p>\n<p>So anyway, long story short, I changed my life by doing the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>At least 1 push-up a day = best shape of my life<\/li>\n<li>Write 50 words a day = write 4x as much<\/li>\n<li>Read 2 pages in a book a day = read 10x more books<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I call the strategy &#8220;Mini Habits,&#8221; and the book I wrote on it has sold 20k+ copies and is rated 4.7 stars (the highest of any habit book)\u2014the simple reason being that it works. It doesn&#8217;t require motivation to do one push-up, it requires a TINY amount of willpower. And once you start, the dynamic changes, your motivation increases, etc. And by doing it consistently, you&#8217;ll gradually change your brain&#8217;s neural pathways so that your subconscious prefers the same things as your conscious mind.<\/p>\n<p>Can Shana&#8217;s advice work? Kind of. That&#8217;s how I made mediocre progress for 10 years. Aiming for increased motivation is better than nothing and it works sometimes. She says she&#8217;s the same person, and that&#8217;s what you&#8217;ll get with the short-term nature of motivational techniques. Though, from the sound of it, I think she&#8217;s begun to develop better habits too, which is great.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m a different person because my brain has changed: I like exercise; Writing is easy; Reading is bearable too, which is an upgrade.<\/p>\n<p>Consistency matters more than quantity, because consistency can permanently change your brain. Mini habits are habitual behaviors so small that you won&#8217;t fail to do them every single day, and the results tend to blow people&#8217;s minds (including mine, when I had to admit that doing one push-up a day changed my life).<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t believe me? Read the reviews of Mini Habits (They&#8217;re all unsolicited, honest reviews): <span class=\"qlink_container\"><a class=\"external_link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B00HGKNBDK\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-qt-tooltip=\"amazon.com\">Amazon.com: Mini Habits: Smaller Habits, Bigger Results eBook: Stephen Guise: Kindle Store<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>I recommend that whatever it is you&#8217;re aiming for, shrink your target into something you can do every day without fail. If you can do it on your worst day, what can stop you? Nothing!<\/p>\n<p>As for the meaningfulness of doing one push-up a day, etc. There are two reasons:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>It allows for remarkable consistency to change the brain<\/li>\n<li>Bonus reps (you can always do more)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span class=\"qlink_container\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.quora.com\/I-am-ambitious-talented-and-intelligent-but-I-lack-willpower-discipline-and-organization-I-am-an-impulsive-procrastinator-of-the-highest-order-What-can-I-do-to-improve\/answers\/7031201\" class=\"broken_link\">I am ambitious, talented and intelligent, but I lack willpower, discipline, and organization. I am an impulsive procrastinator of the hig&#8230;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Be careful about advice\u2014which includes the currently-top-rated answer\u2014telling you &#8220;you have to want it.&#8221; Desire and motivation are NOT your problem, nor were they mine when I was in the same boat. Your issue is your subconscious mind and current habits. You need new habits. Motivational advice makes you feel good, but it&#8217;s not consistent&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quora-post"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4KGvB-l9","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":750,"url":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/2015\/03\/what-are-bullied-children-like-as-adults\/","url_meta":{"origin":1311,"position":0},"title":"What are bullied children like as adults?","author":"Abhinav","date":"March 28, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Answer by Oliver Emberton: We\u2019re kicking the ass of the world which bullied us. At one point as a child, I was dragged to a river where my head was pinned underwater. In the brief seconds when I was let up for air, all I could hear was the crowd\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Quora Post&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Quora Post","link":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/category\/quora-post\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":517,"url":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/2014\/08\/quoration\/","url_meta":{"origin":1311,"position":1},"title":"Quoration","author":"Abhinav","date":"August 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Post by Biju V. Dev: Tired parents write hilarious note so children don\u2019t wake them \u2013 and it worked.\u00a0Interesting Post by Mohamed Riyaz: 24 Awesome Skills to Learn for Free Online.\u00a0A Mine of Information What words can be used instead of awesome and cool?\u00a0Some literary thoughts Answer by Sumeet Singh\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Quora Post&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Quora Post","link":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/category\/quora-post\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/QuoraLogo.gif?fit=501%2C217&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":164,"url":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/2014\/01\/date-a-girl-who-reads\/","url_meta":{"origin":1311,"position":2},"title":"Date a girl who reads","author":"Abhinav","date":"January 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"You should date a girl who reads. Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Life stuff&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Life stuff","link":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/category\/life-stuff\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":817,"url":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/2015\/04\/how-do-mit-students-study-for-their-courses\/","url_meta":{"origin":1311,"position":3},"title":"How do MIT students study for their courses?","author":"Abhinav","date":"April 22, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Answer by Michael Fu:I find that my studying routine for classes at MIT depends largely on 3 factors: 1) how difficult the concepts are to grasp, 2) how much content there is to learn, and frankly, 3) how much I care about my grade in the class. However, for the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Life stuff&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Life stuff","link":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/category\/life-stuff\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":713,"url":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/2015\/02\/25-psychological-life-hacks-that-will-help-you-gain-the-advantage-in-social-situations\/","url_meta":{"origin":1311,"position":4},"title":"25 Psychological Life Hacks that Will Help You Gain the Advantage in Social Situations","author":"Abhinav","date":"February 20, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Social situations are among the most important in our lives. Yet, there is a huge chance that you are oblivious to the plethora of unwritten social rules that structure everybody\u2019s behaviour. Failing to comply to these cultural imprints can cause irreversible damage. Just following them blindly will not get you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Knowledge&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Knowledge","link":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/category\/knowledge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":689,"url":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/2015\/02\/does-it-get-better\/","url_meta":{"origin":1311,"position":5},"title":"Does it get better?","author":"Abhinav","date":"February 11, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Answer by Nicolas Cole: I've written about this in several other posts here on Quora, but I'd like to bring some of the stories together here for you. First of all, yes, it does get better.\u00a0 I know people say that all the time, sort of like a clich\u00e9, \"Trust\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Motivate&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Motivate","link":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/category\/motivate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1311"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1429,"href":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1311\/revisions\/1429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}