|
I've been thinking about self-discipline for a long while. I lack a lot, I really want to increase this in order to get more effective & get things done to achieve what I set in front of me. But trough many years of intense watching series/movies, gaming WoW and other games a certain lazy attitude, not caring habits stay.
Many of people seem to have the self-discipline to do exactly what they need to do to complete tasks & goals they set forth, like studying, cleaning, fitness etc. This is varies from person to person, some have this very strong, others lack it a lot. I bet some of you have a strong self-discipline. That is why I ask what your experience have been or maybe you know a resource site or something that helped you.
I want:
- To do what I need to do in time, and not procrastinate daily stuff like laundry, cleaning etc.
- To study regularly on a schedule without breaking it.
- Limit stuff like TV, gaming, facebook & general link surfing to the right time.
- Start working out
My Questions: - What kind of mindset do you have in order to manage yourself to accomplish your goals?
- What has helped you over the years in situations like this?
- How do you motivate yourself in order to achieve what you want?
I'm on the way, but I really would like to discover every aspect of this, in order to fully maximise it the next weeks.
PS. I got an exam in about 6 weeks it's very important I pass. Thanks a lot 
|
I used to have clear goals in mind and stalwart motivation pushing me toward those goals. I realized as I grew older, however, that my goals were part of a misguided attempt at narrativizing my life. I cast myself as the hero of my own epic fairy tale, and with this unshakable resolve, accomplished everything I could have ever hoped for... until I graduated from High School.
I realized that of the hundreds of things that happen to us on a daily basis, we really only have control over a few of them. And many of the important things, like love, friends, and family, you have almost no control over at all.
As I passed my high school graduation with the greatest optimism for my future: an amazing brother, a beautiful gal friend, inspirational parents, the college of my dreams, everything sort of fell apart piece by piece, despite my greatest efforts...
And while the realities of my life changed quickly and decisively over the next several months, the resulting changes in my worldview were much slower and painful to come. I still saw myself as the knight in shining armor, and still held stubbornly onto my goals.
A neurotic love interest, a physically abusive roommate, a childhood friend's death later, I was thousands of miles away from the perfect world I had spent 18 years of hard work constructing.
The "happily ever after" was all a lie. All I wanted to do was burn. Destroy. Expunge from my mind my painful past, and hopeless expectations for the future.
My fairy tale had become a tragic nightmare, and everything was darkness. I wandered aimlessly in the dark crevices of my mind, with no purpose or goals, and of course, nothing approaching what one might call motivation...
But in the darkness, I found a spark. Taeyeon, Tiffany, IU, Younha! In what seemed like an instant, music saved my soul.
My purpose was restored. The light had returned to my life and K-Pop was that light.
Let me show you the light, my friend.
|
On December 28 2010 08:27 Gummy wrote:I used to have clear goals in mind and stalwart motivation pushing me toward those goals. I realized as I grew older, however, that my goals were part of a misguided attempt at narrativizing my life. I cast myself as the hero of my own epic fairy tale, and with this unshakable resolve, accomplished everything I could have ever hoped for... until I graduated from High School. I realized that of the hundreds of things that happen to us on a daily basis, we really only have control over a few of them. And many of the important things, like love, friends, and family, you have almost no control over at all. As I passed my high school graduation with the greatest optimism for my future: an amazing brother, a beautiful gal friend, inspirational parents, the college of my dreams, everything sort of fell apart piece by piece, despite my greatest efforts... And while the realities of my life changed quickly and decisively over the next several months, the resulting changes in my worldview were much slower and painful to come. I still saw myself as the knight in shining armor, and still held stubbornly onto my goals. A neurotic love interest, a physically abusive roommate, a childhood friend's death later, I was thousands of miles away from the perfect world I had spent 18 years of hard work constructing. The "happily ever after" was all a lie. All I wanted to do was burn. Destroy. Expunge from my mind my painful past, and hopeless expectations for the future. My fairy tale had become a tragic nightmare, and everything was darkness. I wandered aimlessly in the dark crevices of my mind, with no purpose or goals, and of course, nothing approaching what one might call motivation... But in the darkness, I found a spark. Taeyeon, Tiffany, IU, Younha! In what seemed like an instant, music saved my soul. My purpose was restored. The light had returned to my life and K-Pop was that light. Let me show you the light, my friend.
hahaha awesome post. I wanted to flame this so bad until I read the ending. Excellent troll good sir.
Anyways, motivation is a seemingly tricky issue, that really only comes down to one thing, self empowerment. Its really easy to think negatively in the societal environment built up around us, much harder is to give yourself power, say that you really can do things. Our environment provides us with so many opportunities to hide and shirk our goals. Its much harder to go to the gym when you can hide behind your WOW avatar instead.
If your really having trouble coming out on your own away from these distractions, I would suggest removing yourself from them. When I first went to college, I made it a point to not take my gaming PC, and not get cable. By removing every distraction in front of me first, I was able to build up that confidence to be able to say that yes I can do x or y, then have the follow through to really do it.
After you reach that point, you should be able to reintroduce these distractions back into your life, and deal with them in moderation.
Good luck man!
|
Here are practical tips:
1) Make a list of stuff you want to get done. Cross them off when you finish with them.
2) Break down large projects into smaller steps. Write these smaller steps down so you can cross them off later.
3) Try doing 30 min of work, then 30 min of play. There is another name for this ... something like 10 min or 15 min "sprints" ... or 7+3 ... or something like that. Obviously adjust to your own preference. If you can't do 30 min of work ... try doing 15 min with 5 or 10 min breaks after.
|
Canada2480 Posts
On December 28 2010 08:27 Gummy wrote:I used to have clear goals in mind and stalwart motivation pushing me toward those goals. I realized as I grew older, however, that my goals were part of a misguided attempt at narrativizing my life. I cast myself as the hero of my own epic fairy tale, and with this unshakable resolve, accomplished everything I could have ever hoped for... until I graduated from High School. I realized that of the hundreds of things that happen to us on a daily basis, we really only have control over a few of them. And many of the important things, like love, friends, and family, you have almost no control over at all. As I passed my high school graduation with the greatest optimism for my future: an amazing brother, a beautiful gal friend, inspirational parents, the college of my dreams, everything sort of fell apart piece by piece, despite my greatest efforts... And while the realities of my life changed quickly and decisively over the next several months, the resulting changes in my worldview were much slower and painful to come. I still saw myself as the knight in shining armor, and still held stubbornly onto my goals. A neurotic love interest, a physically abusive roommate, a childhood friend's death later, I was thousands of miles away from the perfect world I had spent 18 years of hard work constructing. The "happily ever after" was all a lie. All I wanted to do was burn. Destroy. Expunge from my mind my painful past, and hopeless expectations for the future. My fairy tale had become a tragic nightmare, and everything was darkness. I wandered aimlessly in the dark crevices of my mind, with no purpose or goals, and of course, nothing approaching what one might call motivation... But in the darkness, I found a spark. Taeyeon, Tiffany, IU, Younha! In what seemed like an instant, music saved my soul. My purpose was restored. The light had returned to my life and K-Pop was that light. Let me show you the light, my friend.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Greatest Post EVER
|
this blog is your problem bro. its procrastination in action.
there is no big secret.. you know what to do --> just do it.
|
All you need to do is think of the reason behind why you need to do something and you will do it.
"I need to wash these dishes now because if they sit there for days they will take even longer to wash"
"I need to do the laundry or I won't have any clothes to wear"
And so on. To make things easier listen to K-Pop while you clean your room because it is a well known fact it solves all of lifes problems.
|
What helped me the most:
- Balance
- Clarity of intention
Balance refers to you neither working too much nor too little. Playing WoW or watching series is fine as long as do your planned amount of work - the trick is to let it dangle in front of you as a constant motivation. If you play and dilly-dally all day long, you won't have too much interest left towards the end of the day to accomplish your goals. It is therefore important (and much more rewarding) to first do you work and then enjoy your pastimes. You need that metaphorical carrot dangling in front of you to keep the lazy, WoW-loving ThePhan2m walking in your direction - and not the opposite one.
Clarity of intention is mainly to specify exactly what you want to do. "To do what I need to do", "Limit stuff" or "Start working out" are too vague a concept for your mind to grasp or even to adhere to. What does "Limit stuff" mean? If you cut down your WoW time by one minute you have limited it but I'm sure that this was not your intention. Same goes for "Working out" - do you mean 45 minutes cardio training? Basic exercises like push- or situps? Wrestling with bears or Kennigit?
Clarify the things you want to do - "I'm going to do two exercises from my book" or "I'll stretch for five minutes and then go for a jog for 20 minutes". This is where balance is, again, important: Especially in the beginning you do not want to overburden Fat 'n' Lazy Phan2m because he will throw himself to the ground together with all your good intentions and refuse to get up.
Some other things that helped me especially with studying:
- This was originally from lifehack.org which seems to be down. I might not get the numbers down correctly but you'll get the picture: 10+2. Work for ten minutes straight as concentrated as possible. After ten minutes (there are freeware programs with an alarm), use the two minutes to do anything you want - you will be surprised that two minutes are more than enough to check FB or tl.net. After two minutes, it's back to the books - but only for ten minutes. After some time, you can try it without the alarm - eventually, you will forget the time and just keep on studying. It is nevertheless a great technique if you have trouble starting to study - "I'll just go for 10+2" almost becomes an NLP anchor to trick your brain into working.
- Disciplined thinking: Draw an imaginary line between two points, namely you and your desired goal. You want to follow that straight line and make no detours. Your opponent in this game will be Fat Phan2m, lurking in the mist of your mind, weaving an endless stream of distracting thoughts to lure you astray. Wielding both the past as well as the future in his greasy fingers he is indeed a quite formidable challenge to overcome: Your thoughts will, eventually, drift away from your studying - either into the past, reviewing events, regretting or congratulating yourself on decisions made and in case of depression also torture you again and again. You might also drift towards the future - upcoming events on the tl.net sidebar, the birthday of your cat in two days, raid night tonight etc. In both cases your former straight line of intention will no longer be straight. You only have the presence as your ally. This will take effort, but constantly checking on yourself if you are really focused on the task in front of you - in the presence - and congratulating yourself whenever you manage to return from the past or the future and be back on your track will greatly pay off in the long run. Start easy with 30 seconds.
- Keep a study diary. It is more than enough to specify your goals for the upcoming week and then check them off each day - you don't want to ruin your straight record of five or six days and you will also see when you did slack off. It also is a great motivator to thumb through it from time to time and see, what you already have accomplished and how you have progressed.
|
Thanks a lot guys. You gave me a lot of new thoughts and ways I haven't quite seen in those ways.
I'm writing down all the tips into a notebook, they will be of great help. And for the note, I don't play WoW anymore, haven't done for long. Problem is I have time on my hands, that I don't use on the right things, rather surfing, TV, friends etc small casual stuff. Its choosing to use the time on the right things that I need to get done.
When it comes to the work 10 + 2 or similar times with breaks. Setting them as scheduled times wont work I think. I'm afraid they will interrupt my deep study, just as in sleep, you get into deep study cycles where as your thinking, learning and really deeply into the questions & problems. If I'm in a cycle, or heading for one, I'm afraid to lose the study focus if I take a small break or the planed break.
More shared expereinces are appriciated.
For those of you who manage to spend your whole day studying. How?
|
If you want to start work out try it with some friend who already work out for some time.
in the rest... well its on you and your power of will. just dont think too much how to quit if you want to change things you better do something
|
Already been said, but goals - general abstract ones and also really specific clear black-and-white ones.
Timetables - there's nothing like the feeling you get when you look back on a day where you actually kept to what you planned. And even if you don't quite make it, a near miss on a good timetable is waaaay better than no plan at all.
Eat regularly, sensibly; sleep enough, regularly; don't overdo the alcohol or similar.
It all seems obvious (because, well, it is). Try it for a week and see how much better it feels to have achieved your tasks than to be haunted by the feeling that you are behind on everything.
Good luck!
|
I feel that so many people say "do something" or "just do it", and it simply doesnt work. Mostly I think its been important to understand what is holding me back and understand the situation that makes a person not be able to do all the things he might wish to get done. Once he understands and is aware of the situation, he can do something about it.
Timetables and logs seem to be the way, and I enjoy writing them.
I found a good a site about self-discipline with some steps.
http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/self-discipline/
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
