5 ms·

Better title: The price of not choosing discipline. The article assumes discipline needs to be forced on you. Which is false. The few people I know who have b

Better title: The price of not choosing discipline. The article assumes discipline needs to be forced on you. Which is false. The few people I know who have been able to build self discipline on their own are immensely successful. It seems to comes from an extreme form of self determination.

anonymoushn 5y ago
People can't increase their conscientiousness through force of will any more than they can increase their height that way. It might be helpful to believe otherwise though.
- trinsic2 5y ago
  I could be misinterpreting your statement, if so please let me know. My understanding is that force of will is developed by repetition and it can definitely be learned. [My life](https://www.scottrlarson.com/books/book-most-improved/ https://www.scottrlarson.com/books/book-most-improved/) is a perfect example of that. A great book on the subject is "[Constructive Living](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/244742.Constructive_Living https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/244742.Constructive_Livi...)" by David K. Reynolds.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    Isn't that just habit building? The whole idea that we have some attribute (willpower or self-discipline) that we can apply to our lives seems really iffy to me.
    - trinsic2 5y ago
      Yes. My understanding is habit building strengthens the will. I consider the process re-structuring, or re-patterning the mind. Maybe I am missing something but will power and self-discipline is a skill that needs to be learned, not a quality one just has or doesn't have.
      - anonymoushn 5y ago
        "habit building" is something that requires conscientiousness up front! It is not all that helpful to tell low-conscientiousness people that they should get some conscientiousness if they want to do the thing that gives them more conscientiousness. I'll try reading these books, but I expect it to be less helpful than taking stimulants every day.
        trinsic2 5y ago
        Yea I think this is where I misunderstood by misinterpreting the word "conscientiousness" It seems to me, and I might be wrong, that desire to do one's duty, If I am correctly interpreting the word "Conscientiousness" comes from finding one's specific purpose. When one is doing a duty that is not in line with one's particular purpose for being alive, then no amount of guidance is going to help. Instead, I would suggest that one go in search of one's purpose in any way that works for that particular person. This is why I think making a living without some focus on purpose is the main problem for many people when it comes to finding meaning in life. If there is no meaning in life, whats the point, hence the lack of "Conscientiousness" maybe.
        anonymoushn 5y ago
        Sorry, conscientiousness (big five personality trait) is a bit different from conscientiousness (Oxford dictionary entry). In particular, people with low levels of the big five personality trait constantly fail to do things they want to do. I posted about the big five personality trait because TFA discusses discipline and ADHD, where ADHD is having a very low level of the big five personality trait, but discipline is probably not exactly the same as the big five personality trait. If someone cannot remember their keys or has trouble playing email tag, their problem may not be that their life is not rich with meaning.
        trinsic2 5y ago
        Understood. Thanks for the clarification. I didn't mean to say that people that have these challenges have a life of no meaning. I meant to say that meaning can be found in living (whatever that living may be)
  - layer8 5y ago
    But you also need the required willpower/discipline to do the repetition and learning. So there is some recursion here. To paraphrase Shopenhauer, you are free to do what you want, but you are not free to will what you want.
- kashunstva 5y ago
  > People can't increase their conscientiousness through force of will… Admittedly I don’t know the literature; but I increasingly hear that the so-called Big Five personality traits (of which conscientious is one) are regarded as more plastic than they once were. But perhaps it is simply, as you imply, isolating and substituting the behavioural components of the trait you wish to change. “Fake it ‘til you make it,” in a sense.
  - inter_netuser 5y ago
    They absolutely can, and force of will does get built up through "exercise"/"struggle". The brain is plastic, to an extent.
  - anonymoushn 5y ago
    I briefly read about this and you are correct. I didn't find anything too actionable but it's exciting to think that people may not be as stuck with their low stats as we had thought.
- m_a_g 5y ago
  They can actually. Personality traits are not fixed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25822032/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25822032/
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  Must it be an act of will? I can grow my biceps, not through willing them bigger, but by doing dumbbell curls. We absolutely can change our ways of thinking about the world in a similar fashion. Otherwise there would be no point in going to school, of seeing a therapist, of reading a book.
- achenet 5y ago
  from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5991502/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5991502/ >After mindfulness-oriented meditation training, participants in this group (n = 15) showed an increase in character traits reflecting the maturity of the self at the intrapersonal (self-directedness) and interpersonal (cooperativeness) levels. Moreover, increased mindfulness and conscientiousness and decreased trait anxiety were observed in participants after the training. In patients with MS.
gjvc 5y ago
self-discipline is a secret weapon
wayoutthere 5y ago
This is actually the whole point the author is trying to make: if you enforce strict discipline on your kids, they never learn to do it themselves. Give them the space to be kids and don’t place your anxieties on them.
hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
I think it's mostly genetic, childhood education or dramatic life changes. I have rarely seen anyone who has zero discipline slowly acquires very good discipline without any significant changes in his/her life.
- analog31 5y ago
  Indeed, I've noticed that people who are self disciplined tend to have self disciplined children. I made the mistake of reading a number of parenting books, and they pretty much all start out with some form of: "You must be self disciplined or this method won't work."
  - hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
    Yeah agreed. I believe the only way to educate children to do X is to do X consistently as parents. It's kinda difficult to fake it in long term.
- keeptrying 5y ago
  You definitely need a source. I would not say it was anything you mentioned. In one case it was just sheer ambition but he wasn’t poor to begin with and in the other it was practicing a religion focusses on positive thinking which she adopted that also buikt her determination. It is interesting to juxtapose with Agassi and The William sisters. These two people are also on the top 0.1% Of their respective disciplines.
  - hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
    I'm not sure. I can only judge from my own experience plus my friends' experience. Maybe people gather by kind so I don't get to see other possibilities. About William sisters, wasn't their father the first coach? Not to indicate anything but it falls in childhood experience catalog I think.
bambax 5y ago
> are immensely successful How do you know / what does it mean? Are they happy? Or just rich? Are they destroying what's left of the world by building stupid penis-shaped rockets to pretend they're astronauts when they're really not and never will be? The modern world is way past the point of stupid. And we dare call it "civilization". It's the opposite of civilization. It's active destruction by accelerated accumulation of useless wealth. I think it's better to not be part of that machine at all.

anonymoushn 5y ago

People can't increase their conscientiousness through force of will any more than they can increase their height that way. It might be helpful to believe otherwise though.

trinsic2 5y ago
I could be misinterpreting your statement, if so please let me know. My understanding is that force of will is developed by repetition and it can definitely be learned. [My life](https://www.scottrlarson.com/books/book-most-improved/ https://www.scottrlarson.com/books/book-most-improved/) is a perfect example of that. A great book on the subject is "[Constructive Living](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/244742.Constructive_Living https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/244742.Constructive_Livi...)" by David K. Reynolds.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Isn't that just habit building? The whole idea that we have some attribute (willpower or self-discipline) that we can apply to our lives seems really iffy to me.
  - trinsic2 5y ago
    Yes. My understanding is habit building strengthens the will. I consider the process re-structuring, or re-patterning the mind. Maybe I am missing something but will power and self-discipline is a skill that needs to be learned, not a quality one just has or doesn't have.
    - anonymoushn 5y ago
      "habit building" is something that requires conscientiousness up front! It is not all that helpful to tell low-conscientiousness people that they should get some conscientiousness if they want to do the thing that gives them more conscientiousness. I'll try reading these books, but I expect it to be less helpful than taking stimulants every day.
      - trinsic2 5y ago
        Yea I think this is where I misunderstood by misinterpreting the word "conscientiousness" It seems to me, and I might be wrong, that desire to do one's duty, If I am correctly interpreting the word "Conscientiousness" comes from finding one's specific purpose. When one is doing a duty that is not in line with one's particular purpose for being alive, then no amount of guidance is going to help. Instead, I would suggest that one go in search of one's purpose in any way that works for that particular person. This is why I think making a living without some focus on purpose is the main problem for many people when it comes to finding meaning in life. If there is no meaning in life, whats the point, hence the lack of "Conscientiousness" maybe.
        anonymoushn 5y ago
        Sorry, conscientiousness (big five personality trait) is a bit different from conscientiousness (Oxford dictionary entry). In particular, people with low levels of the big five personality trait constantly fail to do things they want to do. I posted about the big five personality trait because TFA discusses discipline and ADHD, where ADHD is having a very low level of the big five personality trait, but discipline is probably not exactly the same as the big five personality trait. If someone cannot remember their keys or has trouble playing email tag, their problem may not be that their life is not rich with meaning.
        trinsic2 5y ago
        Understood. Thanks for the clarification. I didn't mean to say that people that have these challenges have a life of no meaning. I meant to say that meaning can be found in living (whatever that living may be)
- layer8 5y ago
  But you also need the required willpower/discipline to do the repetition and learning. So there is some recursion here. To paraphrase Shopenhauer, you are free to do what you want, but you are not free to will what you want.
kashunstva 5y ago
> People can't increase their conscientiousness through force of will… Admittedly I don’t know the literature; but I increasingly hear that the so-called Big Five personality traits (of which conscientious is one) are regarded as more plastic than they once were. But perhaps it is simply, as you imply, isolating and substituting the behavioural components of the trait you wish to change. “Fake it ‘til you make it,” in a sense.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  They absolutely can, and force of will does get built up through "exercise"/"struggle". The brain is plastic, to an extent.
- anonymoushn 5y ago
  I briefly read about this and you are correct. I didn't find anything too actionable but it's exciting to think that people may not be as stuck with their low stats as we had thought.
m_a_g 5y ago
They can actually. Personality traits are not fixed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25822032/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25822032/
marginalia_nu 5y ago
Must it be an act of will? I can grow my biceps, not through willing them bigger, but by doing dumbbell curls. We absolutely can change our ways of thinking about the world in a similar fashion. Otherwise there would be no point in going to school, of seeing a therapist, of reading a book.
achenet 5y ago
from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5991502/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5991502/ >After mindfulness-oriented meditation training, participants in this group (n = 15) showed an increase in character traits reflecting the maturity of the self at the intrapersonal (self-directedness) and interpersonal (cooperativeness) levels. Moreover, increased mindfulness and conscientiousness and decreased trait anxiety were observed in participants after the training. In patients with MS.

gjvc 5y ago

self-discipline is a secret weapon

wayoutthere 5y ago

This is actually the whole point the author is trying to make: if you enforce strict discipline on your kids, they never learn to do it themselves. Give them the space to be kids and don’t place your anxieties on them.

hnthrowaway0315 5y ago

I think it's mostly genetic, childhood education or dramatic life changes. I have rarely seen anyone who has zero discipline slowly acquires very good discipline without any significant changes in his/her life.

analog31 5y ago
Indeed, I've noticed that people who are self disciplined tend to have self disciplined children. I made the mistake of reading a number of parenting books, and they pretty much all start out with some form of: "You must be self disciplined or this method won't work."
- hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
  Yeah agreed. I believe the only way to educate children to do X is to do X consistently as parents. It's kinda difficult to fake it in long term.
keeptrying 5y ago
You definitely need a source. I would not say it was anything you mentioned. In one case it was just sheer ambition but he wasn’t poor to begin with and in the other it was practicing a religion focusses on positive thinking which she adopted that also buikt her determination. It is interesting to juxtapose with Agassi and The William sisters. These two people are also on the top 0.1% Of their respective disciplines.
- hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
  I'm not sure. I can only judge from my own experience plus my friends' experience. Maybe people gather by kind so I don't get to see other possibilities. About William sisters, wasn't their father the first coach? Not to indicate anything but it falls in childhood experience catalog I think.

bambax 5y ago

> are immensely successful How do you know / what does it mean? Are they happy? Or just rich? Are they destroying what's left of the world by building stupid penis-shaped rockets to pretend they're astronauts when they're really not and never will be? The modern world is way past the point of stupid. And we dare call it "civilization". It's the opposite of civilization. It's active destruction by accelerated accumulation of useless wealth. I think it's better to not be part of that machine at all.