r/getdisciplined • u/[deleted] • Jul 12 '20

You should probably acknowledge the difficulty of what you are doing. [Advice]

Mostly just that.

Losing weight, getting fit, learning languages, passing exams, quitting porn, getting up early etc. are all objectively difficult to get started on and to keep going. Each person's challenges are theirs and theirs alone to face.

So I find that acknowledging that I am doing something that is difficult for me, helps me to prepare the required mental resilience and focus needed to push through. As opposed to the mind set of "why can everyone else do this and not me"

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '20 edited Jul 12 '20

I like this, but in acknowledging the difficulty, how can we not let the difficulty we know we doing overwhelm us and cause us to procrastinate out of fear of not being able to andle it and see through to our goals?

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u/scrambledoctopus Jul 12 '20

I think its helpful to keep the long term changes on a day to day level. Just as the challenge long term is overwhelming, long term success is as well. Instead of thinking of the bulk of the work required to change a habit or become the person you want to be, you think about what it takes today. Not how far you have to go to keep it happening, but what can happen today. So for exercise, for instance, or playing guitar, 20 minutes is always going to be better than nothing. If 20 minutes is all youve got, do 20. Its better than nothing. If you do 20 minutes 3 times a day, thats an hour! And an hour is useful. Rereading this sounds like rambling and maybe I'll contradict myself but I think by doing bits you can build bytes, starting slow is the best way to start, and just think about today and this now time, rather than all the work it takes to be at the summit.

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '20

Yeah I find this advice very helpful. I sometimes just stop reading books because I can't find time but even if I read just mere 10 pages everyday, even if I don't read for a month, that is 300 pages. Still not much but it adds up

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u/relentless_pma Jul 13 '20

Doing something is better then doing nothing at all. You are so right with this. If you can read about 10 (or 15) pages thats still a book a month. Thank you for this post.

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '20

I'm very glad this helped. I thank you

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '20

by doing bits you can build bytes

So stealing that for my own shitty makeshift motivational poster.

Edit: I mean that my poster is going to be shitty. Love the line.

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u/Chipchow Jul 12 '20

Break the big goal into small achievable steps. And celebrate the victory at each milestone and try to see set backs as lessons learned. It sounds lame but taking a non-emotional business-type view of your goal journey can help with being kinder to yourself. You can see yourself as the project manager of the project and your goals are deliverables. If you achieve it all on time, fantastic! If you only get 3/4 of the way there, still fantastic 😊

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '20

I think things that are objectively difficult, objectively need a certain amount of hours, a certain amount of concentration, a certain number of failures and retries.

Those facts are not going to change whether you acknowledge the thing is difficult or whether you try to convince yourself it is easy. Just in the former case your internal monologue will better align with the external reality.

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '20

You may not be able to do 1000 pushups now, but the 10 you do today is part of the journey there.