I didn’t watch the episode yet, but now I have a sense of what he means by “self-persuasion”. Originally, I thought it could be smth like “deceiving yourself so you can do things you wouldn’t want in first place”. But maybe it’s more related to the idea of “Design” instead of discipline, which I truly believe in. In the end, it’s about chasing what really deeply resonates with you and setting up a system to live by this. The “discipline”, meaning the consistency, comes as a by product.
True. And there’s a catch. To become someone for whom excellence is natural, you first have to take enough repeated action to build that identity. Which requires some source of discipline. You can’t persuade yourself into an identity you haven’t earned through repeated actions yet.
Design > discipline!
Yes! It's crazy -- I've started to think of discipline, in some ways, as a failure. Like a last-ditch effort to build the life you want.
I didn’t watch the episode yet, but now I have a sense of what he means by “self-persuasion”. Originally, I thought it could be smth like “deceiving yourself so you can do things you wouldn’t want in first place”. But maybe it’s more related to the idea of “Design” instead of discipline, which I truly believe in. In the end, it’s about chasing what really deeply resonates with you and setting up a system to live by this. The “discipline”, meaning the consistency, comes as a by product.
Yes. And I would add the element of identity into the self-persuasion argument.
It’s an oversimplified example, but you’re not a smoker — that’s part of your identity — so it doesn’t take any discipline to not smoke.
I think it’s the difference between “I’m the kind of person who [does the thing]” vs “I’m the kind of person who [makes himself do a thing].”
True. And there’s a catch. To become someone for whom excellence is natural, you first have to take enough repeated action to build that identity. Which requires some source of discipline. You can’t persuade yourself into an identity you haven’t earned through repeated actions yet.