On motivation, accountability, and discipline
One of the never-ending battles of my life (and I suspect many lives of people around me) is doing things. How do you get yourself to do things you don’t really want to do, but need to do? Is it possible to only ever do things you want? Why do we have to labor to prove our inherent worth to society? (we might not get to that last one, but good to think about regardless). I have struggled with these questions over the years, to varying degrees of success in different periods of my life. I think I am consistently perceived as a motivated/productive person, but man are those feet kicking furiously under the surface (metaphor re: ducks). Here’s my thesis: motivation is overrated and not what you should be chasing. Motivation gives you the energy to build accountability habits. Discipline is the practice of accountability even when you have no motivation.
Over the years, I’ve found different ways to maintain discipline -- and it is a thing to be maintained, with strategies that are constantly being implemented and retired. I found that so much dysphoria comes from the misalignment between your deeper wishes and the menial everyday. For instance, I constantly asked myself “if this is theoretically my dream job, why am I so anxious?” I thought that if I was doing what I was meant to do (whatever that means), it would hurt less. Since then, I’ve understood that it hurts because I care -- and that a very specific flavor of struggle that comes up in my work is an informative aspect of my deepest desires for myself and the world. This flavor is distinctly unsettling because I feel challenged, lifted. I feel nervous because I’ve read something that makes me way to nod and cry at the same time. I feel fear, and awe, and I see it as a marker for my appetite for what I want instead of choosing a simpler, less extraordinary undertaking. I hope this never goes away -- and to the people who think that I can lead a happier life otherwise, I mostly agree, and also know that joy isn’t the same thing as happiness.
Easier said than done -- that is kind of the whole point of this, right? That the doing is the hardest part? For you, I offer some frameworks on how I reframe my relationship with the (sometimes) trudgery of everyday work to reconnect that joy of self-fulfillment with the happiness of every day tasks; a system that works for me to create discipline; and the different ways I approach ‘self-care’.
Reframe your relationship with effort
We’ve all heard:
Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life
I’m not in the business of invalidating other people’s experiences -- I just personally don’t this statement satisfying. First, I take a large problem with the assumption that work is something negative, something to be avoided. A pscyhologically fulfilling life includes depth of emotional, intellectual, physical, and spiritual pursuit. Our minds are capable of wonderous things, and to have the chance to expand, learn, change, struggle, and create is one of the most important aspects of self-actualization. Any job worth its salt comprises work. Secondly, even if we are settling and interpreting work as something to be avoided, I think any job -- even the one you love -- will have parts and moments that require stress. I cannot think of a single job that has components of everything one could wish for; something has to go, whether it’s security, finances, ease of finding that job, luck/timing, hours, colleagues, hierarchy, location, seasonality, or something else. I fully believe it’s possible to find a job that fulfills you in the ways you wish; but passion doesn’t counteract effort. You can love what you do, and still have a hard time with it; also, doing what they love doesn’t work for everyone (I spoke with a mentor recently who told me that they switched fields because how much they cared was too untenable for their day-to-day wellbeing).
One tangible way I reframe the efforts that come with any type of labor (intellectual, physical, or otherwise) is to switch my language from “I have to...” to “I get to...” It feels trivial but it really works, especially when talking to other people. I just tell people what I get to do now; sometimes I still start with “I have to do...” and I just catch myself and say “No, I get to do...”
When that doesn’t work, I focus on the privilege of ‘suffering’. I ask myself “how lucky am I to...”
I’m not in the business of invalidating other people’s experiences -- I just personally don’t this statement satisfying. First, I take a large problem with the assumption that work is something negative, something to be avoided. A pscyhologically fulfilling life includes depth of emotional, intellectual, physical, and spiritual pursuit. Our minds are capable of wonderous things, and to have the chance to expand, learn, change, struggle, and create is one of the most important aspects of self-actualization. Any job worth its salt comprises work. Secondly, even if we are settling and interpreting work as something to be avoided, I think any job -- even the one you love -- will have parts and moments that require stress. I cannot think of a single job that has components of everything one could wish for; something has to go, whether it’s security, finances, ease of finding that job, luck/timing, hours, colleagues, hierarchy, location, seasonality, or something else. I fully believe it’s possible to find a job that fulfills you in the ways you wish; but passion doesn’t counteract effort. You can love what you do, and still have a hard time with it; also, doing what they love doesn’t work for everyone (I spoke with a mentor recently who told me that they switched fields because how much they cared was too untenable for their day-to-day wellbeing).
One tangible way I reframe the efforts that come with any type of labor (intellectual, physical, or otherwise) is to switch my language from “I have to...” to “I get to...” It feels trivial but it really works, especially when talking to other people. I just tell people what I get to do now; sometimes I still start with “I have to do...” and I just catch myself and say “No, I get to do...”
When that doesn’t work, I focus on the privilege of ‘suffering’. I ask myself “how lucky am I to...”
- How lucky am I to stress about a presentation? It implies people want to hear about my work.
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How lucky am I to worry about funding? It implies I actually haven’t had to worry about it recently.
- How lucky am I to be stuck in traffic? It implies I have access to a car or can afford to take a rideshare.
We truly fabricate so many of our problems, and I find that this is very effective to allow me to zoom out and realize that all of my problems are buoyed by a layer of wealth (can be interpreted financially, but I mean this in a more broad sense). Problems can still be stressors no matter how many layers of wealth we’re sitting over, but it helps just to take the edge off a little bit.
Finally, you just need to eat the shit sandwich. A friend told me this once, and I find it a very compelling way to succinctly describe all the negative things you hate doing, that you just gotta do. In other words: disagree and commit (a favorite motto at Blue Origin). This one is hard for me, as a forever optimizer and perfectionist -- I feel an intense urge to fix whatever is wrong in the system now, when I have the chance, instead of letting it propagate forward. I’m still learning to pick my battles, but knowing I just have to eat the shit sandwich, for the ones I can’t fight at this moment, helps.
Practicing accountability and building trust (the three-task list)
For those who struggle with feeling productive, regardless of your actual productivity or circumstance, you need to try this one. During periods where I feel particularly unproductive, unmotivated, and/or generally bad about the amount of work I’m delivering, this is what I do. Every morning, I write down three achievable research-related tasks I want to accomplish that day. Depending on the day, these tasks might take shorter or longer, but always three things. Then, you practice accountability by not ending your day until you cross those three things off your list. Firstly, the visual task (better if you do it on pen+paper) gives your brain tangible evidence to feel accomplished. The biggest aspect of this is to build trust toward yourself. Inevitably, there will be days when you decide if you’re going to bed on time or finishing your task -- this is a chance to practice your accountability to yourself. How you show up for yourself matters -- you need to build trust in yourself, starting with the knowledge that you can deliver on your goals. Then, you need to trust that you can make sustainable goals. This means that your tasks are not consistently cutting into non-work time. You are building an understanding of how long tasks take you, what to prioritize and when to prioritize them, what kinds of tasks are worth doing, and what your focus is going to be. It is an iterative process that will involve some mishaps, with the eventual goal (say, over two weeks or one month) to build to a workday where you are consistently crossing off your three tasks, every day.When I do this, I feel much better about my output, even if my actual workload hasn’t changed. I pair this with a few running task lists I can select from in case I get bored (hah! it happens more than you think). My notion template is set up into today, tomorrow, this week, and this month. I try to keep to-dos updated, but do a reset every Monday.
When you practice, you build a habit. A habit of accountability and a familiar method of tangibly practicing it is a safety net that will catch you when motivation invariably wavers. There are many psychological tricks you can layer on top of this one, like a pomodoro timer, or doing the hardest thing first, or doing the easiest thing first, or limit task switching, or reverse-block your schedule, or forward-block your schedule, and so on and so forth. The point is, there are a lot of productivity tips out there, and you have to find what works for you. Adopt a system, try it for a week, and see what happens. Don’t get too attached to one system; different seasons call for different ways of moving.
What type of care do you need?
Self-care has been co-opted by the wellness industry. I don’t mean a hot bath or chocolate, although both of these things help. I mean, when you are struggling, do you need to provide cushion, add fuel, or rest? To do all of these, you will need time; it’s impossible to care your way into more hours in the day. This assumes that you’ve done the preliminary step of making sure you have enough time in the day, but you still feel somewhat off or empty.Provide cushion: This is what most people mean when they talk about self-care that is not a face mask. They mean cleaning your house, moving your body, doing your groceries, and doing the things that actually take effort, but will make you feel better.
Add fuel: “You’re not doing too much, you’re not doing enough of what fuels you” or so the saying goes. Are you recharging with intentional hobbies? Doomscrolling is not a hobby. After Wednesday nights, when I spend two hours volunteering at the homeless shelter, I feel so incredibly energized and fullhearted, having spent time with people who lift me up and doing something good for my community.
Rest: Sometimes you just need good, unadulterated rest. It’s easy for rest to feel guilty; I find that my rest feels guilty when it’s the only thing I’m doing as self-care. Untangling your relationship with rest will probably take more than just a blog post, but situating rest as one important option in a sea of other important options hopefully helps.
I won’t pretend to you that I’m not a hedonist, so you should also look up ‘dopamine menu ideas’ where you will find many classic ‘self-care’ activities that really make you feel good in your body or mind. I find that focusing on these three aspects of care fulfill me more deeply and sustainably than the other typical ‘self-care’ things out there. These also require you to be in touch with your values and to know what works for you, so an experiment mindset helps here. I also heard a friend talking about how you can also assess how often you feel unmotivated, and why. This can help illuminate the extent of the issue, and if it’s cyclical, event-related, or a more persistent occurrence that might need treatment.
I find discipline to be one journey, of many, that I’ve been curious to embark on over the years. Some months it comes very naturally to me, and those are the months I spend building helpful habits to tide me over the months where I struggle. It helps me feel more satisfied with how I spend my time (which is really the whole point of life when it comes down to it, right?) Finding what works and having the flexibility and self-awareness to change methods has been a journey that’s allowed me to know myself better -- hope this helps you along your way!
VIEWS MY OWN
I am, among many things, a PhD candidate at MIT AeroAstro. Motivated to always learn, categorize, and create frameworks for my experiences, I write and share reflections on my PhD journey in a collection called fieldnotes. Fieldnotes are detailed observations collected by anthropologists, sociologists, and ethnographers while situated in an environment of interest; the obsessive intensity to learn and grasp and make sense of phenomena during the collection of fieldnotes is the way that feels most reflective of the way I live life.