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Comment by ryanwaggoner | Hacker News Reader

I hesitated before submitting this here, because motivational / self-improvement stuff is a hard sell with the HN crowd (and for good reason). However, I've found it very helpful, and thought someone else here might as well. We all like to read deep, technical things that make us smarter and more knowledgeable, but it turns out that most people fail not because they're not smart enough or knowledgeable enough, but because they lack the discipline and drive to match their goals and ambitions.

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How about writing your own mantras and them repeating on the book's schedule?

I agree that this could be a really effective approach, and I did consider it, particularly because I'm a Christian and I spent more time reading this book than I do reading my Bible :)

Actually, you've just given me an idea; I'm going to put together something like this for hackers and founders. Come to think of it, that's a little of what we're doing at http://hn.21times.org, though the articles are too long for this kind of repetitive reading. Any suggestions?

Proverbs. It conveniently has 31 chapters (one for each day of the month) and is full of useful... well, proverbs. The mix of the painfully down to earth and strongly God centred is helpful sometimes as well.

Edit: this isn't so much a suggestion to founders/hackers in general, more to the Christian ones given your comment above. Plenty of good stuff in there for everyone, though.

These are some of my positive mantras I got from a book that had been very helpful.

Replace

"I have to" with "I choose to"

"I must finish" with "When can I start"

"This is so big" with "I can take a small step"

"I must be perfect" with "I can be human"

"I don't have time to play" with "I must take time to play"

There is no reason you can't - but I find the advantage of taking someone else's mantra is that it comes 'baggage free'. I feel that if I absorb an 'external' mantra, it has more authority and lacks the subconscious emotional baggage that I would bring writing my own.

I realise this is very 'airy fairy' thinking, but heck, the whole article is about playing mind games with yourself to gain a benefit so it's not that out of place :)

To ameliorate that you could find external mantras that resonate with your idea of who you want to be. I feel like the biggest weakness of this system could be that, if the mantras don't jive with your conception of a better person, you'll never be able to stick to the schedule.

Totally agree. It can be it's biggest weakness, but it can also be its greatest strength depending on what you are trying to achieve. If you are trying to improve a specific aspect of your behaviour/life, then a specifically tailored set of mantras would be appropriate. If you are seeking to generally improve, then a 'preset' set of mantras could be as good, and may even be better (based on the principle that you can't improve what you don't know needs improving).

I guess an analogy being the reason I like reading HN - it covers topics that I didn't know I would find interesting until I read about them. If I only read web pages specifically covering my interests, I'll never grow as a person as I would be forever stuck in my limited worldview.

Even worse- it won't work if you don't believe it won't. It's a clear placebo effect type of situation.

I'm one of those weird people that thinks medications- even ones given to me by a doctor- won't work. As a consequence, even biologically active drugs often fail to do anything for me. It's called the nocebo effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocebo

Anyway, for me, I'm so skeptical about things that self-help books are as helpful to me as being hit on the head with a frying pan. I actually did get the 4-hour work week out of the library but my eyes spent so much time rolling out of my head they started to hurt, so I threw it across the room.

You should totally download my eBook which covers all of the intricacies of properly selecting self-help reading material. Free for an unlimited time: http://rapin.com/self-help.html

More subtlety would have helped.

Wow, apparently Hacker News is filled with people who believe in stupid shit created by Indian mystics! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantra

If you believe this, perhaps you'll also believe I have psychic link with my cat... I swear, I know what she's thinking. It involves mice, so I know it's true.

The practice of Mantra recitation is only one application of a trait of the human brain and how it functions. Namely, that reciting something aloud speeds up the process of internalization. Have you ever had a music instructor that made you sing your part instead of playing it? Same concept.

If you associate certain ideas with each other over and over again by force, your brain will start to perceive the association as correct.

"Mantra" has sort of become a linguistic shortcut for referring to this effect and its application.

Question, is the major benefit that you had the discipline to read this book for a year? You didn't go into what you're doing differently now that you weren't a year ago.

I'll cover that in another post, but yes, I feel much, much more disciplined and in control now. Particularly around daily habits. I have about a dozen habits that I do Mon-Fri and I haven't missed a single one in more than a year. For the last three months, I've been getting up at 345am seven days a week and I haven't missed a single day. It's not all this book and it's hard to describe, but there's a difference.

You mean you have been getting up at quarter to four? That's impressive. When do you go to bed?

I find that I need so much sleep, that getting up at four would require me to go to bed at 18.00 or so.

A month ago I started getting up an hour earlier and exercising before work. Now that I'm getting exercise I'm sleeping better and thus need less sleep. YMMV

Interesting.

I have started Rippetoe's strength training program in April 2010, and it works nicely, but it did not affect my sleep.

(Although on days when I don't exercise I sometimes have a harder time falling asleep. Especially when I have just picked up caffeine on that day again.)

I've been getting up at 345am seven days a week and I haven't missed a single day.

For me it sounds like a solid reason not to touch this book, ever.

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