Joyce Fetteroll

Posted for someone else -- Joyce
===================================

I'm wondering what your thoughts are about what is the relationship
between motivation and self-discipline.

I find that personally, I struggle a lot with being disciplined which
in turn sabotages my ability to achieve my goals. I can conceptualize
what it is I need to do in order to achieve a goal, but I do not find
the long term success motivating enough to keep me going towards my
goal "when the going gets tough".

So, simplistically speaking, the outcome is that I need to rethink my
goals, perhaps cut them down to size a bit. I do find this
disappointing and often wonder if I will ever have enough of the
needed discipline to achieve my goals. I do question whether these
goals are really as important to me as I think they are... and whether
the lack of discipline is a result of a lack of interest more than a
problem with being disciplined... Or perhaps I'm not done deschooling
myself yet...

But the issue brings up a question that I don't have an answer to: is
self-discipline a result of maturation? or is it a result of
training? or is self-discipline an inborn trait that some have and
some simply do not? What motivates people to put in the hard work to
achieve their goals? And especially, what motivates young people?

My personal experience was that I never got to find out what motivates
me because I had this constant stream of pressures from parents,
teachers, "future" to keep me from exploring too far outside of the
boundaries set by those authorities. I suspect things would have
worked out a bit differently if that were not the case. But, some
goals do require a lot of work when you don't want to do it. For an
example, are all pianists or violinists, basically musicians who most
likely started playing when they were young, basically victims of
incredible (abusive?) pressure from their parents to practice,
practice, practice? How did they get to the point of being
successful? Would any one of them have gotten to the degree of
mastery if they did not practice, practice, practice? OR would there
just be a lot fewer young people playing piano because only one for
every 100 actually wants to do it out of her/his own desire?

plaidpanties666

> But the issue brings up a question that I don't have an answer to: is
> self-discipline a result of maturation? or is it a result of
> training? or is self-discipline an inborn trait that some have and
> some simply do not? What motivates people to put in the hard work to
> achieve their goals? And especially, what motivates young people?

Those sound like pretty big, "universal" questions! I think part of the problem is that you're combining motivation and self-discipline, where for a lot of people so called "self discipline" is something closer to the superego - its a learned sense of duty and guilt rather than a kind of innate driving force. And sometimes a sense of duty or guilt can be helpful, but just as often those same things set up resistance. So "self discipline" gives us theft and adultery, binge eating and whiskey hidden in a bottle of cough syrup - it's its own worse enemy.

Internal motivation doesn't depend on maturation - its how babies learn to do impossible things like walk. Maturation can provide experiences that help support one's internatl motivation or get in the way of that - so experience matters, for sure, but there seem to be personality traits that matter, too, inborn traits, I mean, that let one person rise above a bad fall, and someone else cling to the furniture a bit longer and grow up hearing "you never would have done it if I hadn't helped". So nature interacts with nurture.

Exactly *what* motivates people is also a bit variable. For instance, some people are innately motivated by the challenges of other people - they're naturally competitive not in a mean spirited way, but in the sense that others' achievements inspire them to do more and better. I'm not naturally competitive, though, and tend to resist when people push me (or coax me or challenge me) to compete. That's not to say I'm unmotivated, I'm just motivated by other factors - but that also makes it harder for me to succeed if I'm working with someone who is naturally competitive or things competition creates motivation.

What motivates me to achieve a goal is the satisfaction of the process. I'm more invested in processes than products much of the time, so when I lose enthusiasm for a process I lose momentum. Then what works to move me forward is a deadline. I like deadlines in that sense, but only up to a point. When a deadline is pitched to me as a kind of competition, I resist hard and tend to fall apart under the stress.

> So, simplistically speaking, the outcome is that I need to rethink my
> goals, perhaps cut them down to size a bit. I do find this
> disappointing and often wonder if I will ever have enough of the
> needed discipline to achieve my goals.

Sometimes I deliberately set my own goals higher than I actually think I can achieve, just so I can cut them back when the deadline looms. This has worked really well for me with art shows - I plan on having eeeeevvvvverything done and then as the deadline approaches I start to slash and burn by way through the list of projects and pare it down *below* what I think I can accomplish. That way, if I meet my goals, good and I can take a breather, but I also know if I do meet my goals "early" I'll be so pumped up with enthusiasm I'll push a little more and get more done as a result.

It doesn't work so well in my job, though, because my employer is very competitive and also tends to push harder the closer we get to a deadline. So I need to manipulate the situation a little and plan on getting less done than I think I can from the start and hold back a little in the process so that I don't come unglued at the end.

Learning all of this about myself, though, has taken years. I didn't know it when I was 20. I knew some of it at 30 - a decade ago - and some of the details, like how to get my own motivational system to work in something like harmoney with my employer's I'm still figuring out.

>>And especially, what motivates young people?

My daughter is 9 and has been unschooled from the start. She doesn't have outside pressure to perform or achieve for the most part, but she regularly does things she finds difficult - I mean stomping from the room in tears difficult! But she generally has a good cry and then goes back to fighting aliens in her game or figuring out the darn programming platform or learning how to fold origami or struggling to get her bike to the top of the hill without stalling.

What I see in her and other unschooling kids I know is not so much a great sense of motivation as a different understanding of the nature of failure. Failure is not an end point, for Mo, its just a point on a learning curve. Sometimes she gives up, but giving up isn't failure it's a cost-benefit analysis in the moment - and most of the time, it isn't even final.

> My personal experience was that I never got to find out what motivates
> me

You haven't found out **yet**. That last little word, that's important. Take it to heart. You haven't done it yet, but that's okay, you can still learn.

---Meredith

Schuyler

But, some
goals do require a lot of work when you don't want to do it. For an
example, are all pianists or violinists, basically musicians who most
likely started playing when they were young, basically victims of
incredible (abusive?) pressure from their parents to practice,
practice, practice? How did they get to the point of being
successful? Would any one of them have gotten to the degree of
mastery if they did not practice, practice, practice? OR would there
just be a lot fewer young people playing piano because only one for
every 100 actually wants to do it out of her/his own desire?

------------------------------------

I think Pam Sorooshian tells a story of going to a concert where the conductor
(a guest conductor) asked who among the orchestra had parents who forced them to
play. Only a couple of people raised their hands. It wasn't the pressure from
parents that made them want to play. It was something internal. I know, too,
that the musical comedian Tim Minchin thanks his parents for not making him take
lessons.


I play ukulele. Not well. But I play most days for more or less than an hour.
Nothing pushes me but some internal desire to make this little instrument sing a
little better each time I pick it up. And it isn't even that much. Somehow, for
me, just the new learning is fascinating. I don't have to keep playing, no one
is waiting for me to play a concert at Albert Hall. I dance on a Morris side and
I love learning and coming to some sort of mastery of the skipping and the stick
rapping and the figures. There is something, and Dan Pink points to it, that
makes me delve into something that has no bearing on the rest of the world or,
even, much of the rest of my life.

Schuyler


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

BRIAN POLIKOWSKY

 
But, some
goals do require a lot of work when you don't want to do it. For an
example, are all pianists or violinists, basically musicians who most
likely started playing when they were young, basically victims of
incredible (abusive?) pressure from their parents to practice,
practice, practice? How did they get to the point of being
successful? Would any one of them have gotten to the degree of
mastery if they did not practice, practice, practice? OR would there
just be a lot fewer young people playing piano because only one for
every 100 actually wants to do it out of her/his own desire?

------------------------------------
Naomi Aldort, who unschooled her children from day one, has two boys who
are musicians. They were never made to sit and practice.
 
Here are videos of the boys:
Here is Oliver:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94fhIpMDnbQ&feature=player_embedded
 
and here is an exept from his Bio:
"Oliver's days are spent mostly with music on his own initiative. You can find
him practicing, improvising, listening, conducting or playing by ear or from
symphonic or operatic score most hours of the day. A break from practice is
often piano improvisation, sight-reading or conducting. Other loves of his are
his cat Beethoven, reading, swimming, ping-pong, hiking and sight seeing."
 
and here is Lennon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM0cftt-78E&feature=player_embedded

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

BRIAN POLIKOWSKY

and here is a good article from Lennon and Oliver's mom:


http://www.naomialdort.com/articles.html

Alex Polikowsky

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

lylaw

I wrote an article on this topic for Life Learning Magazine. I wish I had had pam’s story when I wrote that article – that’s fantastic! The article is reprinted on my blog, if anyone’s interested:

http://lylawolf.blogspot.com/2011/03/real-costs-of-parental-pressure.html

lyla

------------------------------------

I think Pam Sorooshian tells a story of going to a concert where the conductor
(a guest conductor) asked who among the orchestra had parents who forced them to
play. Only a couple of people raised their hands. It wasn't the pressure from
parents that made them want to play. It was something internal. I know, too,
that the musical comedian Tim Minchin thanks his parents for not making him take
lessons.





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]