I was always told I was smart when I was a kid, and very little focus was put on seeing things through or being a hard worker (other than conceptually).
Anecdote in support of the article's hypothesis: I'm blabbing about myself instead of working on a cool idea I had this morning. Sigh.
I was always told I was smart too ... and compared to my sister -- look at how hard she works! (I found out as an adult that she was always compared to me -- look at your brother, he is really smart! Now isn't that screwed up?). I was also exposed to enough kung-fu movies as a kid. You never see the "this guy has kung-fu because he is talented/lucky/athletic", and you always see "this guy has kung-fu because he perservered in his training". "Kung-fu" doesn't mean "generic martial arts", the way it is used in America. It means "skill accumulated over time". Even though there are American cultural overlays on top of the movies, Kung-fu Panda and Forbidden Kingdom, this "kung-fu" cultural value shines through. In each, the main characters has no kung, has no fu, and ends up with some.
My habit of procastination comes directly from "being smart". I've been able to do well on tests because during the test, I get this intense focus to do well within a time limit. Doing things at the last minute gave me the same kind of rush. If I did well, it validated that part of the ego. I was even aware of it, felt a bit silly, and went ahead and did it anyways.
I did find some ways to retrain this. I still procastinate, but I've been managing to get coding done -- I'm applying to YC Winter '09 with a prototype I've got up live two weeks ago. Here are some of the things I've tried:
(1) The most difficult part was taking action after making a decision. This is probably the biggest block ... you can think that you need to retrain your mind, or to get a "growth mindset", and your mind has been trained to think that as long as you think it, everything is OK. It isn't. As lame as it sounds, some of Anthony Robbin's "Personal Power" tapes work well. You start by doing some little things that you've been putting off, anything from taking out the garbage to even downloading the tools you need to get started on writing a prototype. The key is taking the action as soon as you instantiate the decision. The more you do that, the more your mind gets used to it.
(2) "Invest in loss". This is something that a martial arts teacher (Cheng-man Ching) said often. As it applies to fixed mind-set vs. growth mind-set, it means assuming that you already suck going into something. Over the past four or five years, my friends and I invite people out to our training group. We see a lot of newbies. No matter how physically talented you are, without training, you suck. There is no beginner's luck. Having some experience, I can feel when people get agitated by their suckage. They don't want to play anymore because it violates their image of themselves.
It takes some work, but it is doable -- you can learn to be comfortable with the uncomfortable feeling that you are not very skilled. It doesn't require you to go to some sort of martial arts bootcamp, it does require you to get your body moving ... which comes back to the first thing about taking action after making a decision.
(3) There are times when I get stuck during coding. Sometimes I need to refactor something, but I really don't want to do it. Sometimes I come across a choice between two architectural decisions. My habit is to stare at the screen trying to figure out the best way to proceed forward. I've noticed that it easily leads to distractions.
One of the key thing that appears in all forms of martial arts and fighting systems is the idea of slipping off the line of attack. Mentally, when I come up against a challenge, it feels like an obstacle in front of me. I want to go forward, but this annoying issue keeps coming up. I stop being able to see the vision -- that sense of awesomeness of the overall idea -- and trying to beat my way through it is painful. Even with the idea of "try harder", it is painful. What you want to do is slip off to the side, like dodging in side-scroller while continuing to go forward.
One way particular to my own martial arts training is to walk around in a circle while thinking of the problem domain, and then changing direction and going the opposite way. It is weird, but it always makes me feel confident enough to keep working, albeit from a different direction.
(4) Meditation. A simple practice of breathing and awareness. There's not much to it, but it clears the mind of baggage so you can move forward.
(5) Josh Waitzkin's book, Art of Learning has a lot more tips.
One of the reasons why, looking back, I appreciate going to engineering at UofT, which is very academically focused. I was taken several notches down from being a 'smart kid' in HS to 'average' in Uni, which I noticed was due to my work ethic, since I wasn't significantly smarter or dumber than most people.
One of the things I remember from the very beginning of first year is professors saying how engineering was good because after 4 years you'd learn enough to get a junior position and actually start learning. I thought they were just screwing with us frosh, but after 4 tough years, I saw how right they were and I realized that I really learned two things:
1) how to learn
2) that I know nothing.
In addition to the work and learning over innate smarts mindset, it is also good to know what kind of environment you need to actually learn and excel. Some people might have enough curiosity and work ethic to learn and do a lot while left to their own devices, whereas other people might need to be an environment where they're being pushed.
The best thing that happened to me in college was almost failing a freshmen physics test, despite having felt I was prepared for it. After getting that grade, I worked nonstop nearly every waking moment.
I ended up getting an A- in the class, even though that test was at least 15% of the final grade. More importantly, I learned that if I want to do well, I needed to work hard.
When I got to college, on my first calculus quiz I got a C+. It's a good thing this happened right away. After that, I realized I needed to actually learn how to study and ended up putting in a great deal of effort, unlike in high school where I could get good grades easily. I ended up graduating with all A's.
School is supposed to teach you things. The important part is whether you learn those things, not whether you are willing to demonstrate repeatedly, ad nauseam that you have already (and usually long ago) learned those things. I was the kid in the example; I excelled on tests, and continue to, through a combination of basic common sense and having actuallyunderstood the subject matter, and found my own uses for it, outside of the curriculum.
When you can understand, and apply, concepts just by reading the textbook (or the appropriate Wikipedia article), this obviates the need for both teachers, lessons and homework. Those in power like that even less than the teachers themselves, and created the No Child Left Ahead act to "fix" this.
Actually, you seem to disagree with Jonathan. From TFA:
As we had predicted, the students with a growth mind-set felt that learning was a more important goal in school than getting good grades. In addition, they held hard work in high regard, believing that the more you labored at something, the better you would become at it. They understood that even geniuses have to work hard for their great accomplishments. Confronted by a setback such as a disappointing test grade, students with a growth mind-set said they would study harder or try a different strategy for mastering the material.
The students who held a fixed mind-set, however, were concerned about looking smart with little regard for learning. They had negative views of effort, believing that having to work hard at something was a sign of low ability. They thought that a person with talent or intelligence did not need to work hard to do well. Attributing a bad grade to their own lack of ability, those with a fixed mind-set said that they would study less in the future, try never to take that subject again and consider cheating on future tests.
Odd; I suppose I'm of neither of those mindsets particularly. I studied when I was bad at something, but I didn't study, and in fact specifically underachieved, when I already was sure (through practical usage) of my own knowledge in the subject. I suppose I'm of the growth mindset, but just really lazy.
It's deeply irrational to live like you're going to die tomorrow unless you actually are.
If you have a bunch of money in stocks and savings, and no dependents, and you are going to die tomorrow, then it's rational to cash that all out and spend it in the most pleasurable way you can. (Or, if possible, spend it on figuring out a way out of my 24-hour countdown predicament!)
The "die tomorrow" applause light has got to be put out. Please. It's just a silly thing to say. It's not death that makes life special; it's life that makes death tragic.
"If you have a bunch of money in stocks and savings, and no dependents, and you are going to die tomorrow, then it's rational to cash that all out and spend it in the most pleasurable way you can. (Or, if possible, spend it on figuring out a way out of my 24-hour countdown predicament!)"
That isn't any more rational than assuming that you're going to die tomorrow or live forever. Those are simply choices, rational or not.
Life is a part of death, death is a part of life. Breathing in means breathing out. Eating food means taking a dump. Being born means growing old. Imagining that you're going to die tomorrow isn't meant to make your life more special. It is used to invoke fear of death which in turns focuses you on the here-and-now (usually by triggering andrenaline). If you can become present in the moment without invoking fear of death, then by all means do so. Presence of mind lets you act powerfully; even mindless people react to someone with a powerful presence (>cough<Steve Jobs>cough<). It is worth cultivating and learning how to trigger at-will.
article mentions 'learned helplessness'. read Singer's 'Writings on an Ethical Life' for some background on this or have a look at a Google search result - http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2768
Basically, random electrical shocks to dogs induce a state of 'learned helplessness' or in everyday speak - complete pyschological collapse during a particularly cruel expt.
Anecdote in support of the article's hypothesis: I'm blabbing about myself instead of working on a cool idea I had this morning. Sigh.