Motivation Daily by Motiversity - DISCIPLINE YOURSELF EVERY DAY - Best Motivational Speech (Jordan Peterson Motivation)

Episode Date: January 5, 2023

Jordan Peterson, professor of psychology, clinical psychologist, author and YouTube personality, shares why you need to discipline yourself, pursue meaning not happiness and don't waste your life.Special thanks to Lewis Howes for providing this interview! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylTHKT4HSBc&t=0s&ab_channel=LewisHowesSpeaker:Jordan PetersonMusic:Epidemic SoundSoundstripe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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The link is in the description. What do you want in your life? It's a very hard question to answer. You're going to have to put some effort into your life. Set up some aims for yourself, goals that you actually value. You need to be motivated to do that. If you're extroverted, you want friends. If you're agreeable, you want an intimate relationship.

If you're disagreeable, you want to win competitions. If you're open, you want to engage in creative activity. If you're high neuroticism, you want security. So now you've got your thing to aim at. Think, well, I'm motivated because I got my thing to think to aim at. It's like, you're not as motivated as you could be, because you don't yet have your thing to run away from. Because if you really want to be motivated,

you want to be going somewhere and you want to be not going somewhere else. You got to aim at something, otherwise your life is meaningless. Well, what should you aim at? Well, pick something. Aim at it. As you move toward it, you'll get wiser. Then maybe your aim will change. That's okay.

But at least it'll change in an informed way. Discipline yourself in one dimension. See what happens. happens. In some sense, life is a game. The analogy is that in life, like in sports, you're setting forth a name and then arranging your perceptions and your actions in pursuit of that. And that you also generally do it while cooperating and competing with other people. That's also the game-like element as well. Okay, so once you get your goal structure set up, you think, okay, if I could have this life, looks like that might be worth living, despite the fact that it's going to be anxiety provoking and

threatening and there's going to be some suffering and loss involved and all of that. The goal is to to have a vision for your life such that all things considered, that justifies your effort. Put yourself in the right frame of mind. Treat yourself like you're someone responsible for helping. You're someone that you are responsible for helping. So what that means is you have to start from the presupposition that despite all your flaws and insufficiencies, that it's worth having you around and that it would be okay if things were better for you. It's like if you want to have everything you could possibly want and more,

then be a good person. The better a person you are, the more likely that is to happen. That doesn't mean that you're completely protected against getting cut off at the knees. But there's no better strategy. Then what do you do? Well, then you turn down to the micro routines. It's like, okay, well, this is what I'm aiming for. How does that instantiate itself day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month?

And that's where something like a schedule can be unbelievably useful. Google Calendar. It's like, make a damn schedule. and stick to it. Okay, so what's the rule with the schedule? It's not a bloody prison. That's the first thing that people do wrong. They say, well, I don't like to follow a schedule.

It's like, well, what kind of schedule are you setting up? Well, I have to do this, then I have to do this, then I have to do this. You know, and then I just go play video games, because who wants to do all these things that I have to do? It's like, wrong. Set the damn schedule up so that you have the day you want. That's the trick. It's like, okay, I've got tomorrow. If I was going to set it up so it was the best,

best possible day I could have, practically speaking, what would it look like? Well, then you schedule that. And obviously, there's a bit of responsibility that's going to go along with that, because if you have any sense, one of the things that you're going to insist upon is that at the end of the day, you're not in worse shape than you were than at the beginning of the day, right? Because that's a stupid day. If you have a bunch of those in a row, you just dig, you know, you dig yourself a hole and then you bury yourself in it. It's like, sorry, that's just not a good strategy. Now it's okay, now you got your vision. You're trying to get through a territory you don't understand.

And here's your option. No map, a map that's not so good but has some things about it, or a great map. Well, obviously the great map is the thing you want, but the map that something is way better than the map that's nothing. Plus, as you explore, because of your map, you could start to fill in the details. Let's say you aim at something and you develop some skills along the way, and then you get like a third of the way there and you think, oh, that's not for me. It's like, well, yeah, fair enough, but now you've still got the skills you developed. You know exactly why it's not for you now.

And then you can bring that wisdom back, even though it's not perfect. You can bring it back to your next plan. And so as you plan, you get better at planning, which is the crucial thing. So then we say to people, take your positive vision and make it into eight stateable goals, right? So, and then rank them in a hierarchy. Break the goals into incremental goals so that you have a reasonable probability of succeeding. Within some time frame. That's the other thing. You have to parameterize it with regards to time frame. That's right. And when you're in the zone, you're expanding your skills in a manner that's intrinsically rewarding because you're succeeding. And so you want to set, if you're good to yourself, you think, okay, I need to set a goal, but I need to set a goal that someone as stupid and useless as me could probably attain if they put some effort into it. Then you've got it perfectly because it's not so high that it's grandiose or important. possible that you fail necessarily and then justify your bitterness. Well, I set a goal and I didn't attain it,

so I'm not going to set any more goals. It's like, no, you set a goal that was inappropriate. And you're playing a trick on yourself because you wanted to fail so that you could justify not having to try, which isn't helpful. You're still going to be a victim. It's like, there's no way out of that, man. So, you know, because life is this, life is a challenge that in some sense can't be surmounted. So there's no way out of your problem. But there are certainly proper ways of dealing with it. And then the next thing is, okay, you need a rationale for them because you're going to have doubts and other people are going to put up obstacles. Why would it be good for you? Okay.

Why would it be good for your family if you attain that goal? Why would it be good for the broader community? Because if it's a good goal, it should be good for you. That's fine. But if it's a really good for you in a way that's good for other people. Win, win, win. Yes, exactly. And if you're going to decide what your goals are, why not set up the ones that benefit the largest number of people.

simultaneously yes if you can do that you should start with your own concerns because you have to take care of yourself yes put your own oxygen mask on then put your child's oxygen mask on yeah right and then you can as you as you build up the basis of competence locally you might develop enough skills so that you can expand that outward and it also gives your goal a certain amount of nobility and so if someone challenges you and says well why are you doing that that seems stupid you can say I'm doing that because it helps me take care of myself but it benefits my family and here's the reasons why.

And this is the repercussions out into the broader community. People who are putting up objections and doubts aren't armed to deal with that kind of response. And then when you have those doubts in your mind that plague you, say, why am I doing this? Oh, yeah, it's because, well, I have to take care of myself, because otherwise I'm pathetic and useless and bitter and cruel. And then I'm going somewhere terrible. So that's a bad idea. And here's how it would help my family and here's how it would help the community. And that's good enough set of reasons for it.

unless I can think of better ones. Right. Right. Without better ones, that's good enough. When the unknown emerges, you tend to experience anxiety. And then there's the known, and I define the known very specifically and very carefully.

The known is the place you are when what you're doing produces the results you want. And I say want because that brings motivation and emotion into the game. So you're motivated to pursue something. You pursue it, and what you want, happens, not only do you get what you want, but you get validation for the structure that

governs your perceptions and your actions.