Remember to discipline your equations instead of motivating them, and also remember to go to NordVPN.com/andrewdotson to get a 2-year plan plus an additional month with a huge discount!
When I decided to go back to school my therapist told me that motivation is a great way to get started, but it won't get you through it. The best way to look at it is to say "This is what I do." I am a student and I read text books and write papers. I am going into a physics based discipline and I do practice problems. It's important not to see it as "have to do" because that can lead to feeling guilt when you don't and will make it feel like a chore. Seeing all my coursework as something I do rather than relying on motivation or seeing it as something I have to do has helped me stay consistent and keep on task, even when I'd rather be doing something else.
That could work, but failing with that attitude sounds like the fastest way to have a full-blown identity crisis. Just keep the emphasis on "do" and not "I." Just because you're taking on the role of "a student" for some time doesn't mean it should be your answer to the question, "who are you?"
These are the same therapists who will then say things like "you are not your job" and "you are worth more than your work" when this line of thinking leads to negative consequences -- like interpreting setbacks and difficulties as personal failings.
Congrats on returning to school, as a returning student myself, I know how hard it can be. I also agree with the advice you shared, a lot comes down to mindset.
What helps me is realising that my work probably isn't nearly as hard as I think, and that helps a lot of the time. The whole discipline soldier thing doesn't really work for me at all, I just need to put the situation into a persepctive that my brain won't freak out about, and that is really all that has helped.
The issue with this strategy is that sometimes you wont be able to put things into the right perspective quickly enough. And so you may lose days or even weeks trying to find the right perspective before you get up and work again. So, this is why discipline matters. You just train yourself to slog through painful situations even when they suck; especially when it sucks. This way you dont lose time.
Oh boy, I definitely resonated with this video! My motivation during my Physics PhD definitely took a nose-dive during the start of the pandemic and especially after reaching PhD Candidacy. I think what I came to realize was that for most of undergraduate + start of graduate school, I had relied a lot on the constant pressure and deadlines from class assignments, midterms, finals, etc. to keep me motivated to succeed, but after finishing all my classes and transitioning into full-time research, those motivating factors went away. Not going to lie, there was a stretch of time post-Candidacy that I literally didn't do anything physics related for what felt like weeks, and I was very ashamed of it. However, I think it was an important wake-up call for me that I needed to set up my own structure and routine outside of a classroom setting, and I'm happy to say that I've gotten back on track with my PhD now.
Glad you pointed that out! It is so weird going from intense structure of the first year or two to almost free again, definitely easy to star slipping there.
I am naturally a thorough person, I like to do all the derivation steps that get skipped in textbooks, and I like to really understand what I'm doing intuitively wherever I use a problem solving method. That's why studying quantum mechanics on a quarter system has been the absolute bane of my existence. "What does this sprawling mess of linear algebra and interaction integrals mean? Well we could spend a whole week exploring it, but we only have 10 of those, so we're moving on!" University is beating the disciplined physicist out of me *sigh*
Motivation is what get's you started, discipline is what keeps you going. As a grad student, I look back at my early undergrad when I was just so excited to do everything versus now when I just kinda do things cause I know I have to. When you've been doing this shit for years in grad school or beyond, I feel like it just becomes like any other job you feel disciplined enough to do.
I'm a junior in Physics and Math and next week I have my finals. I absolutely needed this. Frankly I'm really glad you didn't just give us a whole speech on how to keep our motivation up 100% of the time. That kind of stuff just makes me feel worse when I can't seem to get motivated. Thanks for the words of wisdom Smart Man, time to sit my ass down and study for my quantum exam
I was struggling a lot academically up to my second year of Physics undergrad with a CGPA of less than 3. I thought I liked Physics, but I used to rely on motivation to study all the time. Or study advanced topics out of syllabus without any plan or continuity. Many of your vlogs, the tensor videos helped me at that time to pivot my strategy. I put efforts into trying to follow a strict schedule to study and after a few months they became habits. My performance improved tremendously and I graduated with a decent profile. This week I got my first acceptance to a PhD program! Thank you very much for all the hard work and I just wanted to let you know that you are leaving deep impacts on people thousand miles away.
What keeps me motivated is knowing that failure is NOT an option for me. I always knew I wanted to study physics and be the best I possibly could. So when push came to shove and I lacked motivation, feeling that I might fail to reach my goals enabled me to develop the necessary dicipline to keep on grinding.
I’ve lacked determination and discipline recently and had suffered in university for it. But I’m coming back next semester full steam ahead! It’s surprising how related doing homeworks and deriving equations are to making your bed and doing laundry. It’s all about discipline! I loved this video, thank you Andrew Dotson for this reassuring reminder! :)
One of the best pieces of advice I've heard (regarding thesis writing, although I apply the philosophy more generally) is summed up as "you don't need to commit to finishing now, but you do need to commit to starting now." More narrowly, the advice was: force yourself to do 30 minutes of thesis-writing a day. If you get to the end of that 30 minutes and it's still painful and you want to stop, fine, call it quits for the day and come back the next day. You did some work, and eventually you'll get past the painful part and things will pick up again. But often - even when the part was initially painful - you'll find that after 30 minutes you just want to finish your section, or that you're otherwise motivated, and things will flow again, at least for a bit, at which point you work until you feel done for the day. And I find this really works for me: if I have something I'm avoiding, I usually just need to start, and then I don't want to stop. Newton's first law of working: it takes some force to get me to start moving (and that's the discipline part), but then I'll keep moving unless my work provides a substantial amount of friction.
For me procrastination has been a huge problem in school. At my university there is alot of self study and that is not optimal considering my procrastination. So the thing I do is I am always at university from basically 9-5 and work there. If I need to work more I stay there longer. Try to separate university and home. Make them a place for work and a place for non productive stuff. I have to bend this rule with huge assignments, but the deadline and importance would often be motivation enough. What this did for me was it created a shift in my brain. When I walk to the university I would have another mindset more fit for work that I just couldnt get while at home. It helped me not mix work and relaxing. Then working would be spent sometimes doing other stuff and relaxing would be spent being anxious of not having done enough. TL;DR I got a schedule, or discipline, which is in theme with the video. Don't underestimate that.
I’ve been using discipline ever since my army days and all throughout my engineering degree path to “get things done” but I actually got something out of this video when you mentioned the discipline required to give a speaker your undivided attention. I always thought that if it wasn’t interesting to me within 10 minutes that it wasn’t worthy of my attention, but you’re totally right, I have an obligation to listen to the whole presentation and come up with a few questions. Especially for an expert who took time out of their schedule to present something to me.
Thank you! I lose motivation self teaching myself physics and mathematics. I’m a teenager that is busy with Calc 1 and physics 2. This really helped me because I sometimes lose motivation when I don’t understand certain things in physics.
Alsl study computer science, I promise it will help you a lot in the future. I also used to study physics and calculus as a teenager and even got international physics olympiad awards, but the truth is that there are not so many career options for physics majors. But at least it will help to get accepted to best universities, which is great. So, I wish you the best
@@wiserhuman21 Yeah I want to learn some programming and computer science but I haven’t had the time or motivation. In the Summer vacation is December (I live in South Africa so it is summer here) i’ll try to do some computer science. I don’t really know what I want to do with my life, but I do believe you’re right that I should do computer science. Money is tight right now so i’ll try my best!
I think that identifying yourself as a physics student and viewing school work as something you do, simply because solving problems and tackling difficult concepts is something physics students do can help. At least it helped me a lot. And motivation comes and goes, it's nice when it's around but discipline and hard work will get you further. Anyway, thanks for the vid Andrew, it was a good reminder. Cheers!
Not a physicist here - I just enjoy reading about/learning a bit of physics on my own time - but this is solid advice for pretty much any field of study. Thanks for this!
Omg, perfect timing. I had a sleepless night and want to avoid all of my final homeworks, paper, and exam prep. I treat school as a 9-5 job and usually set myself timers for 25 minutes with 5-10 minute breaks in between work sessions. There's a name for this method that I can't recall at the moment. It breaks up my study sessions into small chunks that feel more manageable. I also give myself one day completely void of responsibilities, so I can recharge for my busy week ahead.
I do this too!!! It's been the best thing for me. I get overwhelmed when I think I have too much stuff to do, but when I use the Pomodoro Technique it makes me feel like I'm breaking my task into little chucks. I also get to look forward to a break :). One of my favorite podcasts has a playlist of focus music and he times the playlist to end after 30 minutes, then a 5-minute break, then another 30 minutes. It's called "Flow State".
Spark notes: P_n is a degree n=0,1,2,... polynomial with P_n(1)=1, and the whole set orthonormal, with the dot product of polynomials (in this context) defined as P_m dot P_n = int_{-1}^{1} P_m(x)P_n(x) dx. Explicitly, P_n(x) is given by (n!2^n)^{-1} times the n-th (x-)derivative of (x^2-1)^n; this is called Rodrigues' formula. That's enough to clumsily brute-force your way through many problems. Also, they satisfy a recurrence relation in n, a differential equation, and are given by a generating function. Crucially, that particular generating function turns out to be extremely important because it comes up naturally in a bunch of physical situations.
I have found that I need to settle my emotions to be able to study, If I had a spat with my GF or is worried about something, if I don't deal with it before sitting down to study I will not be able to focus nearly as effectively as when I am "emotionally settled" - Emotional health is health! and take care of yourselves! Discipline is good but like Andrew suggests apply it correctly (This is meant as support"/nuance" for Andrews argument, not an opposition)
Thanks andrew, Im just finishing up with qft this sem and oh boy has it been a ride, my two brain cells had a tough time but things are wrapping up nicely.
I kind of accepted that my motivation comes and goes. Sometimes I can do an incredible amount of work in a month, sometimes I can't do anything useful at all for a month, except for day to day tasks. Although I do agree that discipline and motivation are not the same, and being disciplined is extremely important
Right now I’m doing my thesis for my last year in Applied Phyiscs undergrad, and I guess for the proposal part I finished way earlier than the deadline. What pushed me to do so was a combination of different things; (1) I was lucky enough to study something I actually like, so who am I to slack off and take that shit for granted. (2) I aim to finish things before they’re due, because my anxiety peaks when I cram. (3) My personal manifesto throughout all of my school life is “work while others sleep, so you can sleep while others work.” And lastly, (4) I looked for the fun in what I did. I enjoyed learning how to format the LaTeX document, I enjoyed learning how to make different plots on Python, and I just enjoyed understanding things a little better each day.
I struggle with making myself study for an exam that's more than a day away. The thing that works the best for me then is to impose deadlines on myself to emulate the pressure of the upcoming exam. For example, I have a PDE exam in 3 days - but today, I HAVE to finish half of the suggested problems
A lot of my friends often tell me about how I’m a better student than them but I think it’s really that I’m just more disciplined. I don’t think most people understand the idea and it causes them to allow themselves to be more inconsistent. The problem I have been having is burnout. Without any meaningful break for what feels like since covid began, I don’t know how to summon the energy to keep going nowadays.
Thank you, very inspiring! This moment I am very disappointed with the academic life, and is good to share that there are a lot of things going wrong with our educational system, but also that there are other, more simpler attitudes we can take, to educate our will and improve on what we can control.
Perfect timing! Undergrad Classical Mechanics final is in two days, I spent one of the last lectures staring at the lecture projection (Poisson brackets in Hamiltonians & Liouville's Thy/Eqns) like the dog in the Far Side cartoon trying to understand calculus and now realizing I have not only that to feel comfortable with but review my slightly dimming memories of Lagrangian problems (not too bad) and Central Forces (some blind spots there) :). The thing that can make me tell myself to procrastinate ("just4now") is the feeling of panic/overwhelmed which I have to get better at plowing through since once I start it's never that bad.
I was an undergraduate physics major back in the 90s. I went on to become a doctor. About two years ago, I was helping my mother clean out some old boxes and I ran across a cardboard box that contained quite a bit of my old college physics homework assignments, exams, etc. As I read through the problem sets and exam questions that I had answered long ago (most of which I could only very superficially understand now), I felt pleased that I had achieved such a level of understanding. It was the discipline and achievement itself that was its own reward. Of course if I had gone into physics as a career, this knowledge would’ve been more practical. But that wasn’t really the point for me and it may not be the point for most of you. I have a little mantra that I often repeat to my children. I ask “why do we do difficult things?” And they say “because they are difficult.” The point is to convey the idea that you won’t always know The result of your efforts in advance. But if you stay dedicated and get going, good things can happen even if you don’t know exactly what you’re aiming for.
I can think of so many times in life when I screwed up in school and many times it began by over committing myself and not making sure I had time to make sure I'm enjoying my life. I'm not saying we should blow off our work all the time to go out with friends but we do have to be mindful about making sure we are meeting our physical, emotional, and psychological needs. Those don't go away. They're as important as food and water. Remember, nature always wins so we must respect it.
Thanks for the video Andrew... I always thought people who do very good in Physics are always having some sort of motivation and many times I considered myself less competent in this field because i don't feel motivated enough. Now I have realized that completely relying on motivation is not the smartest thing to do.
A long time ago I committed to the idea of trying my best to paying enough attention during a Physics seminar to come up with ONE question at least to ask the presenter. That decision has helped me so much, especially getting over that fear of asking a question which, for me, ultimately boiled down to getting over my ego. I didn't want people to think I was stupid even though, in fact, people have expressed to me admiration over those who ask questions during talks. I believe this sort of training for attentiveness is extremely useful for creating wonderful connections for your future career.
I'm in my first semester of my second year of Physics, I've been really struggling this semester because of online classes. In my country, classes have been online for over a year now, and though I could still power through the first year online, once the second year started things really came crashing down for me. But the most important thing I learned is similar to what you shared, Andrew. Set goals for myself and realise why I want to achieve those goals. Plan my time well to achieve those goals smartly, while also leaving aside time for things that I would like to do (outside of studying). I've gotten a lot of help from psychological and philosophical "influencers" too like Dr. K and Jordan Peterson, and they have really helped in forming a stronger foundation and belief/philosophy fot my own life. I really think that focusing on one's own personal development, philosophy and purpose is so important. And I believe that once one gets better at those things, it'll make them better at anything (but I personally think that the advantage is quite bigger for Physicists because I don't think one can last long in this field (or even make it into this field) unless one is very firm and confident with their reasons for doing so. Thank you for this video Andrew. It was timely and amazing!!!
Most curriculum courses, even the most fun and advanced become such a pain in a semester. For example, I have learned more stuff about String Theory or Non-commutative geometry, on my own than on both the two courses I have already passed... The classes always demotivate me, the pace is always wrong, most of the time too slow and demoralizing shallow, and everything is done for the sake of solving some stupid exercises for some exercises sets with a super-pressuring deadline. Then you don't have the time to study what you really want to go in-depth. This constant avoidance of the full-depth explanations is so annoying. :(
To me, motivation is the ability to keep one thought in your head for as long as possible. Meditation has been helpful for that. Relying on discipline was helpful in undergrad, but now in grad school I'm feeling more lonely and depressed, so I have to deal with my mental health sometimes (listening to music, meditating, journaling, calling my girlfriend) before being able to work on my research at all. Wish me luck lol
Just get started! Getting a little done is better than getting nothing done because you're waiting for motivation. Also, motivation is not a requirement, but rather the reward of doing hard work (like runner's high). I'm much more motivated to study when I understand things, which happens when I put in the work and study.
Well, you put everything into words. I completely agree: discipline is what will make you successful. The note at the end was super important. One thing is not feeling motivated, the other is to fight depression. I used to be a depressed physics student and I was surprised to hear about it when I went to the psychologist. "Me, depressed?". It's true, even though sometimes I'd go like "let's rock this homework", it wouldn't happen a lot, and most of the times, my motivation to do tasks would come from the fact there only was 5 hours left to turn in the assignment. Now, I'm a teacher, a new math teacher, and I just finished my physics undergrad (I still have to do some stuff, but classes are over). Now that no one is looking after me, it's so hard to sit down and prepare classes: I just don't do it, although I love being a teacher. I'm just not disciplined enough, I guess.
This is really insightful for far more than just studying physics. It's too easy to shift blame away from one's self especially with the way our society functions today where there's not a lot of responsibility that is actually placed on a single person.
Thanks for making this video. I can relate to a lot of that. I am a data scientist, not a physicist, but I'm trying to learn about cosmology and get into research. I know that to get myself good at it, I have to learn the field (almost finished reading Ryden's fantastic book on the subject right now), solve the problems. I have to do them on good days and bad days. I have realised that motivation can get you started but discipline is needed to get going. And you're absolutely right that identifying the value of what you're doing is important - I suck at it but I'm getting better with time. Having said all that, last night I was feeling depressed about something, so it felt right to me to take a break and process my emotions. The one thing that I hadn't thought about is taking insights from what you learn or the problems you solve. Thanks for sharing that, that seems quite helpful.
I have made it this far because of my well-practiced ability to convince myself that physics is my passion and a burning desire to solve problems out of spite. I’ll show you Ms. Dion from 8th grade- bet you don’t know degenerate perturbation theory. Also being on a research project really helped. It gave me an insight as to why I was suffering through the classes, and a taste of what I want to do in the future. Class work sucks but I love research, so I have a light at the end of the tunnel.
"Also being on a research project really helped. It gave me an insight as to why I was suffering through the classes, and a taste of what I want to do in the future." Good to hear. Maybe I will feel better about my work when I can devote the majority of my time to research endeavors after I finish my class requirements.
I am strong believer that motivation is just a small burst in a very long process - it can get you a head start but to reach the end, you have to take things at your own pace.
Thanks a lot for the talk. I am a taking my first semester classes in undergraduate physics. Lol I got mechanics in first semester. It feels good to read examples and the text given, but I feel I am kind of lazy and lose interest while solving problems. I think I've got discipline issues as well cuz that's the reason I opened youtube instead of completing the problem set. I really hope I'll be back on track. And I also met you and greeted you in the REYES event! :)
Feel like introductory physics is very formulaic. It's all understanding concepts, memorizing a couple of equations and manipulating them in just the right way, whilst maintaining the originals' elegance i.e. not messing up the math, to obtain new equations which are applicable to only some special cases/problem sets and then plugging in some numbers, if necessary. Do you get a similar vibe? Btw, what do find to more difficult: memorizing formulae or doing the math (or both)? If it's the former, then try to make better notes (preferably in your free time) by using/referring your lectures notes such that you write down the generalized equations and what all the respective letters/quantities mean (and their units in parentheses) beside them and then working your way down, specializing them for specific conditions/problems and again identifying what all the new variables introduced mean, and all their respective units, beside each special equation. You can also write down definitions and draw labeled diagrams before/alongside equations, wherever necessary, to make them easier and clearer to understand. You can even, at a later stage, make a table comparing equations that look similar for example (a very basic one), Newton's Law of Gravitation and Coulomb's Law. In this way, you get a quick-review notebook for future reference! (Do let me know if you find this approach useful or if you're already doing something similar) If it's the latter, then watch Andrew's video about it. (think it's called "How I Got Good at Math" if I remember correctly) He has also made a video regaring the thought-process that goes into solving problems, specifically for freshmen, titled something along the lines of "How to Solve Physics Problems" (Do watch these videos, sorry for not having memorized their titles perfectly) Regards
@@juijani4445 hahha I exactly feel the same! Thank your for the tip! I think I will follow whatever you told!. I am an unorganised person and probably that costed me many things. I should make sure I am more organised in maintaining notes and all.. May I know what you are doing? Like are you a physicist or a grad student...?
as someone about to graduate in may with my bachelor in physics, i really needed this. it’s always been my dream to continue going forward to grad school, but i’ve never felt more discouraged and unmotivated than i do now despite my love for the field
I'm 29 years old, on my last year of a bachelors in in mechanical engineering. All during my previous schooling, up until I started at university, I've never needed to study to get good grades. When I was done with initial schooling I didn't know what I wanted to do for a long time, so I worked for a few years until I started my studies. The positive thing about this is that I know for a fact what I want and how to get it now. I also have work and life experience to help with my studies (yes it does help with many things even though they're not experiences from engineering). The bad thing is that since I never needed discipline to do school work, I never developed those habits to use in the obviously much harder schooling that is STEM. It's been extremely hard for me to sit down and work through the years of my bachelors, even when I know I need to do it. Time just flies away on other things, and suddenly it's nighttime, and I have no time left that day. It doesn't help that I haven't gotten a good wake-up call from grades during my time in uni either, cause guess what? Grades are still ok, just a bit worse than previous school years. I don't get a burst of discipline until 1 week before the final exam in most subjects. What I absolutely hate about this is that I know I could do much better if I just had the discipline, but since the grades are still ok without it, my brain goes "LOL no, youtube goes brrrrrrrr" etc. I'm starting my bachelors thesis after christmas, and there's no more stem subjects beside it, so this exam period is basically the last one. At the moment I've just accepted that this is how my bachelors degree went, since I'm going to do a masters in a different field of engineering starting next year anyway. I'm hoping that I can make myself disciplined in the masters to show myself what I really can do. And I'm hoping that a future employer won't look too hard at my bachelors grades when I have the masters degree and (hopefully) better grades there.
you spoke to my soul on this one. i'm a first year engineering student, and although i hate blaming things that are outta my control (cuz it'll sound like an excuse), i feel the pandemic has ruined my school life. from losing the second half of senior year in high school, to feeling like an idiot, failing some exams, not feeling well enough to grind to everything. I needed to hear this. You, good Sir, have earned yourself a sub.
Having realized exactly the same thing a year ago makes me so happy for having made the correct decision of just doing useful stuff whether I like it or not. Also, I love generalizing everything so so much! Makes problems a heck of a lot easier to deal with!
For me it works like this, do I always have the motivation to study enough to be a physicist? No Am I willing to do anything else? Yikes, no, guess I'll just study I just think about my average day, and the opportunities to meet other physicists and work on such cool problems, I'll do what it takes to be able to keep my life this way :D
Thank you very much for this insightful video . Motivation and discipline is a critical point when learning physics . i hope if you can expand on this topic more in other videos as well . "Severe question anxiety" you got me there
One thing that helps me keep my motivation is trying to take at least one class a semester that I can say I’m genuinely interested and leads to having an assignment that I’m actually motivated to complete. Then I can use that as a reward for getting my other work done. Doesn’t always work out, of course. The other thing is I’m usually much more motivated to work on my research, so I can also use that as a “treat”.
value identification formula: V =(10000*(difficulty + (immediate consequence)) /deadline) rate the difficulty on a scale of 1 to 100 rate the immediate consequence of 1 to 100 deadline is the time given in minutes
My motivation is thin because I have a full time job I stay motivated I hate restaurant industry and I don't want to go back, Ever. Also I love how wierd physics is. Really love. Since I was 14
I am able to keep on studying or see the end of an incredibly boring task because I don't feel obliged to feel happy all the time. And that's, why I am annoyed by talks like, do what makes you happy and follow your passion stuff. At the end of the day, I try to stay away from the added stress of trying to feel happy/good.
Guys listen carefully to what he's saying, don't dismiss it. He's actually espousing a philosophy called Winner's Mindset, not very academic sounding but nonetheless super powerful. It just means that winners get things done regardless of circumstances or feelings. They plug through their work on the good days AND the bad. It means to rely on self discipline and not motivation to see you through. This is difficult to do, but this is what's necessary if you're going to succeed at anything sufficiently difficult. Forget motivation, train up your self discipline. If you're studying your passion, the storm will pass on its own as you just keep going.
You need to rename this video to 'Andrew's guide to the Existential' I think where most people fall off is in that middle ground you mentioned at 9:14, some call it burnout, but I'm not sure if that's a strong enough work for pretending we're not depressed (or in this case 'fighting bad days with discipline'). As someone who is super competitive I always shit talked myself to get motivated, but there's a fine line between being your own competition and hating yourself for being a loser. I know it took me a very long time to realize that while effective, cramming was the biggest cause of my academic anxiety/imposter syndrome. I mean these days, cramming* is so easy with the internet, and there are so many rabbit holes to be found (*By cramming, I mean useless days of forced discipline and zero interest, regardless of time frame). If you are someone who just naturally has like A's in lab and C's or D's in theory, and then over-compensates by learning an entire course load the night before an exam, maybe it's time to take a step back and ask if it's right for you. I learned that I take physics, math, astronomy, and those type of classes because I am obsessed with scientific reductionism (or making a real world problem fit a math equation) If what you are doing right now isn't going to make you any happier once you are done, walk.
As a math major, I hold myself to a high standerd. When I work trashy, make stupid mistakes, or having a slow day I never know what will heal my pain. I love math; my love for maths is what I use. I understand there does not exist a lifetime of mistakes is zero, stupid or not.
I think the most beneficial thing I took away from this video was to shit talk myself into doing shit. I genuinely feel like that was what I need to hear most to succeed.
It is weird with me I will be willing to spend the entire night on a problem and still be motivated to do more when I am on summer break. I realized I love physics and want to cherish every moment of what I learned rather than being given a four month timeframe in which I have to learn the content while competing for a job. I lost my motivation to study physics after seeing other perform way better than me, being unable to find a job and family pressure.
Discipline is the product of personal refinement. Yet, there is something to be said about keeping oneself in the right mindset. It is imperative to retain a growth centered mentality especially in the face of difficulty. I think it is quite agreeable that recognizing that there is always an opportunity to learn and improve sews the seeds for discipline. However, mentality is not an individual effort. People in positions of power and leadership can instill either growth or fixed mindsets. Having discipline can mean to overcome an implied fixed mindset and continue to learn and grow. But that requires having to experience the difficulty, which in some ways is tied to poor instructional method. The key to take away is to retain a growth centered outlook despite your struggles.
Remember to discipline your equations instead of motivating them, and also remember to go to NordVPN.com/andrewdotson to get a 2-year plan plus an additional month with a huge discount!
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Don't think I missed that All Time Low reference at 0:37!!! They were my jam in high school
When I decided to go back to school my therapist told me that motivation is a great way to get started, but it won't get you through it. The best way to look at it is to say "This is what I do." I am a student and I read text books and write papers. I am going into a physics based discipline and I do practice problems. It's important not to see it as "have to do" because that can lead to feeling guilt when you don't and will make it feel like a chore. Seeing all my coursework as something I do rather than relying on motivation or seeing it as something I have to do has helped me stay consistent and keep on task, even when I'd rather be doing something else.
That could work, but failing with that attitude sounds like the fastest way to have a full-blown identity crisis. Just keep the emphasis on "do" and not "I." Just because you're taking on the role of "a student" for some time doesn't mean it should be your answer to the question, "who are you?"
These are the same therapists who will then say things like "you are not your job" and "you are worth more than your work" when this line of thinking leads to negative consequences -- like interpreting setbacks and difficulties as personal failings.
Congrats on returning to school, as a returning student myself, I know how hard it can be. I also agree with the advice you shared, a lot comes down to mindset.
It’s not low motivation brotha, it’s an insane difficulty to grasp the content that puts fear in my soul
EXACTLY it won’t bite and it’s okay to make mistakes as long as you keep stroking it
This is so true, sometimes physics gets so hard you want to run away and forget about it
Same lmao. I'm just so annoyed by the fact that kinematics is so hard for me.
This could not have come at a better time for me, thanks a lot Andrew!
What helps me is realising that my work probably isn't nearly as hard as I think, and that helps a lot of the time. The whole discipline soldier thing doesn't really work for me at all, I just need to put the situation into a persepctive that my brain won't freak out about, and that is really all that has helped.
Ah so you kind of convince yourself that it's never as bad as it seems which makes it more manageable, cool tip!
This sounds helpful..
Thank you
The issue with this strategy is that sometimes you wont be able to put things into the right perspective quickly enough. And so you may lose days or even weeks trying to find the right perspective before you get up and work again. So, this is why discipline matters. You just train yourself to slog through painful situations even when they suck; especially when it sucks. This way you dont lose time.
Also something my mom always says that’s helped me, is to say this isn’t something I have to do, it’s something I get to do.
Thank you Mrs Dotson
Oh boy, I definitely resonated with this video! My motivation during my Physics PhD definitely took a nose-dive during the start of the pandemic and especially after reaching PhD Candidacy. I think what I came to realize was that for most of undergraduate + start of graduate school, I had relied a lot on the constant pressure and deadlines from class assignments, midterms, finals, etc. to keep me motivated to succeed, but after finishing all my classes and transitioning into full-time research, those motivating factors went away. Not going to lie, there was a stretch of time post-Candidacy that I literally didn't do anything physics related for what felt like weeks, and I was very ashamed of it. However, I think it was an important wake-up call for me that I needed to set up my own structure and routine outside of a classroom setting, and I'm happy to say that I've gotten back on track with my PhD now.
Glad you pointed that out! It is so weird going from intense structure of the first year or two to almost free again, definitely easy to star slipping there.
we've all been there
I am naturally a thorough person, I like to do all the derivation steps that get skipped in textbooks, and I like to really understand what I'm doing intuitively wherever I use a problem solving method. That's why studying quantum mechanics on a quarter system has been the absolute bane of my existence. "What does this sprawling mess of linear algebra and interaction integrals mean? Well we could spend a whole week exploring it, but we only have 10 of those, so we're moving on!"
University is beating the disciplined physicist out of me *sigh*
I'm feeling this reading math research papers
Motivation is what get's you started, discipline is what keeps you going. As a grad student, I look back at my early undergrad when I was just so excited to do everything versus now when I just kinda do things cause I know I have to.
When you've been doing this shit for years in grad school or beyond, I feel like it just becomes like any other job you feel disciplined enough to do.
Easier to steer something that's already moving!
I'm a junior in Physics and Math and next week I have my finals. I absolutely needed this. Frankly I'm really glad you didn't just give us a whole speech on how to keep our motivation up 100% of the time. That kind of stuff just makes me feel worse when I can't seem to get motivated. Thanks for the words of wisdom Smart Man, time to sit my ass down and study for my quantum exam
good luck bro🙏🏽 i got a 91 on my quantum exam last week, you got this!
I was struggling a lot academically up to my second year of Physics undergrad with a CGPA of less than 3. I thought I liked Physics, but I used to rely on motivation to study all the time. Or study advanced topics out of syllabus without any plan or continuity.
Many of your vlogs, the tensor videos helped me at that time to pivot my strategy. I put efforts into trying to follow a strict schedule to study and after a few months they became habits. My performance improved tremendously and I graduated with a decent profile. This week I got my first acceptance to a PhD program!
Thank you very much for all the hard work and I just wanted to let you know that you are leaving deep impacts on people thousand miles away.
What keeps me motivated is knowing that failure is NOT an option for me. I always knew I wanted to study physics and be the best I possibly could. So when push came to shove and I lacked motivation, feeling that I might fail to reach my goals enabled me to develop the necessary dicipline to keep on grinding.
I’ve lacked determination and discipline recently and had suffered in university for it. But I’m coming back next semester full steam ahead! It’s surprising how related doing homeworks and deriving equations are to making your bed and doing laundry. It’s all about discipline!
I loved this video, thank you Andrew Dotson for this reassuring reminder! :)
One of the best pieces of advice I've heard (regarding thesis writing, although I apply the philosophy more generally) is summed up as "you don't need to commit to finishing now, but you do need to commit to starting now."
More narrowly, the advice was: force yourself to do 30 minutes of thesis-writing a day. If you get to the end of that 30 minutes and it's still painful and you want to stop, fine, call it quits for the day and come back the next day. You did some work, and eventually you'll get past the painful part and things will pick up again. But often - even when the part was initially painful - you'll find that after 30 minutes you just want to finish your section, or that you're otherwise motivated, and things will flow again, at least for a bit, at which point you work until you feel done for the day.
And I find this really works for me: if I have something I'm avoiding, I usually just need to start, and then I don't want to stop. Newton's first law of working: it takes some force to get me to start moving (and that's the discipline part), but then I'll keep moving unless my work provides a substantial amount of friction.
I like it
For me procrastination has been a huge problem in school.
At my university there is alot of self study and that is not optimal considering my procrastination.
So the thing I do is I am always at university from basically 9-5 and work there. If I need to work more I stay there longer.
Try to separate university and home. Make them a place for work and a place for non productive stuff.
I have to bend this rule with huge assignments, but the deadline and importance would often be motivation enough.
What this did for me was it created a shift in my brain. When I walk to the university I would have another mindset more fit for work that I just couldnt get while at home.
It helped me not mix work and relaxing. Then working would be spent sometimes doing other stuff and relaxing would be spent being anxious of not having done enough.
TL;DR
I got a schedule, or discipline, which is in theme with the video.
Don't underestimate that.
I’ve been using discipline ever since my army days and all throughout my engineering degree path to “get things done” but I actually got something out of this video when you mentioned the discipline required to give a speaker your undivided attention. I always thought that if it wasn’t interesting to me within 10 minutes that it wasn’t worthy of my attention, but you’re totally right, I have an obligation to listen to the whole presentation and come up with a few questions. Especially for an expert who took time out of their schedule to present something to me.
Thank you! I lose motivation self teaching myself physics and mathematics. I’m a teenager that is busy with Calc 1 and physics 2. This really helped me because I sometimes lose motivation when I don’t understand certain things in physics.
You should try study with friends it will keep you motivated
@Tejas its doesn't matter if only if he is interested
Alsl study computer science, I promise it will help you a lot in the future. I also used to study physics and calculus as a teenager and even got international physics olympiad awards, but the truth is that there are not so many career options for physics majors. But at least it will help to get accepted to best universities, which is great. So, I wish you the best
@@wiserhuman21 Yeah I want to learn some programming and computer science but I haven’t had the time or motivation. In the Summer vacation is December (I live in South Africa so it is summer here) i’ll try to do some computer science. I don’t really know what I want to do with my life, but I do believe you’re right that I should do computer science. Money is tight right now so i’ll try my best!
@@wiserhuman21 So he can be a slave of some company? How about no?
Motivation
Despite being in a completely unrelated field, forcing yourself to formulate and ask a question each class is a great strategy.
I think that identifying yourself as a physics student and viewing school work as something you do, simply because solving problems and tackling difficult concepts is something physics students do can help. At least it helped me a lot. And motivation comes and goes, it's nice when it's around but discipline and hard work will get you further.
Anyway, thanks for the vid Andrew, it was a good reminder. Cheers!
I like it
Not a physicist here - I just enjoy reading about/learning a bit of physics on my own time - but this is solid advice for pretty much any field of study. Thanks for this!
Omg, perfect timing. I had a sleepless night and want to avoid all of my final homeworks, paper, and exam prep. I treat school as a 9-5 job and usually set myself timers for 25 minutes with 5-10 minute breaks in between work sessions. There's a name for this method that I can't recall at the moment. It breaks up my study sessions into small chunks that feel more manageable. I also give myself one day completely void of responsibilities, so I can recharge for my busy week ahead.
I think the name of the method is pomodoro.
I do this too!!! It's been the best thing for me. I get overwhelmed when I think I have too much stuff to do, but when I use the Pomodoro Technique it makes me feel like I'm breaking my task into little chucks. I also get to look forward to a break :). One of my favorite podcasts has a playlist of focus music and he times the playlist to end after 30 minutes, then a 5-minute break, then another 30 minutes. It's called "Flow State".
Watching this while in a zoom lecture talking about legendre polynomials. This is a great use of my time and will never bite me in the ass later.
Spark notes: P_n is a degree n=0,1,2,... polynomial with P_n(1)=1, and the whole set orthonormal, with the dot product of polynomials (in this context) defined as P_m dot P_n = int_{-1}^{1} P_m(x)P_n(x) dx. Explicitly, P_n(x) is given by (n!2^n)^{-1} times the n-th (x-)derivative of (x^2-1)^n; this is called Rodrigues' formula. That's enough to clumsily brute-force your way through many problems. Also, they satisfy a recurrence relation in n, a differential equation, and are given by a generating function. Crucially, that particular generating function turns out to be extremely important because it comes up naturally in a bunch of physical situations.
I have found that I need to settle my emotions to be able to study, If I had a spat with my GF or is worried about something, if I don't deal with it before sitting down to study I will not be able to focus nearly as effectively as when I am "emotionally settled" - Emotional health is health! and take care of yourselves! Discipline is good but like Andrew suggests apply it correctly
(This is meant as support"/nuance" for Andrews argument, not an opposition)
Definitely agree
Wow, that cheat code analogy really changed my perspective on motivation. You're the best, Andrew!
Thanks andrew, Im just finishing up with qft this sem and oh boy has it been a ride, my two brain cells had a tough time but things are wrapping up nicely.
I kind of accepted that my motivation comes and goes. Sometimes I can do an incredible amount of work in a month, sometimes I can't do anything useful at all for a month, except for day to day tasks. Although I do agree that discipline and motivation are not the same, and being disciplined is extremely important
Right now I’m doing my thesis for my last year in Applied Phyiscs undergrad, and I guess for the proposal part I finished way earlier than the deadline. What pushed me to do so was a combination of different things; (1) I was lucky enough to study something I actually like, so who am I to slack off and take that shit for granted. (2) I aim to finish things before they’re due, because my anxiety peaks when I cram. (3) My personal manifesto throughout all of my school life is “work while others sleep, so you can sleep while others work.” And lastly, (4) I looked for the fun in what I did. I enjoyed learning how to format the LaTeX document, I enjoyed learning how to make different plots on Python, and I just enjoyed understanding things a little better each day.
I have a QFT assignment due in 2 hours, and here I am
This was very helpful! Thank you :)
How’d it go?
I struggle with making myself study for an exam that's more than a day away. The thing that works the best for me then is to impose deadlines on myself to emulate the pressure of the upcoming exam. For example, I have a PDE exam in 3 days - but today, I HAVE to finish half of the suggested problems
A lot of my friends often tell me about how I’m a better student than them but I think it’s really that I’m just more disciplined. I don’t think most people understand the idea and it causes them to allow themselves to be more inconsistent. The problem I have been having is burnout. Without any meaningful break for what feels like since covid began, I don’t know how to summon the energy to keep going nowadays.
Being too disciplined can be counterproductive too in the long run.
Thank you, very inspiring! This moment I am very disappointed with the academic life, and is good to share that there are a lot of things going wrong with our educational system, but also that there are other, more simpler attitudes we can take, to educate our will and improve on what we can control.
> Peacefully wrapping up your semesters
more like somersaulting myself a hundred feet up in the air while being on fire as I finish up my sem
Perfect timing! Undergrad Classical Mechanics final is in two days, I spent one of the last lectures staring at the lecture projection (Poisson brackets in Hamiltonians & Liouville's Thy/Eqns) like the dog in the Far Side cartoon trying to understand calculus and now realizing I have not only that to feel comfortable with but review my slightly dimming memories of Lagrangian problems (not too bad) and Central Forces (some blind spots there) :). The thing that can make me tell myself to procrastinate ("just4now") is the feeling of panic/overwhelmed which I have to get better at plowing through since once I start it's never that bad.
Wow sounds like a tough (but good) exam, good luck!
I was an undergraduate physics major back in the 90s. I went on to become a doctor. About two years ago, I was helping my mother clean out some old boxes and I ran across a cardboard box that contained quite a bit of my old college physics homework assignments, exams, etc. As I read through the problem sets and exam questions that I had answered long ago (most of which I could only very superficially understand now), I felt pleased that I had achieved such a level of understanding. It was the discipline and achievement itself that was its own reward. Of course if I had gone into physics as a career, this knowledge would’ve been more practical. But that wasn’t really the point for me and it may not be the point for most of you. I have a little mantra that I often repeat to my children. I ask “why do we do difficult things?” And they say “because they are difficult.” The point is to convey the idea that you won’t always know The result of your efforts in advance. But if you stay dedicated and get going, good things can happen even if you don’t know exactly what you’re aiming for.
I can think of so many times in life when I screwed up in school and many times it began by over committing myself and not making sure I had time to make sure I'm enjoying my life. I'm not saying we should blow off our work all the time to go out with friends but we do have to be mindful about making sure we are meeting our physical, emotional, and psychological needs. Those don't go away. They're as important as food and water. Remember, nature always wins so we must respect it.
You look great Andrew! 75th!! Ready for Christmas?🎄Love ~ Mom💕💕
Thanks for the video Andrew... I always thought people who do very good in Physics are always having some sort of motivation and many times I considered myself less competent in this field because i don't feel motivated enough. Now I have realized that completely relying on motivation is not the smartest thing to do.
A long time ago I committed to the idea of trying my best to paying enough attention during a Physics seminar to come up with ONE question at least to ask the presenter.
That decision has helped me so much, especially getting over that fear of asking a question which, for me, ultimately boiled down to getting over my ego. I didn't want people to think I was stupid even though, in fact, people have expressed to me admiration over those who ask questions during talks.
I believe this sort of training for attentiveness is extremely useful for creating wonderful connections for your future career.
Uploaded right after I finished my last final exam. Perfectly imperfect timing.
I had so low motivation to study physics that i switched to math
I'm in my first semester of my second year of Physics, I've been really struggling this semester because of online classes. In my country, classes have been online for over a year now, and though I could still power through the first year online, once the second year started things really came crashing down for me.
But the most important thing I learned is similar to what you shared, Andrew. Set goals for myself and realise why I want to achieve those goals. Plan my time well to achieve those goals smartly, while also leaving aside time for things that I would like to do (outside of studying). I've gotten a lot of help from psychological and philosophical "influencers" too like Dr. K and Jordan Peterson, and they have really helped in forming a stronger foundation and belief/philosophy fot my own life.
I really think that focusing on one's own personal development, philosophy and purpose is so important. And I believe that once one gets better at those things, it'll make them better at anything (but I personally think that the advantage is quite bigger for Physicists because I don't think one can last long in this field (or even make it into this field) unless one is very firm and confident with their reasons for doing so.
Thank you for this video Andrew. It was timely and amazing!!!
Finished first term in Cambridge 2nd year Physics. What a hell it was with Fourier Optics and Emag etc. This was so so needed
Just when I needed this, Andrew came for the rescue. Thanks man!! You’re amazing.
Most curriculum courses, even the most fun and advanced become such a pain in a semester.
For example, I have learned more stuff about String Theory or Non-commutative geometry, on my own than on both the two courses I have already passed...
The classes always demotivate me, the pace is always wrong, most of the time too slow and demoralizing shallow, and everything is done for the sake of solving some stupid exercises for some exercises sets with a super-pressuring deadline. Then you don't have the time to study what you really want to go in-depth.
This constant avoidance of the full-depth explanations is so annoying. :(
To me, motivation is the ability to keep one thought in your head for as long as possible. Meditation has been helpful for that. Relying on discipline was helpful in undergrad, but now in grad school I'm feeling more lonely and depressed, so I have to deal with my mental health sometimes (listening to music, meditating, journaling, calling my girlfriend) before being able to work on my research at all. Wish me luck lol
Just get started! Getting a little done is better than getting nothing done because you're waiting for motivation. Also, motivation is not a requirement, but rather the reward of doing hard work (like runner's high). I'm much more motivated to study when I understand things, which happens when I put in the work and study.
Well, you put everything into words. I completely agree: discipline is what will make you successful.
The note at the end was super important. One thing is not feeling motivated, the other is to fight depression. I used to be a depressed physics student and I was surprised to hear about it when I went to the psychologist. "Me, depressed?". It's true, even though sometimes I'd go like "let's rock this homework", it wouldn't happen a lot, and most of the times, my motivation to do tasks would come from the fact there only was 5 hours left to turn in the assignment. Now, I'm a teacher, a new math teacher, and I just finished my physics undergrad (I still have to do some stuff, but classes are over). Now that no one is looking after me, it's so hard to sit down and prepare classes: I just don't do it, although I love being a teacher. I'm just not disciplined enough, I guess.
This is really insightful for far more than just studying physics. It's too easy to shift blame away from one's self especially with the way our society functions today where there's not a lot of responsibility that is actually placed on a single person.
Thanks for making this video. I can relate to a lot of that. I am a data scientist, not a physicist, but I'm trying to learn about cosmology and get into research. I know that to get myself good at it, I have to learn the field (almost finished reading Ryden's fantastic book on the subject right now), solve the problems. I have to do them on good days and bad days. I have realised that motivation can get you started but discipline is needed to get going. And you're absolutely right that identifying the value of what you're doing is important - I suck at it but I'm getting better with time. Having said all that, last night I was feeling depressed about something, so it felt right to me to take a break and process my emotions.
The one thing that I hadn't thought about is taking insights from what you learn or the problems you solve. Thanks for sharing that, that seems quite helpful.
I think being able to look back at what you have achieved and what paths have now opened up helps me a lot
I have made it this far because of my well-practiced ability to convince myself that physics is my passion and a burning desire to solve problems out of spite. I’ll show you Ms. Dion from 8th grade- bet you don’t know degenerate perturbation theory.
Also being on a research project really helped. It gave me an insight as to why I was suffering through the classes, and a taste of what I want to do in the future. Class work sucks but I love research, so I have a light at the end of the tunnel.
"Also being on a research project really helped. It gave me an insight as to why I was suffering through the classes, and a taste of what I want to do in the future."
Good to hear. Maybe I will feel better about my work when I can devote the majority of my time to research endeavors after I finish my class requirements.
Motivation to study or work overall is hard to keep. Everything monotony strikes, Motivation decreases. Thanks Andrew for the tips :)
I am strong believer that motivation is just a small burst in a very long process - it can get you a head start but to reach the end, you have to take things at your own pace.
Thanks a lot for the talk. I am a taking my first semester classes in undergraduate physics. Lol I got mechanics in first semester. It feels good to read examples and the text given, but I feel I am kind of lazy and lose interest while solving problems. I think I've got discipline issues as well cuz that's the reason I opened youtube instead of completing the problem set. I really hope I'll be back on track. And I also met you and greeted you in the REYES event! :)
Feel like introductory physics is very formulaic. It's all understanding concepts, memorizing a couple of equations and manipulating them in just the right way, whilst maintaining the originals' elegance i.e. not messing up the math, to obtain new equations which are applicable to only some special cases/problem sets and then plugging in some numbers, if necessary. Do you get a similar vibe? Btw, what do find to more difficult: memorizing formulae or doing the math (or both)?
If it's the former, then try to make better notes (preferably in your free time) by using/referring your lectures notes such that you write down the generalized equations and what all the respective letters/quantities mean (and their units in parentheses) beside them and then working your way down, specializing them for specific conditions/problems and again identifying what all the new variables introduced mean, and all their respective units, beside each special equation. You can also write down definitions and draw labeled diagrams before/alongside equations, wherever necessary, to make them easier and clearer to understand. You can even, at a later stage, make a table comparing equations that look similar for example (a very basic one), Newton's Law of Gravitation and Coulomb's Law. In this way, you get a quick-review notebook for future reference! (Do let me know if you find this approach useful or if you're already doing something similar)
If it's the latter, then watch Andrew's video about it. (think it's called "How I Got Good at Math" if I remember correctly)
He has also made a video regaring the thought-process that goes into solving problems, specifically for freshmen, titled something along the lines of "How to Solve Physics Problems" (Do watch these videos, sorry for not having memorized their titles perfectly)
Regards
@@juijani4445 hahha I exactly feel the same! Thank your for the tip! I think I will follow whatever you told!. I am an unorganised person and probably that costed me many things. I should make sure I am more organised in maintaining notes and all.. May I know what you are doing? Like are you a physicist or a grad student...?
as someone about to graduate in may with my bachelor in physics, i really needed this. it’s always been my dream to continue going forward to grad school, but i’ve never felt more discouraged and unmotivated than i do now despite my love for the field
I'm 29 years old, on my last year of a bachelors in in mechanical engineering.
All during my previous schooling, up until I started at university, I've never needed to study to get good grades. When I was done with initial schooling I didn't know what I wanted to do for a long time, so I worked for a few years until I started my studies.
The positive thing about this is that I know for a fact what I want and how to get it now. I also have work and life experience to help with my studies (yes it does help with many things even though they're not experiences from engineering).
The bad thing is that since I never needed discipline to do school work, I never developed those habits to use in the obviously much harder schooling that is STEM. It's been extremely hard for me to sit down and work through the years of my bachelors, even when I know I need to do it. Time just flies away on other things, and suddenly it's nighttime, and I have no time left that day. It doesn't help that I haven't gotten a good wake-up call from grades during my time in uni either, cause guess what? Grades are still ok, just a bit worse than previous school years. I don't get a burst of discipline until 1 week before the final exam in most subjects. What I absolutely hate about this is that I know I could do much better if I just had the discipline, but since the grades are still ok without it, my brain goes "LOL no, youtube goes brrrrrrrr" etc.
I'm starting my bachelors thesis after christmas, and there's no more stem subjects beside it, so this exam period is basically the last one. At the moment I've just accepted that this is how my bachelors degree went, since I'm going to do a masters in a different field of engineering starting next year anyway. I'm hoping that I can make myself disciplined in the masters to show myself what I really can do. And I'm hoping that a future employer won't look too hard at my bachelors grades when I have the masters degree and (hopefully) better grades there.
That was the smoothest ad transition I've seen in a while
Calling me out, saw this as I was procrastinating my Atmospheric Science studying for my exam Friday...thanks Andrew!
you spoke to my soul on this one. i'm a first year engineering student, and although i hate blaming things that are outta my control (cuz it'll sound like an excuse), i feel the pandemic has ruined my school life. from losing the second half of senior year in high school, to feeling like an idiot, failing some exams, not feeling well enough to grind to everything. I needed to hear this. You, good Sir, have earned yourself a sub.
Glad you found it helpful!
Having realized exactly the same thing a year ago makes me so happy for having made the correct decision of just doing useful stuff whether I like it or not. Also, I love generalizing everything so so much! Makes problems a heck of a lot easier to deal with!
I'm so glad you uploaded!
Can't tell you how much I have needed to see this video
The timing of the video couldn't be better. Thanks man
A solid video. The sponsor plug was fun. I think deadlines can be motivating.
For me it works like this, do I always have the motivation to study enough to be a physicist? No
Am I willing to do anything else? Yikes, no, guess I'll just study
I just think about my average day, and the opportunities to meet other physicists and work on such cool problems, I'll do what it takes to be able to keep my life this way :D
I love how low to the ground this is. Like just real talk about being disciplined and big "better yourself" talk. I love it.
Thank you very much for this insightful video . Motivation and discipline is a critical point when learning physics . i hope if you can expand on this topic more in other videos as well .
"Severe question anxiety" you got me there
I always find myself being more discipline by explicitly writing down what task I should do at which time and also planning in reasonable breaks.
One thing that helps me keep my motivation is trying to take at least one class a semester that I can say I’m genuinely interested and leads to having an assignment that I’m actually motivated to complete. Then I can use that as a reward for getting my other work done. Doesn’t always work out, of course.
The other thing is I’m usually much more motivated to work on my research, so I can also use that as a “treat”.
value identification formula:
V =(10000*(difficulty + (immediate consequence)) /deadline)
rate the difficulty on a scale of 1 to 100
rate the immediate consequence of 1 to 100
deadline is the time given in minutes
I am watching u since I was in class 11 now I am a undergrad physics student
I think of life in general as a big adventure where you have to improve yourself and the only tool you have is discipline.
Thank you for this video Andrew
My motivation is thin because I have a full time job
I stay motivated I hate restaurant industry and I don't want to go back,
Ever.
Also I love how wierd physics is.
Really love. Since I was 14
me watching this as an engineering student: 👁👄👁
I am able to keep on studying or see the end of an incredibly boring task because I don't feel obliged to feel happy all the time. And that's, why I am annoyed by talks like, do what makes you happy and follow your passion stuff. At the end of the day, I try to stay away from the added stress of trying to feel happy/good.
Guys listen carefully to what he's saying, don't dismiss it. He's actually espousing a philosophy called Winner's Mindset, not very academic sounding but nonetheless super powerful. It just means that winners get things done regardless of circumstances or feelings. They plug through their work on the good days AND the bad. It means to rely on self discipline and not motivation to see you through. This is difficult to do, but this is what's necessary if you're going to succeed at anything sufficiently difficult.
Forget motivation, train up your self discipline. If you're studying your passion, the storm will pass on its own as you just keep going.
I liked the advice bit about attentiveness and asking questions at talks.
This could not have come at any better time. I am feeling the same and I will try to be more discipline to get through it. Thank You Andrew
You need to rename this video to 'Andrew's guide to the Existential'
I think where most people fall off is in that middle ground you mentioned at 9:14, some call it burnout, but I'm not sure if that's a strong enough work for pretending we're not depressed (or in this case 'fighting bad days with discipline'). As someone who is super competitive I always shit talked myself to get motivated, but there's a fine line between being your own competition and hating yourself for being a loser.
I know it took me a very long time to realize that while effective, cramming was the biggest cause of my academic anxiety/imposter syndrome. I mean these days, cramming* is so easy with the internet, and there are so many rabbit holes to be found (*By cramming, I mean useless days of forced discipline and zero interest, regardless of time frame).
If you are someone who just naturally has like A's in lab and C's or D's in theory, and then over-compensates by learning an entire course load the night before an exam, maybe it's time to take a step back and ask if it's right for you. I learned that I take physics, math, astronomy, and those type of classes because I am obsessed with scientific reductionism (or making a real world problem fit a math equation)
If what you are doing right now isn't going to make you any happier once you are done, walk.
Discipline, motivation, curiosity,... all of that might be part of the equation, but so is luck. I think people love to overlook that one the most.
This video was incredible, I love the way you explain things. Such grounded, practical advice
Thanks a lot!
This could not have come at a better time honestly
This is my go-to motivational video from now on. Thanks Andrew! I'll let you know in a month if this still does it for me
How do you feel about it now??
As a math major, I hold myself to a high standerd. When I work trashy, make stupid mistakes, or having a slow day I never know what will heal my pain. I love math; my love for maths is what I use. I understand there does not exist a lifetime of mistakes is zero, stupid or not.
I think the most beneficial thing I took away from this video was to shit talk myself into doing shit. I genuinely feel like that was what I need to hear most to succeed.
This video was surprisingly super helpful, thanks man.
Andrew I'm not even a physics major (CS freshman), but the advice you gave is applicable to me too. Thanks a lot mate.
I think the vastness of physics is so much and so deep that you can never be bored by it - for me at least.
I really lack confidence especially in physics and this really helped Dr.thanks
It is weird with me I will be willing to spend the entire night on a problem and still be motivated to do more when I am on summer break. I realized I love physics and want to cherish every moment of what I learned rather than being given a four month timeframe in which I have to learn the content while competing for a job. I lost my motivation to study physics after seeing other perform way better than me, being unable to find a job and family pressure.
i missed you. thanks for your videos
I needed to hear this! Thanks, Andrew.
Discipline is the product of personal refinement. Yet, there is something to be said about keeping oneself in the right mindset. It is imperative to retain a growth centered mentality especially in the face of difficulty. I think it is quite agreeable that recognizing that there is always an opportunity to learn and improve sews the seeds for discipline. However, mentality is not an individual effort. People in positions of power and leadership can instill either growth or fixed mindsets. Having discipline can mean to overcome an implied fixed mindset and continue to learn and grow. But that requires having to experience the difficulty, which in some ways is tied to poor instructional method. The key to take away is to retain a growth centered outlook despite your struggles.
"Can I identify the value of the work?" Great point
Hearing a well delivered talk on discipline is in turn a motivation to go implement this course of action 😁
I love how during the part when he was talking about talks how you should be disciplined and listen, I wasn't and was responding to random messages
Thank you for posting it the day of my final :D
I just make my mind up that there's always something harder to get through later and i can always look back at my work to polish my thinking