Discipline is overpriced. Incentives are underpriced.
New Year's resolutions have a reported ∼91% failure rate.
People who announce they're going to run a marathon for charity have an incredible success rate.
Why does this gap exist?
Incentives > Discipline.
The person announcing publicly they're going to run a marathon for charity puts the Tyler Durden gun behind their head.
The following forces act like a gun for the marathon runner:
• Desire to be consistent
• Sunk cost fallacy
• Social shame
• Being seen as a good person
• A cause bigger than themself
Discipline will almost always lose to incentives for good behaviour, and negative consequences for bad behaviour.
Thought experiment: If the reward for completing new years resolutions was a billion dollars, and the consequence for failing was the death penalty -- what % completion would New Years resolutions have?
If you make the reward and consequences big enough -- 100x will power is born.
There's few people in history more resourceful than a crack cocaine addict sourcing their next hit.
Here's some iconic Tyler Durden gun incentive schemes:
1. The Ticking Clock
Elon Musk proposed to George Hotz the following to build vision system for Tesla auto pilot:
$12 million payment if it was delivered the next day. For every month that passes where it's not delivered, the payment would be reduced by $1 million.
If you had an incentive scheme where dollars disappear like a ticking clock each minute, would you need discipline? Procrastination would not be possible.
2. The Tattoo
Mr. Beast and his friend was regularly skipping workouts so they created a bet:
If one of them skipped a workout -- they had to get a tattoo of the other person.
Guess how many workouts they skipped that year?
Zero.
-----
Things that usually outperform discipline:
• Accountability
• Publicly announced deadlines (YC demo day is a great example of this)
• Bet money with friends on the activity
• Raise money for charity
• Coach to report into
Discipline is a candle flame. Incentives and consequences are a nuclear reactor.
Why rely solely on something that has an alleged 91% failure rate? You wouldn't do this for surgeons, condoms or airplanes.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again -- whilst expecting different results.
Raymond K Hessel doesn't need discipline.
New Year's resolutions have a reported ∼91% failure rate.
People who announce they're going to run a marathon for charity have an incredible success rate.
Why does this gap exist?
Incentives > Discipline.
The person announcing publicly they're going to run a marathon for charity puts the Tyler Durden gun behind their head.
The following forces act like a gun for the marathon runner:
• Desire to be consistent
• Sunk cost fallacy
• Social shame
• Being seen as a good person
• A cause bigger than themself
Discipline will almost always lose to incentives for good behaviour, and negative consequences for bad behaviour.
Thought experiment: If the reward for completing new years resolutions was a billion dollars, and the consequence for failing was the death penalty -- what % completion would New Years resolutions have?
If you make the reward and consequences big enough -- 100x will power is born.
There's few people in history more resourceful than a crack cocaine addict sourcing their next hit.
Here's some iconic Tyler Durden gun incentive schemes:
1. The Ticking Clock
Elon Musk proposed to George Hotz the following to build vision system for Tesla auto pilot:
$12 million payment if it was delivered the next day. For every month that passes where it's not delivered, the payment would be reduced by $1 million.
If you had an incentive scheme where dollars disappear like a ticking clock each minute, would you need discipline? Procrastination would not be possible.
2. The Tattoo
Mr. Beast and his friend was regularly skipping workouts so they created a bet:
If one of them skipped a workout -- they had to get a tattoo of the other person.
Guess how many workouts they skipped that year?
Zero.
-----
Things that usually outperform discipline:
• Accountability
• Publicly announced deadlines (YC demo day is a great example of this)
• Bet money with friends on the activity
• Raise money for charity
• Coach to report into
Discipline is a candle flame. Incentives and consequences are a nuclear reactor.
Why rely solely on something that has an alleged 91% failure rate? You wouldn't do this for surgeons, condoms or airplanes.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again -- whilst expecting different results.
Raymond K Hessel doesn't need discipline.
🚨 Nuance alarm:
1. I'm not saying discipline is a vice or useless. It's obviously an incredible virtue and useful.
2. The point of this essay is that incentives and consequences often have a greater magnetic pull than discipline on average. And this is overlooked by many.
3. Discipline or will power is probably best used in one off bursts to design systems to ensure you need less discipline or will power in the future: Creating incentives and consequences.
4. The fight club example -- or the examples listed above -- are incredibly extreme to hit the point home.
A $20 bet with a friend or a public commitment can be enough of a Tyler Durden gun to cause lasting behaviour change.
5. Steelman attempt - Here's how I would attack my position at it's weakest point:
If someone builds their life around and incentives and consequences without discipline -- what happens when you take those away?
We've all seen the retired athlete who turns to drugs, alcohol and food.
This is a great point that requires me to add more nuance...
6. Defence against the steelman - Consequences and Incentives are ultimately what drives discipline.
New Years resolution discipline tends to have some incentive or consequence way in the future (E.g. Eat less sugar)
The problem is that the incentives and consequences feel so far in the future.
Being mindful about creating stronger incentives and consequences can allow your discipline to grow. It's the crutch that cements the habit.
1. I'm not saying discipline is a vice or useless. It's obviously an incredible virtue and useful.
2. The point of this essay is that incentives and consequences often have a greater magnetic pull than discipline on average. And this is overlooked by many.
3. Discipline or will power is probably best used in one off bursts to design systems to ensure you need less discipline or will power in the future: Creating incentives and consequences.
4. The fight club example -- or the examples listed above -- are incredibly extreme to hit the point home.
A $20 bet with a friend or a public commitment can be enough of a Tyler Durden gun to cause lasting behaviour change.
5. Steelman attempt - Here's how I would attack my position at it's weakest point:
If someone builds their life around and incentives and consequences without discipline -- what happens when you take those away?
We've all seen the retired athlete who turns to drugs, alcohol and food.
This is a great point that requires me to add more nuance...
6. Defence against the steelman - Consequences and Incentives are ultimately what drives discipline.
New Years resolution discipline tends to have some incentive or consequence way in the future (E.g. Eat less sugar)
The problem is that the incentives and consequences feel so far in the future.
Being mindful about creating stronger incentives and consequences can allow your discipline to grow. It's the crutch that cements the habit.
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