I suspect that you were only successful because you have trained your discipline under a routine. You didn’t fall into the allure of some “shiny” activity that’s tempting, but in retrospect fulfilling (like watching TV?), and keep doing it for hours (as most people probably do). You had the self-awareness to do what acctully mattered to you.
I have some degree of discipline and a pretty good degree of self-awareness, but in the past—even the recent past—I’ve definitely found myself doing shiny but unfulfilling activities for extended periods. It’s possible that I’ve gained a bunch of skill or willpower without noticing it and that this event caused me to shift into a mode that I didn’t know how to access before, but this didn’t feel like using discipline to me.
I suspect that you were only successful because you have trained your discipline under a routine. You didn’t fall into the allure of some “shiny” activity that’s tempting, but in retrospect fulfilling (like watching TV?), and keep doing it for hours (as most people probably do). You had the self-awareness to do what acctully mattered to you.
Am I misunderstanding?
I have some degree of discipline and a pretty good degree of self-awareness, but in the past—even the recent past—I’ve definitely found myself doing shiny but unfulfilling activities for extended periods. It’s possible that I’ve gained a bunch of skill or willpower without noticing it and that this event caused me to shift into a mode that I didn’t know how to access before, but this didn’t feel like using discipline to me.