Peter Hollins > Quotes

“We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.”
― Peter Hollins, The Science of Self-Discipline: The Willpower, Mental Toughness, and Self-Control to Resist Temptation and Achieve Your Goals

“Focus is one of the main pillars of self-discipline; a person who lacks the ability to focus is almost certainly one who will also lack discipline. Focus itself is dependent on something that neuroscientists call executive functions. The three executive functions that we are most concerned with when it comes to being disciplined are working memory, impulse control, and cognitive flexibility and adaptability. You can see why they are aptly named the executive functions. Your brain has to be able to set and pursue goals, prioritize activities, filter distractions, and control unhelpful inhibitions.”
― Peter Hollins, The Science of Self-Discipline: The Willpower, Mental Toughness, and Self-Control to Resist Temptation and Achieve Your Goals

“Something as small as having to think hard in the morning about what you’re going to wear, or thinking about what you are going to order at your local coffee shop – it’s things as small and trivial as these that can seriously short circuit and deplete our brains for the rest of the day.”
― Peter Hollins, The Science of Intelligent Decision Making: How to Think More Clearly, Save Your Time, and Maximize Your Happiness. Destroy Indecision!

“Persistence is firmly sticking to something for a prolonged period of time, even as you encounter things that try to unstick you.”
― Peter Hollins, Finish What You Start: The Art of Following Through, Taking Action, Executing, & Self-Discipline

“When you try to break a bad habit or form a positive one, you’re naturally going to feel awkward or uncomfortable at first because you have to actively make decisions about your behavior. Your brain has already been programmed to function in a certain way, so it will resist the change and, as a result, make the new behavior feel wrong and even frightening. The best thing to do in order to successfully reprogram your behavior is to embrace that awkward feeling of wrongness. It will take a while for your new routine to feel right or natural, so just accept that and keep chugging along. It’s a bit like starting to wear eyeglasses for the first time. You start out feeling uncomfortable and overly conscious of that foreign object sitting atop your nose, but you get used to that feeling with continued wear, such that sooner or later you don’t even notice it when your eyeglasses are on. Eventually, the behavior you want will be wired into your basal ganglia and you can go back to autopilot as an improved version of yourself. Before that happens, though, habit formation will start with feelings of unease rather than feelings of excitement and comfort.”
― Peter Hollins, The Science of Self-Discipline: The Willpower, Mental Toughness, and Self-Control to Resist Temptation and Achieve Your Goals

“When you attempt to multi-task, your focus, attention, and energy is spent switching between your tasks and re-orienting yourself to exactly where you were before you switched. It’s like swimming against the current. Every time you take a stroke, you might only get one quarter of a stroke forward because of the current, and sometimes you might even go backwards despite your best efforts.   It’s an inefficient use of your time that ends up in your becoming well-versed in the beginning stages of many tasks, but never quite seeing them to completion.   The better approach is to be willfully ignorant of everything else you need to do, while giving full attention to one task at a time. In a sense, a lumberjack can only chop the tree in front of him or her, and can’t do anything with a bunch of half-chopped trees. Chopping the tree in front of you will allow you to make better progress on everything more than actively working on it while multi-tasking.”
― Peter Hollins, Learn Like Einstein: Memorize More, Read Faster, Focus Better, and Master Anything With Ease… Become An Expert in Record Time (Accelerated Learning)

“For whatever goal you want to achieve, there is discomfort along that path. Self-discipline drives you through this discomfort and allows you to achieve and attain. It’s an essential component of mastery, and nothing great was ever accomplished without it.”
― Peter Hollins, The Science of Self-Discipline: The Willpower, Mental Toughness, and Self-Control to Resist Temptation and Achieve Your Goals

“Growth is exponential, when your strategy is combinatorial.”
― Peter Hollins, Polymath: Master Multiple Disciplines, Learn New Skills, Think Flexibly, and Become Extraordinary Autodidact

“Without goals and aspirations, discipline is going to feel like pointless suffering.”
― Peter Hollins, The Science of Self-Discipline: The Willpower, Mental Toughness, and Self-Control to Resist Temptation and Achieve Your Goals

“Architect Wernher Von Braun had this to say on the matter: “One good test is worth a thousand expert opinions.”
― Peter Hollins, Mental Models: 30 Thinking Tools that Separate the Average From the Exceptional. Improved Decision-Making, Logical Analysis, and Problem-Solving.

“One strategy to help you master delaying gratification is to think about your future self more—the one who will be rewarded for your temporary suffering. Integrate your view of your future self as one and the same with the you that is acting now. When you’re emotionally one with your future self, it becomes easier for you to act for the good of your future self instead of just following the whims of your present self.”
― Peter Hollins, The Science of Self-Discipline: The Willpower, Mental Toughness, and Self-Control to Resist Temptation and Achieve Your Goals

“different books from Amazon to learn about a single topic. Instead, it’s more beneficial to choose one or two of the best books.”
― Peter Hollins, Polymath: Master Multiple Disciplines, Learn New Skills, Think Flexibly, and Become Extraordinary Autodidact

“The two worst things you can do for yourself are focusing on past events that you can’t change or focusing on present events and comparing them with your future. One is long gone, and one has yet to happen. Neither should be your concern.”
― Peter Hollins, Neuro-Discipline: Everyday Neuroscience for Self-Discipline, Focus, and Defeating Your Brain’s Impulsive and Distracted Nature

“An ideal approach to life that is conducive to self-discipline can be summed up as being realistically optimistic—hoping for the best while preparing for the worst.”
― Peter Hollins, The Science of Self-Discipline: The Willpower, Mental Toughness, and Self-Control to Resist Temptation and Achieve Your Goals

“to peruse them all. Attempts to read every book, blog post, or article on a single topic are bound to result in failure. This brings us to step 6, which is learning how to filter our resources. In this step, our primary goal is to prune our collection of resources to preserve only the best and avoid being overwhelmed by all the materials we’ve collected.”
― Peter Hollins, Polymath: Master Multiple Disciplines, Learn New Skills, Think Flexibly, and Become Extraordinary Autodidact

“We have already failed the moment we decided not to try.”
― Peter Hollins, Finish What You Start: The Art of Following Through, Taking Action, Executing, & Self-Discipline

“When we consciously remind ourselves of benefits while downplaying costs, we can maintain motivation even during difficult or boring steps toward our goal.”
― Peter Hollins, Finish What You Start: The Art of Following Through, Taking Action, Executing, & Self-Discipline

“Having self-discipline and willpower is the ability to do difficult or unpleasant things because those things are better for your well-being in the long run.”
― Peter Hollins, The Science of Self-Discipline: The Willpower, Mental Toughness, and Self-Control to Resist Temptation and Achieve Your Goals

“You can plan for the future and delay starting all you want, but the best thing you can do is to just begin. It doesn’t matter if that’s getting healthy, writing a book, or starting a business—the best time to start is now. There is almost no perfect timing you should be waiting for. Waiting to have more money, resources, or experience very rarely increases your odds of accomplishing the goal in the future. You only have the chance to succeed once you’ve started, and you can always figure out the details along the way.”
― Peter Hollins, The Science of Self-Discipline: The Willpower, Mental Toughness, and Self-Control to Resist Temptation and Achieve Your Goals

“Your mind will come to stop fearing discomfort so much when it realizes that discomfort does not actually hurt you.”
― Peter Hollins, Finish What You Start: The Art of Following Through, Taking Action, Executing, & Self-Discipline

“For Nietzsche, a person is made, not born—it is up to us to develop ourselves, to take control and responsibility of our drives, and to strive to create beauty, order, and wellbeing in the world.”
― Peter Hollins, Philosophies on Self-Discipline: Lessons from History’s Greatest Thinkers on How to Start, Endure, Finish, & Achieve

“Differentiate between important tasks, urgent tasks, and simple wasted motion.”
― Peter Hollins, Finish What You Start: The Art of Following Through, Taking Action, Executing, & Self-Discipline

“Use daily systems to propel yourself into success.”
― Peter Hollins, Finish What You Start: The Art of Following Through, Taking Action, Executing, & Self-Discipline

“The next time you feel that you’re about to give in to an urge or temptation, stop and ask yourself how you will feel ten minutes, ten hours, and ten days from now. The 10-10-10 Rule may not seem all that powerful, but it’s effective because it forces you to think about your future self and to see how your actions will affect you in the future—for better or worse.”
― Peter Hollins, The Science of Self-Discipline: The Willpower, Mental Toughness, and Self-Control to Resist Temptation and Achieve Your Goals

“books are likely to be the most efficient resources of them all. Try finding some appropriate books through Amazon, but consider other mediums like blogs, courses, etc.”
― Peter Hollins, Polymath: Master Multiple Disciplines, Learn New Skills, Think Flexibly, and Become Extraordinary Autodidact

“New goals don’t deliver new results. New lifestyles do.”
― Peter Hollins, Build a Better Brain: Using Everyday Neuroscience to Train Your Brain for Motivation, Discipline, Courage, and Mental Sharpness

“However, the priority is to maximize the number of good resources at your disposal.”
― Peter Hollins, Polymath: Master Multiple Disciplines, Learn New Skills, Think Flexibly, and Become Extraordinary Autodidact

“Psychological discomfort is created because you know you are avoiding your responsibilities, so you engage in a distraction to alleviate that discomfort.”
― Peter Hollins, The Power of Self-Discipline: 5-Minute Exercises to Build Self-Control, Good Habits, and Keep Going When You Want to Give Up

“You need to be honest about what works and what doesn’t.”
― Peter Hollins, Finish What You Start: The Art of Following Through, Taking Action, Executing, & Self-Discipline

“your chosen topic. You could solicit an expert’s advice regarding the area of your interest. You can listen to podcasts.”
― Peter Hollins, Polymath: Master Multiple Disciplines, Learn New Skills, Think Flexibly, and Become Extraordinary Autodidact