Mindset, motivation and happiness

Motivation and discipline, confidence, imposter syndrome, fear, failure and rejection, happiness, luck, stoicism, overthinking and comparison. Concrete goal-setting and life planning are “Goals, purpose and life design”.

The main topic of 5 sources; one of the topics of 7 more.

Videos

date	video	format
2018-05-14	Monthly Favourites #4 - Ali Abdaal	Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard)
2020-06-12	Crushes, Challenges and Irritating Habits - Q&A With My Roommate Molly	Q&A video
2024-05-18	The Best Advice I Received Lately 💭	Short
2024-05-19	Three Ways to Boost Your Self-Confidence 🙌	Short
2024-05-20	Find Your True Motivation 🔎	Short

Also touch on it

2018-03-07 · Monthly Favourites #2 - Ali Abdaal · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard)
2018-03-21 · Q & A - 5,000 Subscribers! · Q&A video
2018-04-12 · Motivation, Stress & Time Management - Exam Revision Q&A with Cambridge students · Q&A video
2018-04-24 · Study with Me + Revision tips from friends - Cambridge University medical student VLOG #32 · Study with me
2018-05-01 · First Live Hangout + Rapid-fire Q&A · Livestream or live hangout
2018-05-07 · Live Q&A + Hangout - Bank Holiday vibes - Ali Abdaal, Cambridge medical student · Livestream or live hangout
2018-05-29 · Live Stream - Hangout · Livestream or live hangout

Often together

People: Molly Hunt · Paul · Gary Vaynerchuk · Katherine · Charlotte

Organizations: University of Cambridge · University of Oxford · Emmanuel College

Concepts: discipline · active recall · identified motivation

Places: Cambridge

Do you need motivation or discipline to get things done? · How do you become happier? · How do you reduce stress? · How do you study effectively for exams? · How do you deal with rejection and failure? · Should you study medicine? · Is success a matter of luck or hard work? · How do you become more confident?

Key statements

The most important statements (★★★) in the parts on this topic, at most 3 from one source: 25.

2018-03-07 · Monthly Favourites #2 - Ali Abdaal — Ali thinks that the more people internalise that mistakes are good because they learn from them, the more success they can have in life. — 00:10:03
2018-03-07 · Monthly Favourites #2 - Ali Abdaal — Ali says a growth mindset, which treats getting things wrong as part of improving, is probably better than a fixed mindset: more open to learning and less hurt by failures. (hedged) — 00:11:01
2018-03-07 · Monthly Favourites #2 - Ali Abdaal — Ali: When starting his YouTube channel, Ali struggled with what his friends and year group would think of him, but now he is really glad he did it. — 00:11:44
2018-03-21 · Q & A - 5,000 Subscribers! — recommendation: Ali says motivation is pretty much a myth and people should use discipline instead to get things done. — 00:08:52
2018-03-21 · Q & A - 5,000 Subscribers! — recommendation: Ali says a romantic, academic or professional rejection is outside our control, so there is no point dwelling on it: treat it as a learning experience, take away a lesson and move on. — 00:10:59
2018-03-21 · Q & A - 5,000 Subscribers! — Ali says milestones such as 100,000 subscribers, a three-bedroom house, a raise or a million dollars never bring the promised happiness: in Miley Cyrus's words, it is about the climb, not the destination. — 00:13:55
2018-04-12 · Motivation, Stress & Time Management - Exam Revision Q&A with Cambridge students — Paul's idea of "save the day": however late it gets, you can still save an unproductive day by putting in some work before bed. — 00:07:22
2018-04-12 · Motivation, Stress & Time Management - Exam Revision Q&A with Cambridge students — recommendation: Ali: To stay consistent Ali likes changing his work environment: in exam terms as an undergraduate in central Cambridge he went to a different library each day, about 20 in all. — 00:08:20
2018-04-12 · Motivation, Stress & Time Management - Exam Revision Q&A with Cambridge students — Ali cites hedonic adaptation: after major life events most people quickly return to their baseline happiness; studies of lottery winners and of people who became paraplegic or tetraplegic found them back at baseline within about two months. — 00:11:39
2018-04-24 · Study with Me + Revision tips from friends - Cambridge University medical student VLOG #32 — recommendation: Charlotte says stress about GCSEs and A levels is natural, but students should keep perspective: if exams go badly it is not the end of the world, they can always resit, so they should not pin everything on one set of exams. — 00:02:31
2018-04-24 · Study with Me + Revision tips from friends - Cambridge University medical student VLOG #32 — Charlotte says the grades written on the exam results paper do not define who you are, and your worth should not lie in them. — 00:03:00
2018-04-24 · Study with Me + Revision tips from friends - Cambridge University medical student VLOG #32 — Ali says it is very easy to fall into the mindset that exams are the only important thing in your life, especially when parents keep telling you to work harder. — 00:10:22
2018-05-01 · First Live Hangout + Rapid-fire Q&A — Ali's theory of exam performance rests on three things: intelligence, which is fixed, and knowledge and practising exam technique, which can be worked on. — 00:17:21
2018-05-01 · First Live Hangout + Rapid-fire Q&A — recommendation: Ali: Two weeks before an exam, Ali advises focusing on exam technique, because two weeks is not long enough to gain much knowledge. — 00:18:02
2018-05-01 · First Live Hangout + Rapid-fire Q&A — Ali's general attitude is that success comes from circumstance: he was born into a good family with decent genes and did not squander that hand, and nobody can take credit for their successes. — 00:18:49
2018-05-07 · Live Q&A + Hangout - Bank Holiday vibes - Ali Abdaal, Cambridge medical student — Ali studies medicine because it is fun; he first chose it because he was unsure what he wanted, medicine seemed broad, and six years at university seemed better than three. — 00:31:40
2018-05-07 · Live Q&A + Hangout - Bank Holiday vibes - Ali Abdaal, Cambridge medical student — recommendation: Ali: With material seen for the first time, Ali says the aim is to understand it; once you have, write questions for yourself that test your understanding. — 00:32:09
2018-05-07 · Live Q&A + Hangout - Bank Holiday vibes - Ali Abdaal, Cambridge medical student — recommendation: Ali: To a student ill during A-levels, Ali says the choice is being okay with not doing your previous best or feeling bad, and feeling bad helps nothing, so being okay is the logical option. — 00:34:09
2018-05-14 · Monthly Favourites #4 - Ali Abdaal — Ali: CGP Grey's videos on death genuinely changed Ali's mind: he no longer thinks death is a required part of life. — 00:05:26
2020-06-12 (said on 2020-05-27, implied) · Crushes, Challenges and Irritating Habits - Q&A With My Roommate Molly — Molly Hunt: At 10 Molly Hunt was diagnosed with bone cancer in her hip; she had about three months of intense chemotherapy and then a hip and femur replacement. — 00:04:46
2020-06-12 (said on 2020-05-27, implied) · Crushes, Challenges and Irritating Habits - Q&A With My Roommate Molly — Molly Hunt says the Over the Wall camps started rebuilding her confidence; since then, when something is hard for her, she looks for a way around it and tries not to let her disability stop her. — 00:10:27
2020-06-12 (said on 2020-05-27, implied) · Crushes, Challenges and Irritating Habits - Q&A With My Roommate Molly — Ali says he tries not to think hard about outcomes: in a race, competing and doing his best is what matters to him, so he has no self-doubt, and thinking about winning seems pointless. — 00:12:13
2024-05-18 · The Best Advice I Received Lately 💭 — Ali calls the best advice he got recently the idea that no achievement you could reach will make you any happier than you are right now. — 00:00:00
2024-05-19 · Three Ways to Boost Your Self-Confidence 🙌 — recommendation: Ali cites psychologist Albert Bandura's enactive mastery experiences: when you get better at something you become more confident at it, so practise. — 00:00:00
2024-05-20 · Find Your True Motivation 🔎 — Ali says all the evidence shows that intrinsic motivation is far more powerful and durable than extrinsic motivation. — 00:00:00