hi, long-time lurker here! I've actually been thinking about ease in the context of my hobbies lately and trying to select hobbies from more of an ease-oriented perspective.
people typically talk about two things when it comes to potential: discipline and talent. the idea is that people have some amount of innate ability to improve at a skill, but that ability will be multiplied by the degree to which you can keep yourself focused.
but this binary division misses a third important quality, which I call "inclination". if talent is "ease of improvement", then inclination is "ease of action": a compelling urge to *keep improving at that thing*. sometimes this inclination borders on obsession: when you're not doing that activity, you can't stop thinking about it.
even though these things typically both fall under the umbrella of "talent", there have been many times where I have felt one but not the other. for example, I have always felt a strong inclination towards chess, even though I do not feel particularly talented at it. on the other hand, I feel that I have a talent for pickleball, but very rarely do I feel the urge to pick up a racket and start grinding.
I've decided that inclination is a better predictor of success than talent or discipline. because while talent lowers the amount of necessary time investment, and discipline acts as a sort of multiplier on your investment, inclination is the best predictor of the amount of time you'll actually invest. and isn't that really what's most important? I am better at chess than pickleball, after all.
for the longest time I've tried to select hobbies on talent rather than inclination. but I've realized that this had led me to subconsciously pick hobbies that require more discipline than is ideal. and it doesn't have to be this way. I can actually just explicitly prioritize inclination over talent, in order to decrease the amount of friction in my life. so I've been trying to lean into that lately.
this essay is interesting bc it suggests a third route— trying to tune the inclination itself. I treat ease of action as relatively fixed— while I may experience momentary changes in inclination towards specific actions, I'll still feel, say, twice as inclined to play chess vs. pickleball over the long run. but maybe I would be better off thinking about how to bring inclination and talent into alignment!
love this thought, thank you so much for sharing! especially “inclination is a better predictor of success than talent or discipline”
to your point about my point, inclination can be tuned i think, but it is wise to also be judicious about how much energy we spend on that, and to also create lots of space for what we feel naturally inclined towards to flow freely, without being crowded out by things we are trying to engineer inclination towards. some things though must be done even if we are not inclined, and that is where tuning inclination feels especially valuable :)
I love this, I've been thinking about this but struggled to put it into words. How does one draw the line between true inclination vs novelty-driven inclination? I know Isabel also mentioned that she struggles with this in a previous post. Sometimes, I can try out another hobby and then suddenly that becomes the thing I want to do all the time, but as novelty wears off, I would feel a new inclination towards something else. It's essentially an "inclination towards trying out new things". While this does not really affect one's overall quality of life, it affects one's ability to master something. It feels like it's a bad thing, but I don't know exactly why.
I remind myself “don’t think, just do.” As typically, like you mentioned, I build it up in my head as something difficult when really it takes less than 90 minutes to get though & I always feel better after.
Sometimes I ask myself that question “can I enjoy this? Or can I be okay doing this?” And the answer is always yes, I just have to choose to see it as a fun challenge to do this joyfully but it’s always something I’m capable of doing, I just have to remember or remind myself that I have the power to choose.
I've been working on doing this when it comes to practicing my study skills in preparation for my MCAT. These tasks have yet to feel effortless but I'm hoping that is something time and repetition will take care of. Thanks for sharing!
hi, long-time lurker here! I've actually been thinking about ease in the context of my hobbies lately and trying to select hobbies from more of an ease-oriented perspective.
people typically talk about two things when it comes to potential: discipline and talent. the idea is that people have some amount of innate ability to improve at a skill, but that ability will be multiplied by the degree to which you can keep yourself focused.
but this binary division misses a third important quality, which I call "inclination". if talent is "ease of improvement", then inclination is "ease of action": a compelling urge to *keep improving at that thing*. sometimes this inclination borders on obsession: when you're not doing that activity, you can't stop thinking about it.
even though these things typically both fall under the umbrella of "talent", there have been many times where I have felt one but not the other. for example, I have always felt a strong inclination towards chess, even though I do not feel particularly talented at it. on the other hand, I feel that I have a talent for pickleball, but very rarely do I feel the urge to pick up a racket and start grinding.
I've decided that inclination is a better predictor of success than talent or discipline. because while talent lowers the amount of necessary time investment, and discipline acts as a sort of multiplier on your investment, inclination is the best predictor of the amount of time you'll actually invest. and isn't that really what's most important? I am better at chess than pickleball, after all.
for the longest time I've tried to select hobbies on talent rather than inclination. but I've realized that this had led me to subconsciously pick hobbies that require more discipline than is ideal. and it doesn't have to be this way. I can actually just explicitly prioritize inclination over talent, in order to decrease the amount of friction in my life. so I've been trying to lean into that lately.
this essay is interesting bc it suggests a third route— trying to tune the inclination itself. I treat ease of action as relatively fixed— while I may experience momentary changes in inclination towards specific actions, I'll still feel, say, twice as inclined to play chess vs. pickleball over the long run. but maybe I would be better off thinking about how to bring inclination and talent into alignment!
love this thought, thank you so much for sharing! especially “inclination is a better predictor of success than talent or discipline”
to your point about my point, inclination can be tuned i think, but it is wise to also be judicious about how much energy we spend on that, and to also create lots of space for what we feel naturally inclined towards to flow freely, without being crowded out by things we are trying to engineer inclination towards. some things though must be done even if we are not inclined, and that is where tuning inclination feels especially valuable :)
I love this, I've been thinking about this but struggled to put it into words. How does one draw the line between true inclination vs novelty-driven inclination? I know Isabel also mentioned that she struggles with this in a previous post. Sometimes, I can try out another hobby and then suddenly that becomes the thing I want to do all the time, but as novelty wears off, I would feel a new inclination towards something else. It's essentially an "inclination towards trying out new things". While this does not really affect one's overall quality of life, it affects one's ability to master something. It feels like it's a bad thing, but I don't know exactly why.
I remind myself “don’t think, just do.” As typically, like you mentioned, I build it up in my head as something difficult when really it takes less than 90 minutes to get though & I always feel better after.
Sometimes I ask myself that question “can I enjoy this? Or can I be okay doing this?” And the answer is always yes, I just have to choose to see it as a fun challenge to do this joyfully but it’s always something I’m capable of doing, I just have to remember or remind myself that I have the power to choose.
I've been working on doing this when it comes to practicing my study skills in preparation for my MCAT. These tasks have yet to feel effortless but I'm hoping that is something time and repetition will take care of. Thanks for sharing!