Book SummaryHow to Do Things You Hate, by Peter Hollins

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of How to Do Things You Hate

Want to escape the cycle of struggling through work, watching your to-do list endlessly expand, and doubting you’ll ever succeed? It’s easier to do than you might think—and in How to Do Things You Hate, Peter Hollins explains that self-discipline is hard but simple: You just need to stop avoiding discomfort. By instead facing it, you can master your mind, stop avoiding what you know you need to do, and begin taking consistent, disciplined action that serves your highest values.

Hollins is an author and a self-described “student of the human condition” who’s [written numerous...

How to Do Things You Hate Summary The Problem: Avoiding Discomfort

We’ll look in this section at Hollins’s core insight about doing the hard things: Namely, that when you need to do something hard, avoiding it due to discomfort only delays and worsens the difficulty. We’ll explore this way of avoiding discomfort and the downward spiral it creates, as well as how it manifests in each of us differently.

(Shortform note: In this section, Hollins makes use of a key concept from psychology: experiential avoidance. Experiential avoidance refers to when you try, in one way or another, to push away or suppress bad, distressing feelings. It’s been linked to anxiety and a wide variety of other psychological struggles, as well as human suffering in general.)

Avoiding Your Experience

According to Hollins, we too often avoid doing hard things because we’re unwilling to face the discomfort involved. We’ll call this discomfort avoidance. It’s when you go out of your way to avoid experiencing unpleasant thoughts and feelings, which are often associated with some hard thing you have to do. You tend to rationalize this behavior by convincing yourself you need to be in the right mood to do the hard...

How to Do Things You Hate Summary The Solution: Embracing Discomfort

So far, we’ve seen how avoiding hard things creates a downward spiral that delays and worsens the discomfort associated with the work you need to do. In this section, we’ll explore the solution to this problem: embracing discomfort. According to Hollins, this involves changing how you view discomfort and learning to move directly into it.

Change How You View Discomfort

Hollins says that the difference between disciplined and undisciplined people isn’t what they do, but how they think. In other words, mindset makes more of a difference than method. To that end, he recommends that you shift your mindset to incorporate the following three views.

(Shortform note: Other experts, including Carol Dweck (Mindset), agree that how you think is crucial. Dweck says that your mindset shapes your whole personality, determining whether you’re growth-oriented or struggle to improve, and that it’s a primary predictor of whether you reach your potential in life.)

View #1: Discomfort Is Your Ally, Not Your Enemy

Recognize that...

How to Do Things You Hate Summary Staying Disciplined for Good

Up to this point, we’ve covered the main problem that prevents us from being more disciplined (avoiding discomfort) and Hollins’s solution for it (working with discomfort). But once you get moving with his main advice, you’ll need a way to keep up your efforts for the long run. We’ll look next to his recommendations for stabilizing and sustaining your newfound discipline by sharpening your focus and using smart productivity strategies.

Stabilizing Your Discipline

It’s all well and good to confront discomfort once or twice, but how do you keep it up over time? Hollins says that to stay disciplined, you need both focused attention and focused commitments. That is, you have to train your mind to concentrate clearly, steadily, and on command; and you have to set your life up to support focused action that serves your values.

(Shortform note: Focus can work wonders, but how do you know what to focus on? In Discipline Is Destiny, Ryan Holiday writes that to truly live a disciplined life, [you have to know your...

Shortform Exercise: Never-Zero Discomfort Practice

Think of something you've been avoiding, like a difficult conversation, a challenging project, a health habit you know you should start. Instead of waiting until you feel “ready,” commit to facing this discomfort in small doses every single day for the next two weeks, using Hollins's method.

What specific thing have you been avoiding that you know would improve your life if you addressed it? For instance, maybe you’ve been meaning to start stretching.