Andrew Ng on Life, Creativity, and Failure
> People that count on willpower to do these things, it almost never works because willpower peters out. Instead I think people that are into creating habits -- you know, studying every week, working hard every week -- those are the most important. Those are the people most likely to succeed.<p>That is the one insight that I wished I truly understand years ago. After figured out that intelligence barely means anything, I thought that willpower would be the most important characteristics (because of endurance, perseverance yada yada you know).<p>Turned out that just like physical muscle, mental muscle get exhausted and you can run out of them. You really can't exert your willpower all the time, and have to preserve them for the really tough time. As human tends to do, we reverse to our habits for the majority of our lives. Well, I hope it's not a lesson learned too late.<p>That said, training for habits is damn hard.