The Joy of Math is Like The Joy of Exercise

Exercise gets way more fun once you notice a body transformation getting underway. It's the same way with math.

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The joy of math is similar to the joy of exercise. You gotta earn it. Exercise gets way more fun once you notice a body transformation getting underway. It’s the same way with math.

But nobody feels the transformation on day one. Or day two, or even day three. You gotta stick with it for months before you really notice a difference.

Cognitive/intellectual workouts are just like physical workouts. You can’t expect your body or even your attitude towards exercise to transform in a single day.

And it’s not just about time. You gotta spend that time doing well-calibrated exercises.

• If you spend months repeatedly trying and failing to lift the heaviest weight in the gym... you don't get better.
• If you spend months repeatedly lifting the lightest weight in the gym... you don't get better.

You gotta 1) start at your level and 2) incrementally layer on more difficulty as your level increases.

Although you may not see a macro-scale transformation get underway until months have passed, you can really notice your level increasing over the scale of weeks. And that micro-scale progress can provide motivation and joy.

Making progress of any kind is inherently motivating and enjoyable. Lots of people think that motivation and enjoyment inspire progress, but it’s really bidirectional and mostly the other way around:

Progress inspires motivation and enjoyment.

Don’t underestimate how much motivation and enjoyment you’ll feel when you can do exercises that you previously couldn’t.

Don’t underestimate how much more motivation and enjoyment you’ll feel when your clothes fit different.

Unless you’ve experienced it before while getting noticeably good in some other domain, you can’t even imagine how much motivation and enjoyment you’ll get when other people start noticing your results, complimenting you, sometimes even asking for your advice.

You hear “damn you’re strong/buff, what’s your workout, any advice for me” enough times and it just seeps into your identity that you are a strong/buff person. And it’s very easy to find motivation for and joy in training activities that help you maintain what you perceive to be a part of your identity.

Lots of people know this about physical body transformations but most people don’t realize it applies to literally every skill domain. You can do this with math, coding, music, whatever the heck you want.

But the hardest part is the beginning, before you’ve kicked off the virtuous cycle. Unless you have a ridiculous amount of intrinsic motivation, it’s just a lot of suck at the beginning.

The way you overcome the suck is by setting a reasonable training schedule that you can actually stick to. At the beginning you need to focus on consistency, not training volume. You need to build a habit.

As you build that habit, you’ll not only find it easier to stick to your schedule, but you’ll also find it easier to increase your volume, eventually up to a level that will put you on pace to reach your goals in a reasonable timeframe.

And who’s to say the training itself will actually feel that unpleasant?

When you’re not looking forward to training, you might think that negative feeling is going to intensify during your (physical or intellectual) workout, but often it just dissipates and you feel great 5 minutes in.

Procrastinating builds up the dread but getting started often makes it dissipate.

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