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Ask HN: How do you deal with loss of motivation?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with loss of motivation?

#111

Post by iopq »

sauronlord wrote: post #82
iopq wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get 50,000 IU every week like it says on the bottle. I sleep around 8 hours a day. I lift weights 3 times a week and I play football 1-3 times a week. Saying I'm improving my motivation would be a lie. I'm not improving it and I can't lie to myself.

It's a lie to whom? And on what basis? I'm seriously starting to think this was a troll post. Here's why: - Entropy increases with time (body and muscle decay, etc) - Yet you clearly stated you are getting better each day OBJECTIVELY (lift weights, football, earning money, etc) And by the way... there is only the current day. Everything else is an idea/memory/abstraction - Then you say it is a lie that you are not mo…

Also, I said I have money. I don't earn any, though.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with loss of motivation?

#112

Post by Jarwain »

chpmrc wrote: post #107

I'm surprised that none of the top comments mentioned "So good they can't ignore you" (Cal Newport). It's an enlightening book. Long story short: "follow your passion" is crappy advice, you start enjoying what you do once you become very good at it (the author calls it "accumulating career capital") and by deliberate practice (i.e. always challenging yourself so that you are always slightly outside your comfort zone…

What are control traps?

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with loss of motivation?

#113

Post by StavrosK »

stinos wrote: post #97
conceptme wrote: post #62

"I need to find something with purpose,big money, and satisfaction." I think you need to be more realistic, sorry but you sound a bit like a child, everybody is dumb and doing useless things except you the little snow flake who comes to save the world and will be a billionaire if only he was recognized.

Long ago I settled for satisfaction in work only, discarding amount of money and I don't think I could be happier with the jobs I did so far. Granted I get enough money so that I don't really have to care about it. But for me once the threshold of enough is covered I fail to see why I would pursue more. Sure you can always go bigger and more and faster but does that kind of motivation really make you happy or more mo…

I kind of went with the opposite. I feel that a job that's not as satisfying but pays very well is great, because then I can only do that for three-four days a week (24-32 hours total) and then work on whatever satisfies me personally.

Of course, this assumes you can scale work down. Then again, if "what satisfies me" is something people will pay me for, like in your case, that's equally valid.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with loss of motivation?

#114

Post by stavros »

_98fj wrote: post #85

Let me quote from the internet: Fuck motivation. it’s a fickle and and unreliable little dickfuck and isn’t worth your time. Better to cultivate discipline than to rely on motivation. Force yourself to do things. Force yourself to get up out of bed and practice. Force yourself to work. Motivation is fleeting and it’s easy to rely on because it requires no concentrated effort to get. Motivation comes to you, and you d…

Isn't that basically saying "fuck liking the thing you do, instead practice doing it even though you don't like it, and if you have to train one of the two, train the latter"?

If I had to choose between liking the thing I do and not liking it but doing it anyway, I'd choose the former. I don't find "how can I be more motivated?" a bad aspiration at all.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with loss of motivation?

#115

Post by uhhyeahdude »

dbrunton wrote: post #87

Find someone to help. Preferably, this will be someone at work. Either someone in your job who's as stuck as you are, someone in the next layer up who needs a boost, or someone in the next tier down who needs a hand. It will be your next big challenge, to recognize that someone else needs help, to determine what kind of help that is, and to offer what you can. Your only measure of success is whether that person succe…

As an asshole in recovery, I cannot overstate how good this advice is. A mentor of mine once suggested that I do something similar, and for similar reasons. He didn't tell me why, but it's obvious now, and I can laugh about it.

Helping others makes me feel good. I enjoy feeling good.

Helping others magically decreases the number of assholes I encounter in my day-to-day life. Hmm. I wonder what that means?

Helping others is a great way to make friends, to learn new skills, to broaden your worldview, reduce your stress and so on. But, really, the reward is simply in the practice itself.

The beneficial-to-me stuff is a side-benefit, and I think it has to be. This is something that you do for its own sake; you have to make a sort of pact with yourself to forget about any personal gain. The mental gymnastics required to pull that off are difficult to explain, but it is doable.

I'm pretty sure it works for people who are generally nice to be around as well. Perhaps they too are recovering assholes who make an effort to help others.

I'm not saying you are a jerk, by the way, but it seems like you might find a bit of relief by way of dbrunton's advice. Ganbate!

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with loss of motivation?

#117

Post by karmakaze »

stavros wrote: post #114
_98fj wrote: post #85

Let me quote from the internet: Fuck motivation. it’s a fickle and and unreliable little dickfuck and isn’t worth your time. Better to cultivate discipline than to rely on motivation. Force yourself to do things. Force yourself to get up out of bed and practice. Force yourself to work. Motivation is fleeting and it’s easy to rely on because it requires no concentrated effort to get. Motivation comes to you, and you d…

Isn't that basically saying "fuck liking the thing you do, instead practice doing it even though you don't like it, and if you have to train one of the two, train the latter"? If I had to choose between liking the thing I do and not liking it but doing it anyway, I'd choose the former. I don't find "how can I be more motivated?" a bad aspiration at all.

This comment and the parent to both ring true and precisely captures the problem for me. The disambiguation I find is to choose a path following a passion, and eliminate any demotivation along the way. Optimizing for motivation is an unachievable goal. The two things that have worked the best for me is to avoid labelling things mentally as 'not fun' and recently pair programming. In place of the former, keep in mind that each thing needs to get done to get to a goal you desire. Whenever I work on a project I take pride in, I rarely feel demotivated, so eliminate things which reduce pride in a project, such as tech debt or low quality implementations. Of course there has to be a balance and timing to this as well.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with loss of motivation?

#118

Post by INTPenis »

FabHK wrote: post #109

I suggesting looking at Cal Newport's So good they can't ignore you , and his blog. The notion that you just need to find the right thing (passion/purpose) and then the big money and satisfaction (that you think you're entitled to) will roll in is misguided. Exercising 4 days a week shows that there's sufficient motivation there. At any rate, good luck! http://calnewport.com/blog/

I was looking for someone to mention exercise.

At 32 I just discovered that exercise gives me energy to code.

It's taken me this long because I kept repeating the same mistake. I started exercising regularly, after 1-2 weeks inspiration to code in my free time came back to me. This also affects my work positively.

But then I get so enthralled by coding, I get back the energy to stay up all nights, 8 hour hackathons, so I forget to exercise. And slowly the energy dissipates and I'm back to square 1.

So this is the first time I can look back and see this pattern in my life. Hopefully it will lead to some change.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with loss of motivation?

#119

Post by karmakaze »

conceptme wrote: post #62

"I need to find something with purpose,big money, and satisfaction." I think you need to be more realistic, sorry but you sound a bit like a child, everybody is dumb and doing useless things except you the little snow flake who comes to save the world and will be a billionaire if only he was recognized.

> Purpose, Big money, and Satisfaction

Seems like the CAP theorem. Like Cloud Spanner, there is way to practically achieve it: startups. Choose something you believe in, the big money will come when you succeed.

Please forgive if often answered: what's an acceptable duration for working at a string of startups? Two years? More/less?

Also if there's a number of startups that you can work at before it is not possible to believe in positive purpose or possibility to succeed, what's that ballpark figure?

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with loss of motivation?

#120

Post by rsp1984 »

Of course now everybody here in the comments is jumping at the line

I need to find something with purpose,big money, and satisfaction.

and telling you that you should STFU and go back to your job and learn to be content with what you have. Please be reminded that that's just people on the internet though.

The thing is if you ask anything on the internet that sounds like "How can I be more successful / smarter / prettier than average" you'll attract a lot more haters than people that truly want to give advice.

However the reality is that being more successful, finding something that gives you purpose and satisfaction and even making big money are all natural and human desires and there's nothing wrong with that.

The only piece of advice I can humbly offer is that if you really, really want or need something then there's usually also enough motivation to work towards it. Now if you don't feel motivated to work towards your goals that could be a sign that either your goals aren't optimal or that you're actually happy with life as it is and don't feel so much need for change.

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