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Ask HN: How do you find motivation to do stuff?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you find motivation to do stuff?

#22

Post by deterministic »

Recognise that waiting for motivation to strike is a bad idea.

Instead just get started with the smallest possible step you can just about manage to do. And then do another smallest step. A lot of times you almost automatically keep going and the motivation then arrives.

Maybe the first step is to create a basic "Hello World" application. And then a few empty functions/methods that flesh out what the app needs to do. Then maybe a few of those methods/functions are really easy to do (or AI can write them for you) so you quickly do those. Etc.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find motivation to do stuff?

#25

Post by ammmir »

omertt27 wrote: post #24

I think as sam altman says, you should try to save your momentum.Momentum is everything.Also i am always talk myself about i should be patient about the process.If you work everyday, you believe that you will succeed one day.Thats my mentality.

[dead]

Re: Ask HN: How do you find motivation to do stuff?

#27

Post by nickd2001 »

I'm assuming from this Q you might be early stage in your career? Its definitely hard nowadays. 30 yrs ago, as well as C++ I learned various Unix flavours - HP-UX, Solaris then Linux. Development on those seemed to be interesting projects and interesting people. Then I got interested in open source. I found that clinging to *nix, open source and tech used by academia was a way to have a long-lasting career, while other people doing e:g Microsoft tech back in the day or later on javascript frameworks found they suffered from vendor lock-in and/or skills with a short shelf life. So to me there was a clear career strategy, pick carefully what tech you spend the time learning, and you'll be fine. Whereas now, what are you meant to do? The future is so unpredictable. It seems every skill is now having a short shelf life. AI can do your job as it was. So you need to invest in and use AI. But that is constantly changing. What is lacking is a clear path to invest effort in. I don't envy people starting out today. Struggling with motivation when its unclear what to learn seems natural. Sorry for the pessimistic answer, maybe other people can helpfully argue against this ;)

Re: Ask HN: How do you find motivation to do stuff?

#28

Post by thushar10 »

Fear can be a good motivator, at least for my personality type. It’s mostly about the fear of losing my lifestyle if I don’t adapt, or being left behind in a world that moves too fast.

It doesn't have to be a negative thing. Adaptation is evolution. Some people are inherently high agency and driven internally, but others need a specific reason to move. Pragmatic fear happens to be the reason that works for me, whether it’s to take care of my family or just to keep up with my friends.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find motivation to do stuff?

#29

Post by upupupandaway »

25 years into my career here. Motivation is awesome to get you that rush to start building something. Discipline, however, is far more important and will get you more success than anything else. Discipline for what? Achieving goals that you have set. If you don't have goals then that's the problem right there - how will motivate yourself for anything or have the discipline to achieve it?

Over the years my goal changed from being a software wizard to having $x.xm in my bank account by the time I am 50, thus securing my daughter's education all the way through college. Every time I don't want to join the 999th call of the week on "how we can better work together", I look at her picture and realize who I am doing that for - discipline.

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