There's no point in your life where you'll cross some barrier and think "well, I'm successful now." Stop caring about it so much and focus efforts on better things: finding fulfillment in doing good work, nurturing relationships with other people, and enjoying life.
Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?
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Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?
#62Listen to some talks by Alan Watts and Joseph Campbell. It helped me a lot to take a step back and accept here and now instead of worrying about the future. In other words, the only way you are going to end up looking back on a life full of good memories, is to make it good here and now(!), not in the future.
I found listening to anything by Alan Watts to be highly demotivating. Ymmv, of course.
Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?
#63Well for sure it's harder in this day and age because you are exposed to so many people who appear to be successful and/or flawless (repeat 'appear'). Generally prior to the internet at least when I was growing up not the case. Like I am sure my dad never lost any sleep over how rich Howard Hughes was (the de facto billionaire of our day). There was of course variations of 'the rich guy in the neighborhood' [1] but you could normally identify flaws in them to make yourself feel better about why our house was smaller or your car was less expensive.
[1] As it happens that guy in particular who bought his 16 year old son an expensive car (for that time period) ended up in bankruptcy.
Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?
#64YMMV but I'd encourage you to take a break from consuming "success porn" online. That's my broad term for:
Social media: because people curate everything and only post things that make their lives look amazing. Real life isn't a constant string of wins, success, and happiness. Don't let it distort your view and wonder why your life isn't the same.
Startup news: TechCrunch, Recode, Bus. Insider, and even here on HN. Post after post about YC, funding rounds, growth, and–of course–big exits. Its easy to find them but the truth is, they are outlier events. If a big startup exit is something you want–fine, by all means go for it–but don't let any article fool you into thinking its easy or guaranteed if you follow some formula. It's not. Startups are hard. There is no guarantee of success because some things are beyond your control.
Success celebrities: avoid videos, podcasts, ebooks, and online courses from celebrity entrepreneurs. These are people who have had moderate success with a blog/vlog/startup/book/whatever and now want to teach everyone else how to do it. Truth is, they just want to take your money and time. The only thing you might learn is how to be just like them (yuck).
Hope that helps. Lots of other good advice here. Find other things to put your energy into and good luck!
Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?
#65Since you’re likely young and able, keep in mind you’re not old or dead. Life is very much more or less predictably finite, so being young with the opportunity to possibly be successful should drive you.
Better to be in a position where there’s still time to be successful, rather than old, homeless, sick, estranged, destitute, and desiring only to die.
Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?
#66worrying about success is unmitigated idiocy. everyone gets caught up in this herd mentality of wanting to have the best image on instagram and etc. when i was in college, 90 percent of the other people in the cs program were blatant zuckerberg wanna-bes. they all carried around a silent, bulging arrogance because they thought they were going to be rich. they also felt anxiety about being successful and their respons…
Amen.
Take a look at Maslow’s hierarchy from time to time, and think about this success treadmill you’ve signed up for, success is nowhere in that triangle. Neither is power.
What are you planning to use success and power for? Are you trying to spend your way into esteem? Belonging? Force them to respect you? Do you think self actualization requires ordering people around? Do you think if you are powerful enough that the love of your life can’t die from a tragic car accident, an aneurism, or cancer?
You can’t control as much as you think you can, and sometimes that’s a good thing. Fortune favors the prepared mind, but you can show up and still strike out, or you can find more success than you deserve. Recognize your good fortune.
Remember that the guy making you coffee is a person with feelings. If everybody were like you then you’d have to drink coffee you made and take your own trash to the dump and do your own plumbing. If anything these people are doing a service to society. Charity work, if you will. Respect it.
Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?
#67Talk to a psychotherapist.
You need someone to ask you probing questions about why you're depressed about it.
If you can't afford to do it just write your thoughts down. I try to work my way through my worst fears step by step writing each thought. Usually I find I end on a positive note.
Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?
#68Being depressed is a state of mind. Being successful or not has not much to do with it (which is proven in many papers). Anxiety about failure is just a way that it manifests. Your brain always finds some ways to rationalize things that it observes. That's its job. So if you feel a bit of rush because you really want to succeed, or if you think about things that may go wrong in order to take actions to minimize the r…
>Being depressed is a state of mind. Being successful or not has not much to do with it.
This is so true. It's all in the head. I was doing fine and felt like crap every day, and now I couldn't be more of a loser absolutely and I felt free and my creativity was unleashed and I love my life. Having nothing to lose is a great asset to have.
For me what made me love my life is finally have the guts to say to myself "Shit... I fucked up! I will have to rebuild everything again." Failures are just chances to start everything anew, this time only a bit wiser.
Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?
#69It's not specific to success, but my friend recently launched an anti-anxiety website with tips based on published research papers. You can click the "source" link in the bottom left to see the science journal the tip is based on.
Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?
#70What means success to you? Why does that one thing matter more than others. I've done this and realised that what I thought my yardstick for success was more other peoples.
I don't know if it's on this topic, but the book "The Subtle art of not giving a f*&k" is something I want to read (or listen to) as I think it's written to help this mindset.