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Ask HN: What motivates you to do what you do?

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Ask HN: What motivates you to do what you do?

#1

Post by ivanjovanovic »

I've been in transition for a while, leaving a big enterprise and moving towards more independent work through own consulting business.

In the process I reflected a lot and one of the important topics I am trying to understand is about underlying motivations for my actions.

I can see what is going on in my head, that I tend to materialise some image of my future self, create value for the family and the environment I live in, position myself good for the future-needed skills, have joy in what I do, have more freedom to decide of my future direction ... there are many different triggers of motivation for my actions, but from time to time they seem random and misaligned.

As said, I can see what is going on in my head but I was curios about how others interpret and manage their motivations which trigger their actions.

Would be happy to have some insights into your heads if you may allow :)

Re: Ask HN: What motivates you to do what you do?

#2

Post by contingencies »

Learning and discovery. The satisfaction of scheming and realization. A less trodden path. Not having to have a mortgage, be stuck in one location, to tow a cultural line, or dress up or follow schedules. Knowing that you are leaving the world a slightly better place.

Re: Ask HN: What motivates you to do what you do?

#4

Post by ruleabidinguser »

That I need money and this is my best choice. I would guess 90+% of people who say theres anything more to it than this are lying to you and probably themselves. There are people with broader aspirations, but actually just saying you have some deep passion is a part of the culture, and in most cases, I don't think true.

Re: Ask HN: What motivates you to do what you do?

#7

Post by indescions_2017 »

If your intrinsic motivations, which probably map closely to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, are not aligned with your startup's strategy and goals, then of course you are going to experience a feeling of being unmoored. The answer is to deploy massive amounts of patience and energy in figuring out who You are. In the immediate term, recognize you are not the only one with this conflict and perhaps develop a set of "motivation management" tools to help crystallize and make manifest your personal journey.

To help with understanding your place in the grand scheme, I'd also check out this lecture by Michael Dearing from Reid Hoffman's Blitzscaling class at Stanford:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vCdfa_aeI8

Although nominally about Creative Destruction and the capitalist work ethic, it gets at the root of our entrepreneurial ambitions. There is a reason the mission statements of the Erie Railway Company from 1857 and Facebook's circa 2017 sound so eerily similar. Their duty isn't to build train tracks between cities or link nodes in the social graph. It's to spread knowledge, commerce and communication deep into places that have never known it before.

Re: Ask HN: What motivates you to do what you do?

#8

Post by nvarsj »

ruleabidinguser wrote: post #4

That I need money and this is my best choice. I would guess 90+% of people who say theres anything more to it than this are lying to you and probably themselves. There are people with broader aspirations, but actually just saying you have some deep passion is a part of the culture, and in most cases, I don't think true.

This. As much as I love coding and tech, the kind of projects I care about would not pay the bills. If I didn't need the money, I'd probably spend my days learning hard academics and working on projects I find interesting. I think there are well paying jobs that would probably satisfy this, but they are rare and hard to get.
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