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Ask HN: Please, help me understand what I am doing wrong.

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Re: Ask HN: Please, help me understand what I am doing wrong.

#41

Post by fhirzall »

GreenNight wrote: post #14
nudge wrote: post #6

Something I find helpful is abandoning the idea of goals (at least for a while), and instead simply focusing on habits. What do you want to be like? What kind of day would you think was a good one? (here you can include things like "think silently, with no distractions, for 30 minutes" - NOT things like "have 3 good ideas"; also things like "End each day by listing 3 things I want to do the next day, and make sure th…

Totally agree on the abandoning of goals (and the rest of your comment is also gold). People here tend to be too goal oriented, and that's perfect when you have a goal that you want to attain in an area that you love working. But the truth is that it seems that having all the basic needs fulfilled you don't find enough attraction to the higher needs (in the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs )…

I think goals are valuable if you set them right. An overarching goal can be to have 1 of the ideas implemented, and then you can refer back to the goal at the end of each month and evaluate whether or not the tasks you've been setting have gotten you closer to your goals.

This approach combined with having different levels of goals will keep you on the right trajectory in finishing everything you want to accomplish. Something like "Only eat out once a week" can be a goal, it's up to you to choose your level of granularity.

IMO the most important thing is to periodically take a few steps back and reevaluate your current habits in relation to the goals you set.

Re: Ask HN: Please, help me understand what I am doing wrong.

#42

Post by throwaway72010 »

eavc wrote: post #28

Refusal to acknowledge adhd as real is what you are doing wrong. That is borderline hubristic. Seriously, that might be the thing to dwell on for a while

I acknowledge it now, but only sideways. I don't believe in wrapping up problems and tucking them away into a diagnosis... I'm a whole person, and if I have ADHD, it's a part of who I am. Part of what makes legitimizing ADHD difficult for me is that there's no litmus test--we have to rely on psychiatrists to make diagnoses, and it seems to me that the diagnosis is just as likely to be "bad habits" as it is to be "ADHD."

Re: Ask HN: Please, help me understand what I am doing wrong.

#44

Post by throwaway72010 »

tricky wrote: post #33

I'd say your Rich White Guy problems are getting the best of you. For every successful person here, there are a thousand* of us who are obsessively checking reddit, facebook, reader, and email. You need to take control of your thoughts. Your brain has finite resources. If you use it to mostly think about all your failure and all the bad stuff, there won't be anything left to do anything good. 1) do something that mak…

Thanks; I think this is a similar point to someone who was saying "Maybe you've had it too easy." I swear that I get exercise... ;-) The short walk down a plain street is more difficult for me to understand... what does it really change?

Re: Ask HN: Please, help me understand what I am doing wrong.

#45

Post by ganley »

tricky wrote: post #33

I'd say your Rich White Guy problems are getting the best of you. For every successful person here, there are a thousand* of us who are obsessively checking reddit, facebook, reader, and email. You need to take control of your thoughts. Your brain has finite resources. If you use it to mostly think about all your failure and all the bad stuff, there won't be anything left to do anything good. 1) do something that mak…

I wish I had more upvotes just for "do something that makes you break a sweat EVERY DAY." Even though it doesn't directly affect any of your issues except possibly the weight problem, I've found nothing that so reliably keeps my mood up as regular exercise. Preferably outside.

Re: Ask HN: Please, help me understand what I am doing wrong.

#46

Post by Ben_Dean »

You are not doing anything wrong. You're just like every single other human ever to exist. The way you describe your problem makes me believe that some manner of Zen/Mindfulness approach would be appealing to you.

"I have a difficult time relating attempted solutions because I'm still not sure what the problem is."

To me, this says that you've already found the fundamental truth of desire-- you cannot sate it with its own ends, as counterintuitive as that is. I realize this is starting to sounds like the dreaded "get religion" solution, but there's no magic or mystery in these approaches. Just 2500 years of close examination human life.

Two specific, small things: I recommend a short, easy book, "Everyday Zen" by Charlotte Joko Beck. Try to sit still and just breathe for around 20 minutes. It's just as easy and just as hard as it sounds.

Re: Ask HN: Please, help me understand what I am doing wrong.

#47

Post by throwaway72010 »

nudge wrote: post #6

Something I find helpful is abandoning the idea of goals (at least for a while), and instead simply focusing on habits. What do you want to be like? What kind of day would you think was a good one? (here you can include things like "think silently, with no distractions, for 30 minutes" - NOT things like "have 3 good ideas"; also things like "End each day by listing 3 things I want to do the next day, and make sure th…

Thanks... this is great advice. I think people have been saying "focus on one thing at a time" for a long time... in fact, I've been saying it to myself for a long time, too, but I have not really been hearing it. The idea of adding 1 new habit every 30 days is interesting and powerful... the mechanics of it can be kind of weird, though--what if there's something I just want to do a couple of times a week, and it's secondary which day it happens on?

Thanks so much for your help.

Re: Ask HN: Please, help me understand what I am doing wrong.

#49

Post by johnnyg »

nudge wrote: post #6

Something I find helpful is abandoning the idea of goals (at least for a while), and instead simply focusing on habits. What do you want to be like? What kind of day would you think was a good one? (here you can include things like "think silently, with no distractions, for 30 minutes" - NOT things like "have 3 good ideas"; also things like "End each day by listing 3 things I want to do the next day, and make sure th…

+1

Re: Ask HN: Please, help me understand what I am doing wrong.

#50

Post by mortenjorck »

_debug_ wrote: post #21

The age of 25 is like that. "Most geniuses did their best work in their twenties"-pressure. "My God, 30 is just 5 years away"-pressure. I suggest tackling this from a psychosomatic perspective. The body is an indirect but very powerful agent of change to the mind, Give yourself the permission to be calm and collected and deserve an average, wonderful, American middle-class day without guilt or anxiety. Enjoy that yum…

Give yourself the permission to be calm and collected and deserve an average, wonderful, American middle-class day without guilt or anxiety.

I don't know. I did this when I was 25, and two years later, I feel as if I wasted my time.

I'm probably being unfair to myself. I worked on fun little side projects here and there that never went anywhere, but I felt contented. Now I feel like I have to be working on something big; "fun" projects have lost their fun.

For me, this is probably due in part to having made something that got a fair amount of blog coverage last fall, attracting interviews at big tech companies and even a few conference invitations, and then after about six months, landing right back where I started. I feel like this has proven that I should be shooting for the moon, but that I just can't sustain the momentum.

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