As you would have noticed from other comments, habit-forming is key. I am not sure where I first read this, anyhow, here it is: It takes 14 days to form a habit. I acknowledge this is unscientific and the number is arbitrary. Nevertheless, I and my wife have used this idea many times and we both recommend it highly. Keep a good thing going--whatever it takes--for 14 days and there is a very good chance that it will become a habit.
Ask HN: Please, help me understand what I am doing wrong.
101–110 of 155 posts
Re: Ask HN: Please, help me understand what I am doing wrong.
#102You're struggling with adjusting to life in the real world, stuck in the pattern of defining your life with your life's work. Perhaps your very problem is that you don't really want what you think you want. I make no excuses for being a religious man, I just am. That view tends to be wildly unpopular in these circles, possibly because it treads upon the contemporary ideas of control and success. The same concepts cau…
True, in my experience, prayer is sometimes the only solution.
"Each of us will have our own Fridays...those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays.
But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death, Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.
No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come.
Death is not the end of existence."
Joseph B. Wirthlin
Re: Ask HN: Please, help me understand what I am doing wrong.
#103The 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…
Sometimes spending those two years in an 'average day without guilt or anxiety' can lead you to the proper motivation. For example, I spent about 4 months playing World of Warcraft and not really worrying about anything once I returned home from work. I didn't strive to be the best in the game (went down that path before, easy burnout), but instead just enjoyed myself.
Then one day I just got bored, stopped logging in, and turned my focus to my startup and I haven't looked back since :) (this was 8 months ago or so, we'll see how long it holds)
Re: Ask HN: Please, help me understand what I am doing wrong.
#104Do you have any friends? Modern careers leave people estranged from their families and without any real friends. Although programmers like to believe their Asperger's syndrome or Randian individualism means they don't need a social or family life, humans are social animals. Not having anyone around who cares about you leaves people anxious and depressed. When you are anxious and depressed it leads to ADHD, hypochondr…
Join a local club and do some volunteer work. I suggest Habitat for Humanity, (they build houses by hand for the poor)
Re: Ask HN: Please, help me understand what I am doing wrong.
#105sort of related, on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/93yaq/anyone_else...
Re: Ask HN: Please, help me understand what I am doing wrong.
#106What is the difference between a boy and a man?
Which one do you think you are, and which one would you like to be?
Re: Ask HN: Please, help me understand what I am doing wrong.
#107Something 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 s…
This is much harder. You should start with things that are every day, for your first month or two, so you are already doing well and motivated to continue. And even then I would pick the days of the week beforehand, so you're not tempted to put it off through the week.
Re: Ask HN: Please, help me understand what I am doing wrong.
#108I'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.
For the past couple months, I've been running a few miles every day. It really does feel good, and it's the right kind of addictive; if I have to skip a day or two for some reason, I don't feel as good, physically. My new baseline is healthier and better-feeling than it used to be. (Plus, this habit caused me to lose weight to the point where I went down a shirt size.)
The key word here is habit. You have a finite amount of willpower, so if you want to live right, you've got to make habits. When you write code, you split complexity into functions so you don't have to think about its implementation details; you just have to remember what the function does, so your mind doesn't get overloaded. Habits are similar, and just as essential. When I run, I don't make a decision to go out and do it; I just think "Oh, it's time for my daily run," and I start running. Trivially easy.
(But yeah, if you're looking for a specific habit, breaking a sweat every day is a great one.)
Re: Ask HN: Please, help me understand what I am doing wrong.
#109I'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?
>The short walk down a plain street is more difficult for me to understand... what does it really change?
It changes you. What wasn't said is that during that short walk down the street you need to leave all your devices and gadgets at your house. Then, simply walk down the street and observe. Be in that moment of walking and focusing on all that is going on around you in that very moment.
It sounds easy, and is a very zen thing to do but is a lot harder than you think. My mind is always racing with everything that needs to happen so that it's easy to become vapor locked. I take a walk outside and focus on feeling the warmth of the sun, the sounds, the visuals and everything that I need to do simply unfolds in front of me. It's hard to explain, but works.
Re: Ask HN: Please, help me understand what I am doing wrong.
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 s…
Personally I have had more success with NEGATIVE 30 day challenges, than positive 30 day challenges, for this very reason. A negative 30 day challenge is when I don't do something every day, for 30 days. One habit might be not drinking any soda for 30 days. Then you might add not eating any fast food or pizza for 30 days. Once I stopped medicating myself with food and weed, my true emotions surfaced and it became eas…
I second the idea of not drinking soda for 30 days. That stuff is unhealthy in various ways, and after a couple weeks, you won't miss it. It's a clear easy win. I did this in high school and have not regretted it.