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How I stay motivated as a solo creator

herman.bearblog.dev

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Re: How I stay motivated as a solo creator

#91

Post by p3rls »

gagege wrote: post #19
whartung wrote: post #2

First, I'm easily distracted. But, the real issue in working on something, for myself, that is engaging, and pushing back the "WTH are you wasting time on this for?". It's all very fleeting. It's not like I have some other burning passion to work on instead, some "if you do this you'll make lots of money instead of those toys you make thing". I don't. But, especially being older, it can be a trick at times to perseve…

I have the same problem. I see all these hackers out there making (something like) the millionth travel blog and sticking with it for years and somehow ending up making a decent income off of it. But I'm sitting here wondering if my potentially cool game idea that has never been done before is something that the world really needs, then I quit after about a week because of those thoughts. What drives people?

Mental resilience and not understanding the sunk-cost fallacy

Re: How I stay motivated as a solo creator

#93

Post by mettamage »

polishdude20 wrote: post #46
thewizardofaus wrote: post #5

A crucial point the post misses is the distinction between motivation and discipline. Ultimately it's easy to work on things when they are fun and exciting; but motivation will only last for so long... once that happens it's the discipline that needs to take over for you to keep progressing forward.

Discipline is another way of saying habit. If you have no motivation to workout but you have the discipline, it's because you've made it a habit. It doesn't help to make a distinction because discipline is not something that is separate from motivation. You get motivation to do something, run on that motivation as long as you can and hope it lasted long enough to make it a habit. It's investing in your future self wh…

Build the habit to focus at will and discipline is less of an issue. I suppose focusing at will and doing what you think needs to be done is what discipline is.

On another note, one motivational trick I am applying nowadays with everything is to learn meta-skills like these in many different contexts (otherwise it won’t transfer).

Maybe it’s not another note. Maybe that’s the way how I stay motivated to focus at will for any given task.

It’s still early days. Also, I am doing this in conjunction with tackling my compulsion to go to YouTube.

Re: How I stay motivated as a solo creator

#94

Post by mettamage »

dtran wrote: post #12

>Working solo has its difficulties. For one, my income is somewhat tied to my productivity, and my productivity highly correlates to my state of mind. Since going back to being primarily a maker after organizing my days around being a manager[1], and being an avid runner, I've redefined my relationship with "motivation" in a way that can be summed up succinctly by author Brad Stulberg: "You don't need to feel good to…

You don’t think yourself in another emotional state, you act yourself into one (act as in you do stuff not act as in acting like an actor).

This is what I found combatting my social anxiety by approaching people on the street. Even after a decade of doing it, I am still as socially anxious as ever but simply giving some genuine compliments to a few fellow pedestrians loosens me up after half an hour (in Europe).

Re: How I stay motivated as a solo creator

#95

Post by thinkpad13 »

mortallywounded wrote: post #92

I recommend going to some meetups and meeting other solo founders/creators. I recently went to a Microconf meetup ( https://microconf.com/ ) and met 30-40 other solo creators and had a blast.

what are the most interested things that you just learn after going to the meetup?

Re: How I stay motivated as a solo creator

#96

Post by GiorgioG »

raffraffraff wrote: post #78

My wife hit upon something that might be interesting to anyone reading this. I don't think any of the comments here directly put their finger upon it. Some possibly unimportant background: my wife used to suffer from depression, but in the last 10 years that has subsided, mostly through self-guided philosophy and practical stuff. What remains is social anxiety and a life-long history of avoiding working for/with peop…

> Without a client she thinks "why bother?".

Exactly this. I've wanted to build a software company/SaaS for 20+ years but only managed to get any traction once because I got my first customer. Back in 2006 or 2007 I started an app hosting company "on the side" because there were no companies hosting FogBugz (bug tracker). I managed to get one customer and that motivated me to keep going. I had a customer ask if I hosted another application called HelpSpot (helpdesk software) and I obliged. Within 7-8 months I had more than 100 customers. It was not a ton of revenue or profit, but I kept at it until I got tired of my servers being hacked seemingly every week - HelpSpot was a PHP based application and back then PHP had more security holes than swiss cheese.

My "claim to fame" was that I hosted HelpSpot for an up-and-coming little startup named Twitter. Anyway, long story short...I am living proof that without customers it's difficult for the typical person to keep working on something to completion.

Re: How I stay motivated as a solo creator

#98

Post by mortallywounded »

thinkpad13 wrote: post #95
mortallywounded wrote: post #92

I recommend going to some meetups and meeting other solo founders/creators. I recently went to a Microconf meetup ( https://microconf.com/ ) and met 30-40 other solo creators and had a blast.

what are the most interested things that you just learn after going to the meetup?

The only thing I learned is there's a lot more people like me in the local community than I thought. Which was good because I went there to meet people, not to learn :)

Re: How I stay motivated as a solo creator

#99

Post by frakt0x90 »

sibit wrote: post #88
gagege wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same problem. I see all these hackers out there making (something like) the millionth travel blog and sticking with it for years and somehow ending up making a decent income off of it. But I'm sitting here wondering if my potentially cool game idea that has never been done before is something that the world really needs, then I quit after about a week because of those thoughts. What drives people?

> What drives people? I've worked on [side/pet/hobby] projects consistently for the last 6 years. What drives me is my friends. One of the latest projects I've started to work on is a free alternative to a mobile app called UDisc. They hit us with the ol' switcheroo by offering the service for free for several years and now force you to pay if you want to maintain your previous disc golf rounds (beyond 10 rounds). I'…

I extremely resonate with this. I write music and often don't finish a track because it's a lot of tweaking and monotony once you get the main idea down (much like software). But one time my wife wanted to make a "Great British Bake Off" show with her friends and I was suddenly extremely motivated to make the score. I scored the whole 30 minute video and it turned out great.
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