Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself?

#41

Post by kevutu » Mon, Jul 29, 2013, 5:59 PM UTC

netcraft wrote: post #35

edw519 wrote: post #22

My father dropped out of high school to help support his family. He served in the military and started his own business. Except for Sundays, he worked his ass off 12 hours every day of his life until he died. My mother could have been anything, but never got the chance. Instead, she raised us so that we could become what she never could. My grandmother had nothing. When she was 13, she had to drop out of school to ca…

This really resonates with me. I've often said that its crazy how I have the ability to literally create something from nothing, something worth potentially millions if not billions of dollars, investing nothing more than time. And I have access to almost all of the information I need to be able to do it, for free. I can't think of any other profession where so much is possible; I just wish I could have an idea of wh…

"its crazy how I have the ability to literally create something from nothing, something worth potentially millions if not billions of dollars" i get that too, but it doesn't sustain me for long.Do you like meditate on this or remind yourself constantly...how do you keep it in your mind.

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself?

#42

Post by threepipeproblm » Mon, Jul 29, 2013, 7:16 PM UTC

Sometimes the harder you try to force yourself do things, the harder it becomes to do them. I lost a lot of time in the past trying to make myself more regimented, clearer about goals, etc. and it just made me resist (ironic process theory).

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself?

#43

Post by polskibus » Mon, Jul 29, 2013, 8:04 PM UTC

It's the difficulty level of the challenge that matters. It can't be too easy, it can't be too hard. Read the flow book if you need to understand the road to happiness.

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself?

#44

Post by m_ke » Mon, Jul 29, 2013, 8:22 PM UTC

Not to get off topic but I have a much harder time focusing on a single task/project. The motivation is there but I'm all over the place. There's so much to learn and I seem to start a new project every other day, but they just never get finished because I end up stumbling on a new thing that I want to learn/make.

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself?

#45

Post by swayvil » Mon, Jul 29, 2013, 9:08 PM UTC

My level of conscious figures highly. That which I find sufficiently satisfying depends on my level of consciousness.

When my consciousness level is low I am satisfied to mope around aimlessly, watch stupid tv and sleep a lot.

When my consciousness level is high I demand higher joys like cool projects, am happy and motivated and my shit is together.

I keep my consciousness level high by taking care of my body and meditating a lot. You see how it can be an upward spiral.

However sometimes I fall into laziness, life upsets my wagon, etc. So there's the "get back on the horse" thing.

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself?

#46

Post by swayvil » Mon, Jul 29, 2013, 9:14 PM UTC

yesimahuman wrote: post #4

For me, the motivation comes by having other people use and respond to the software I create. This means getting out of my developer bubble and doing some marketing. When people are engaging with your creations in a positive way, it's hard to not be motivated. I think this applies to any software product that is written with the intention of having someone else use it, open source or otherwise.

Oh man, positive feedback from people who use my software is the most wonderful thing in the universe. I laugh and cry and my existence is justified. Shit, I kinda like negative feedback too. I think I need more sex.

I can't say that it motivates me much tho. Well, maybe a little. I guess I'm mostly motivated by thinking about how my software could be.

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself?

#47

Post by swayvil » Mon, Jul 29, 2013, 9:21 PM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #22

My father dropped out of high school to help support his family. He served in the military and started his own business. Except for Sundays, he worked his ass off 12 hours every day of his life until he died. My mother could have been anything, but never got the chance. Instead, she raised us so that we could become what she never could. My grandmother had nothing. When she was 13, she had to drop out of school to ca…

Pressure like that, I would feel a great temptation to say fuckit. I think it's implicit. A big fuckit lurks.

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself?

#48

Post by swayvil » Mon, Jul 29, 2013, 9:33 PM UTC

majc2 wrote: post #28

I use the Napoleon Hill method of having a definite chief aim - Bruce Lee is probably one of the most famous users of it. http://imgur.com/r/GetMotivated/CvaN5QB The method boils down to writing something down to yourself outlining what you want to achieve, how you're going to achieve it, and when you're going to achieve it by. Then you keep reading the aim and it helps to motivate you.

That sounds very much like a "ritual magic" technique. Beyond the document you might include visual, olfactory, etc cues. Pictures and incense etc that create positive goal-achievement-associated feelings and ideas. Maybe a physical metaphor of progress too (...as this candle burns lower so I approach my goal...). Ritual magic enthusiasts (like Aleister Crowley for example) would say that you are actually imposing your will upon the stuff of reality in this controlled way, or something like that. Fascinating stuff.

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself?

#49

Post by mattm » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 12:40 AM UTC

There's no such thing as motivation. Most likely you are just giving into distractions. These distractions are there to test you as to how much you actually want to finish the thing you are working on. It comes as a result of looking towards the future too much instead of just focusing on what you are doing now.

I'm putting together a course related to this if you're interested - http://www.programmingspiritually.com/

Re: Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself?

#50

Post by __--__ » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 5:03 AM UTC

Motivation, passion and inspiration are mostly figments of the mind. It's the dopamine hit you get when you learn something for the first time or when you come up with (what you think is) an inspired idea. Just like a hit of cocaine, the high doesn't last forever. What you want to do is establish routines and habits. When the excitement, passion and motivation wears off, what's left is the routine.

"Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work." - Attributed to Chuck Close, echoed by countless writers and artists.