How to become a Good Theoretical Physicist

You have two options: Change your mindset or continue burying/ignoring your ambitions. Burying your ambitions can make you relatively satisfied in life, but I believe they will always haunt you regardless of how hard you try.

You can change your mindset by developing habits that turns your mind into a force for achieving your ambitions, instead of an obstacle that prevents you from achieving your ambitions (which it appears to be now). Through this you will achieve MUCH more, and I believe be much more satisfied in life.

You're only 30. I would suggest you continue reading, looking inward and learning about yourself, and continue searching for answers concerning why you aren't full of passion and motivation for achieving your ambitions. Everyone's journey is different, however here are a smattering of books/resources that may be insightful and have helped me:

1. Carol Dweck on mindset:

- Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

- Self-theories: Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development (Essays in Social Psychology)

2. About the inner journey of high performance, removing mental obstacles, cross-disciplinary learning, and nature vs. nurture:

- The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence - Josh Waitzkin

- Way of the Peaceful Warrior

- The Talent Code - Coyle

- Bounce - Syed

3. Add some insightful structure to your perspective. Do you have a pessimistic and deterministic mindset that is a detriment to your success?

- http://blakemasters.com/post/23435743973/peter-thiels-cs183-...

4. Learn how self-control and willpower works and overcome it:

- The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It - McGonigal

5. Strengthening your mind:

- The Rock Warrior's Way: Mental Training For Climbers

- A Fighter's Heart: One Man's Journey Through the World of Fighting

6. Find famous people in history you admire and feel you can relate with, and read their biographies. A few suggestions:

- The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

- Titan (about Rockefeller)

- Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War

- Steve Jobs - Isaacson

- River of Doubt (about T. Roosevelt's dangerous journey through the Amazon river)

7. Don't worry about things you can't change and place all your focus in the things you can. Stoicism:

- Seneca

- Meditations

8. On how the people who have become masters in their field became masters in their field:

- Mastery by Robert Greene

9. Very intriguing characters that display incredible strength (mixed with some controversial philosophy):

- Atlas Shrugged - Rand

- The Fountainhead - Rand

These don't fall under "introductory" in any sense of the word. These are hard graduate level books.

I enjoyed reading your comment more than the article.

I don't have any real advice though, be strong and try to fight procrastination, it's more of a mental status than anything else :-)

ps. You're not the only one who has fear of failure. I do too, I guess it's a natural state for most people ;-)

Call me old-fashioned but I think the previous, less fashionable version of this page (site?) was much more usable [1]. At least it gave you a much better idea of all it takes by having it all the links in one page.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20140408204512/http://www.staff....

Same story for me! I started about 4 years ago, when I was 27.

For collaborative martial arts club, I would recommend aikido - the focus of the training is working with a partner to both understand a technique.