Ask HN: How to deal with rapidly changing interests in life?

I am in my early twenties and I'm on the path of self improvement. I haven't had the best of times lately and instead of putting all the improvements off, I have set myself achievable goals. One of the things I have a lot of trouble with is my interests seem to shift weekly. One week it's guitar next week it's cybersec, followed by a week of mobile app development etc. At some point the cycle repeats but, I can never commit to finishing something. I usually reach a point where I feel like I have done the challenging bit and I lose interest for a while. Whenever I do find something I only do that thing for hours on hours losing track of time and neglecting my other responsibilities. It's incredibly frustrating to never have something to show for what I have worked on and to not be able to commit to goals and projects over the long term. As a result my developer portfolio is full of simple projects rather than the unfinished more interesting projects.

I'm afraid my self-improvement track and my future professional life will be the victim of this. I Would love to hear some suggestions or experiences regarding this issue.

I have been there.

I recommend the book: "Refuse to Choose!" by Barbara Sher.

Short intro: https://www.getmotivation.com/motivationblog/2017/04/barbara...

In short: get over the feeling of guilt first, then organize your multitudes of interests.

I think a lot of times I am having fun, but when I do, I decide beforehand that I want to learn a certain thing and often times I don't finish what I wanted to finish. I'm not really working on self-improvement as a goal but, I went and looked at my life and what I wanted to see changed. Personal health is one of those and relieving frustration from my rapidly changing hobbies and interest is another.

I do program for a living as part of an internship currently. However, I want to try out the cybersecurity field and in an attempt to pursue that path I feel obligated to spend my free time working towards that path, but I can't seem to dose it, I commit to it 110% and burn out after 1-2 weeks. I think with most things I want a quick result, which I know I won't be able to get unless I pour everything I have into it.

I do share your last point, I often am enjoying myself while being invested in it, but the thing is I still enjoy it afterwards, I just can't seem to balance it with the other things I enjoy.

Ah. Honestly, I'd schedule and work on easing into things.

One of the things some folks teach with meditation is to manage time. Did you manage to sit for 5 minutes? If so, score, you did it. Also, many opt to introduce things slowly - so even if it going easily that day, once the timer goes off, you are done. That's it, that's all the time you get that day. It is similar with exercise: Ease into it so you don't hurt yourself. Perhaps this sort of attitude would help you with some of the more intense things - so, instead of putting 110% into two weeks, you are putting 110% into during the limited time you have for that activity and trying to set yourself up for better results long-term. It'll seem hard at first.

There have been many interests that I've had, and hobbies that I've partaken in, that I've stopped exploring for whatever reason. For a while I used to see this as a bad thing.

However, everything that I've explored has expanded my knowledge a bit. As an example, I used to draw years ago and although I don't anymore, if I'm asked to doodle something quickly (to show a diagram or if I'm playing Pictionary), I'm pretty adept at it. I wouldn't be this way if it weren't for sketching when I was younger.