Just some encouragement here for you good people...
You have to do the work. There is no one else that can do it for you. It is entirely up to you; actually, it has only ever been you, because it is you that rolls out of bed early to bring it. No one is going to do that for you. If you want to do it, then you will figure out a way to make it happen.
Like some of you, I have a family. That makes things a bit challenging at times, and you will likely have to work even harder to find the time, to make the space, so that you can bring it. And, I will add, those that are parents, this is a great example to set for your children. You want to be, "The Daddy that brings it." You want to be, "The Mommy that brings it." Because, you want to instill in them that they can, too. It's a valuable life-lesson. In turn, it is psychologically healthy for you as well, to know that you are a parent that is firing on all cylinders. In addition, it is incredibly gratifying when your child sees your work. "Wow... that's the new game that you're working on! Let me try!" It will fuel you like a Saturn V launching to the moon.
You may look at your project and think, "I'm never going to make it. I'll never finish." Please, I urge you to set these thoughts aside and push through. Think about the analogy of building a wall. A wall is built one brick at a time. Watch a mason build a wall one day. You will observe that he or she lays one brick at a time.
This is how you have to view your project. Sure, it would be amazing to have an entire day, every day to devote to your project. However, the reality is that most of us simply do not have that luxury. So, strive to think of it as a mason: lay one brick at a time, and eventually the wall will be built. Every character that you type into Xcode, Visual Studio, etc. turns into a keyword, a variable name, etc... that subsequently turns into a line. Those lines build up, day by day, and before you know it, you have a program, and you look back and think, "Wow, why did I ever think I could not finish?"
Also, let go of "Internet Time." That is to say, we all read HN and see these impressive "Show HN" posts, and submitted stories about the Next Big Thing... and it seems like things are happening so fast, and we think, "Why even try?" Well, the reality is nothing is happening fast. It is an illusion. Most all of these stories have an incredible amount of time and work behind them, so let go of that illusion, get started, and stay focused.
"There's only this moment and the next moment. Every one of those moments is a test that you get to take one time and only one time." [1]
Strive to drive through each moment. Make it count.
You have to fight. This is paramount. I will say it again... you have to fight! What I mean here is fighting by engaging your Will. Engage your will to get up, to get moving. Engage your will to eat right, to exercise and go to bed on time so that you have the energy to get up and bring it.
What you are going through is what we are all going through; that is to say, we are all grinding, whether it be in a start-up business, or washing the dishes by day as we bootstrap a start-up at night; we are all struggling, fighting to drive our dreams into existence. We are all struggling in some way, whether it be through failure, health issues, personal issues, family issues, etc. No one is immune from the grip of suffering through his or her struggles.
You are not alone.
Embrace the grind. Vince Lombardi said it best:
"And in truth, I've never known a man worth his salt who, in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn't appreciate the grind, the discipline. The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather... a lack of will."
You have to use the will to fight those thoughts that say, "I'm getting older. I'm failing. I'm not motivated. I can't finish."
The clock is ticking for all of us... fight! You never know where your work will take you. Do not forget that, you have to dream it first in your mind before you can see it in your life. And to see it in your life, you must work. You may not be able to see things clearly now, but you never know what doors could open for you that you did not even know existed.
Ang Lee, the Taiwanese film director and screenwriter that directed Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Life of Pi, discusses his struggles to break into film. I urge you to read it:
http://whatshihsaid.com/2013/02/26/ang-lee-a-never-ending-dr...
Personally I think realizing you need to engage your will and discipline yourself into working hard when you don't want to is the easy part. The really really hard part is actually doing it. How do you find will where there is none? How do you motivate yourself when you feel unmotivated about everything? When you feel stuck in the rat race, stuck in the routine of monotony? How can I restore the drive and motivation in myself that I never remember having in the first place? Is it even possible?
These are the things I am struggling with and they make fighting it a non-starter.
Thanks! It is nice to know I'm not the only one going trough this. Let me know if you find the/an/your answer!
Some things I've noticed: Being physically fit helps and doing sport is a bit easier than overthrowing the world. Maybe ask a friend to go with you.
Sleep is also easily modified: Try out the effects of light, temperature, noise, sleep duration etc. Maybe use Melatonine or a sleep cycle alarm.
It's also a lot easier to do things when I don't have to do them. If I tell myself, I _have_ to run today in order to get fit I probably won't do it. But just going outside quickly for some fresh air? Sure, let's check the mailbox ... and now that I'm outside, why not run for a bit?
It's a bit like jumping out of the bed before the brain realizes what you're doing and has no time to scream "I don't want to wake up!" :)
> It's a bit like jumping out of the bed before the brain realizes what you're doing and has no time to scream "I don't want to wake up!" :)
Here's a good technique for training yoũrself to get up in the morning:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/04/how-to-get-up-right...
It's the same technique that you suggested: train yourself to get up as more of a reflex of hearing the alarm, not as a series of mental motivations and self-persuasions.
In a wilderness we would be turned into someone's food very quickly, but luckily nowadays in our world you don't really have to work that hard to survive. If you can't do all the things that you dream of right now, maybe you are simply over-ambitious. Try to move your focus from the things that you didn't do and focus instead on something else, more realistic that can be done. Do one thing, but do it right. And then work your way up from there...
I once read something that Tim Ferriss had said in response to a similar question. I'm heavily paraphrasing, but he was basically asked how he had so much more discipline than most others.
He responded by saying that he doesn't have more discipline - he just creates environments that decrease his opportunities to fail (ie. get distracted) and increase his likelihood to succeed (ie. finish the work).
The idea is to not trust yourself and not give yourself the opportunity to fail. A concrete example of how I've personally put this to great use in my life is how I made it a habit to go to the gym:
When I was in college, I wanted to go to the gym regularly. Unfortunately I found that when I was in my dorm room and needed to get ready for the gym, I lacked the motivation to get out of a comfortable situation. What I began doing was taking my gym clothes to class and going straight to the gym after class. This required significantly less motivation on my part because I was already walking around campus, sometimes even passing the gym by on the way back to my dorm. The step leading up to that also required very little motivation - putting clothes in your backpack. The result was that I created a sequence of events that each had a small likelihood of failure. 10 years later, going to the gym is my favorite hobby.
Another example related to getting work done came about when I was trying to work on my side projects from home. It never worked. I'd always want to browse the internet, watch tv, play video games, or spend time with my girlfriend. Starting work when my Xbox was in the next room meant summoning a monumental amount of motivation. Instead what I started doing was going to a local coffee shop or coworking space. It doesn't take that much effort to just go to a public space with wifi (and if it does, you can use the advice above). Once there, you have put yourself in an environment where everyone else is working. Aside from noise, there are fewer distractions. In addition, you'll look like an asshole if you're sitting in front of your laptop playing on Reddit for 4 hours while everyone around you is getting shit done.
If you can make a habit of completing those small triggers that lead to bigger outcomes, you'll eventually have gained a much more significant habit.
That actually is a very simple approach but makes a lot of sense, I'll definitely think about it, thanks for writing it down.
Think of any film about any successful company that has ever been made and you'll realize the 'idea' and the 'success' get all the screen time. All of the hard work, sacrifice and, arguably, the best parts of starting a company get rolled up into a 60 second montage. Nobody wants to watch the nitty gritty stuff, let alone do it, but that's what separates founders from everyone else.
> Engage your will to eat right, to exercise and go to bed on time so that you have the energy to get up and bring it.
One can't overestimate this advice. Regarding willpower: What I find very useful to remember is that willpower is something we all can and have to develop. Also, it's important to understand that willpower is a limited resource. Similar to training your body it has a lot to do with energy management - strain and rest. One of the richest advices I've found is [1]. I particularly like the 4 steps of development:
1. Avoid things that are not useful
2. Overcome in case they are apparent
3. Develop things that are useful
4. Maintain them
[1] http://swamij.com/podcast.htm see Developing Determination for Enlightenment
Wow, great comment. That's the first time I've wanted to buy someone Reddit Gold on Hacker News!
This is the kind of thing that I need to hear.
Thank you.
> Also, let go of "Internet Time." That is to say, we all read HN and see these impressive "Show HN" posts, and submitted stories about the Next Big Thing... and it seems like things are happening so fast, and we think, "Why even try?" Well, the reality is nothing is happening fast. It is an illusion. Most all of these stories have an incredible amount of time and work behind them, so let go of that illusion, get started, and stay focused.
Yeah, I seem to get this false sense of these Show HN all being something that someone whipped up in the weekend, even though the magnitude of implies that that is very, very unlikely. It's like I think that since that they are all so easy to find, and they happen so often, the time that these seeming wizards made them is proportional to how much attention I have put on them, which is clearly erroneous. Looking at the projects they are often years old, maybe even years in the making.
I think I crossed the line of being more demotivated than inspired by those types of posts. I should cut down on this Web-thing.
This a good point, thus the +1 from me.
I know when I originally started frequenting HN, I felt enlightened, educated, and sometimes motivated by some of the posts I saw.
Nowadays, I feel overwhelmed and discouraged from everything going on and what I seem to be missing. But I think you're dead-on -- it's all an illusion.
of course each one might have "an incredible amount of time and work behind them" but that's not the issues, it's that there are many of them, giving the accurate appearance that things are happening quickly - because indeed they are.
I'm sure some of those Show HN posts are knocked out over a weekend, and I might have done that when I was 20 and had oceans of time, but not now that I'm 34 and have too many other things going on besides programming.
My own submission from a year ago [0] which is quite meager compared to most of those Show HN posts was developed in the free time I could scrounge out over a period of 3 months. I spent another month or so after that polishing a first version. Then I took a break from hobby programming for half a year to play some games that were sitting in my steam account, and now over the course of the past few months I've been developing a javascript library to sync JSON data in a P2P way, which will take another few months until it's ready to post to HN (if I ever finish it ;) ). It's not easy to find time for programming hobby projects when you have a family, a job, a life and a collection of books/games/movies to get through :)
Anyway, the way that I see it you have to do these projects for yourself, not for anyone else. You write them to scratch an itch, to see an idea blossom or wither, to enjoy the act of coding. Posting them online is the thing you do after you've done the thing you wanted to do.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5184926