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Comment by Xelbair | Hacker News Reader

Sadly my course at university was too easy - most of the times i could easily wing the exams, prepare for a presentation day before, and do the same thing to the project - and get equivalent of B.

Professors were also good at teaching, which reduced the need to study at home even further.

It hurt me in the long run - i am really bad at putting in effort unless something catches my attention(thankfully programming can totally absorb me), and i quite frequently 'wait for the spark'(walking helps with that a lot).

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It is unfortunate that many smart people go through their life without being truly challenged to work hard and develop these skills. It is often too easy for us (excuse my pride) to coast by on our ability to grasp material quickly and intuitively, yet ultimately feel dissatisfied as we know we didn’t work that hard at it. The only way I have found to overcome this is to engage in rigorous study with those who are better than you. In some ways I think many of the elite schools in the US do a disservice to their students by coddling them with inflated grades and subjective assessments. Having experienced both, I far prefer the brutal and objective assessments of difficult midterms and finals found at large public universities. If you don’t have access to such an education, then start by reading the original works of great thinkers. Take courses at the best school you can find. Online is ok, but don’t neglect the work. Find professional work with peers that challenge you. Being surrounded by smart people who work hard will change your perspective on what is possible. Procrastination is just one form of self-sabotage which allows us avoid confronting our own limitations. There’s no shame in turning in a crap project because you did it the night before, but it would be a catastrophe to spend weeks pouring your heart and soul into a piece and still have it be garbage! The reality is that many hard things require lots of practice, and you won’t always nail it. Laugh at your mistakes, throw it away, start over, iterate and improve. It’s ok to fail, it’s not an indictment of your potential. Great projects may start with inspiration from a long walk, but they also require lots of editing and refactoring. The important thing is to start the thing and keep working at it, keep chipping away at the small pieces until you get there.

>> Laugh at your mistakes, throw it away, start over, iterate and improve.

Nature plays the same game, I believe.

In addition to mastering the field of study that interests us, mastering our own minds may help us get better results.

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