Ask HN: How do I acquire an overachiever personality like the typical HN user?

You know how people complain that social media only shows people exaggerated positivity, and harms our youth because they actually believe that people's live are being accurately portrayed?

Sounds like you've got that same skewed perspective on the HN community. Most of us are run-of-the-mill humans, just doing our jobs, living our lives, and participating on HN to keep up on what else is going on. We're as flawed as anyone else, and nothing in your description makes it sound like you aren't one of us.

If you are unhappy with your productivity, by all means try to do better. But don't do it because you think we're any different - just do it for yourself, a little at a time, getting a little better each day/week/month.

> Most of us are run-of-the-mill humans

Exactly. I, for one, am objectively below average in many areas and this is ok.

I am not even able to do that, and that is the problem, I am not even a run-of-the-mill human and since atleast a decade, (atleast i thought or fantasized that) i have always wanted to be this driven person who achieves great things, and earns enough money that money is no object but other bigger, deeper things are what drive me but here i haven't done shit, partly because whenever a complex subject is put in front of me, i have used some or other avoidance technique to push to learn it later and never did.

Now i am trying to learn C++ from scratch but it's going agonizingly slowly, because some thing in me prevents me from being able to actually write the code on the screen and i don't know why.

So, you’re 24. You’re already learning C++, and that great. I didn’t write a line of code until my late 20s. I’m doing ok now. You’re well on track.

It’s hard to write code. It’s even harder get started because you’re learning how to learn. The learning curve is exponential but that also means incredibly slow in the beginning. Be patient with yourself.

I just started medication for ADHD and it's helped a lot of things, so. There's that. I find that on top of being distracted less (not zero, it's not magic) I have more of a desire to do other stuff, like learn and read and play with my son and have good conversations with people I love. I find I'm more in control of my emotions, especially the critical ones, and my tendency to obsess and ruminate is reduced.

Based solely on this paragraph, you sound like me, so I'm going to take a shot and tell you what I'd tell my 24 year old self: no amount of browbeating yourself is going to fix this. Discipline takes work, yes, but it also takes a mind able to do the work. See a therapist, and/or a doctor. Lay all this stuff out and see what they say. After that, start small. But not just small--something you'd think you would enjoy. Don't force yourself to eat your vegetables at this stage. Something that lands in the middle of fun and enriching, which can produce a skill or a product you will eventually be proud of, but which in the meantime you like doing.

Take heart. This is doable. I've been there, it sucks, and there's a way out.

How long did it take for the meds to work? I have to different doses for a month each but did not see any effect, partly because i would sometimes not take the med on time.

Rumors of our intelligence are greatly exaggerated.

Speak for yourself! …ok speak for me too.

Hello this sounds like me, Im only a few years older.

I also have many things I would like to do but have always settled for good enough. I feel like I don’t have enough drive/motivation?

One thing thats changed recently is I started eating a lot more protein and working out more consistently. I was definitely under eating before. Im not suggesting crazy diets or major changes. But I just started eating more, not skipping breakfast etc and going to the gym/cardio.

Ive noticed it’s given me a boost of energy that I never had. Maybe its placebo or temporary. But I swear Ive noticed a difference.

Another thing is planning. Im an awful planner and I have refused to use a planner since grade school. This is one thing Im currently trying to change as well. When you have X things you’re trying to do, planning it out removes much of the mental work of “what to do next”. Instead of thinking about what to do, you can instead do something useful.

Last thing, is just do it. I get wrapped up in my head with over analyzing and bring myself down to not even try. Ive been trying to push that voice out and “just do it”.

I am far far from becoming an overachiever. However I definitely relate to your post. So I thought maybe this might help you.

Assuming you're asking in good faith

Based on this and your last couple of posts, I can sense you are struggling. Please don't rely on the advice of strangers (mine included).

Some things I would suggest

1. Find someone in real life that you would like to emulate. See if you can talk to them about being mentored or coached regularly.

2. Consult a qualified medical mental-health professional. This is easier said than done. But if you can find the right person it's completely worth the few weeks of effort it would take

3. Consider that your value system might not necessarily be the same as the value systems of the authors of the projects that get on HN front page, or get commented up.

4. We live in increasingly a winner-take-all society. That's not a judgment, it's a matter of fact. The stuff that gets upvoted here gets upvoted more. That means you may be seeing something that's not reflective of the general population

I know this is cliched but be kind to yourself.

PS: If you're LARPing, you have a flair for writing.

Since we live in a winner-take-all society, one has to morph to be able to thrive in such an environment and i want to. i am from a place where the killer instinct is a necessity and the price of failure is too high (believe me, i know it very well). i have no choice but to become the type-A finance/tech millionaire to ever hope to become one.

> If you're LARPing, you have a flair for writing.

Not larping sadly, this is real. Thank you, i do not know if you are being kind with the compliment but either way, even having flair for writing is useless in the age of LLMs haha.

I got off to a pretty rocky start in my life, and have periodically suffered from depression and anxiety. I am now doing pretty well I think.

First of all, recognise that you cannot achieve great things or have good relationships if you are suffering and beating yourself up all the time. That is just a vicious cycle that feeds itself. I don't know if therapy, or medication or exercise or something else is what you need, but work on yourself. Give yourself love first.

Secondly, I have found that when I am really engaged by something, learning comes quite easily. This is not to say that there is no effort; I have had to put a lot of effort in. It's just that I enjoy it, so it's not so hard to make myself do it. After some time, I suddenly realise I'm quite good at something!

But the most important thing in my opinion is to learn to be kind to yourself.

I spent too much of my life chasing achievements. They will never make you happy for long. I lost contact with all of them by going through migration, COVID, a separation.

Focusing on achievements is a recipe for a lifetime of misery, except (if you are lucky) few short living moments of satisfaction.

What determines your happiness is how you live every moment. Do you have good hobbies? Good friends? If you are happy with your productivity, you can enjoy the moments of pleasure.

My suggestions:

- Stop thinking about achievements, start to live the moment. Find what motivates you and start doing it

- Find a hobby. Dance helped me a lot. It gave me progress when I lacked it in my career, social interactions, and a supportive community when I needed it the most

- Commit to something by joining groups. I'm a big procrastinator. Choose activities that you don't need to do anything alone. I only practice Tango in the class and with others. That slows down my progress, but I can live with winning the world championship a few decades later ;)

- Change your social circle: People you see frequently have a huge effect on your lifestyle. Don't suddenly stop hanging with your current friends, start hanging out with people who motivate you. Don't try impressing people, and don't talk about your struggles. Be friendly, lots of things happen.

- Seek help. Find a mentor. Go to therapy. If you don't click with your therapist, try another person. If psychoanalysis does not work for you, try CBT. If you are diagnosed with any attention disorder, medication might help a lot

- Read good heroic fantasy novels. Those will satisfy the grandeur-seeking personality

- Start small and observe your progress. Give yourself reward for small achievements. The reward should be something exciting for your inner child. A nice snack will do. Over time gradually increase the time between rewards, but make them bigger.

I have the personality type you speak of.

1. I don’t do everything in your list. In fact retrospectively I’d say I’ve allocated much more time and energy into building things than nurturing friendships and relationships.

I have a general interest in how things work so my behaviour is largely self motivating.

When I wake up every day I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything. I have an urge to aim as high as possible because I want to literally change the world in some way. So I set large goals and grind away until I achieve them. I get dopamine from achieving things people thought weren’t possible in timeframes people assume are unrealistic. So I relentlessly pursue this.

I find spite is a great motivator as well. I often think about people that have wronged me in some way and channel that energy into the work that I do. It’s very effective.

Could you maybe mentor me? xD

Not very long ago I was exactly where you are now. The only difference is that I'm 5 years older than you. I've been trying something new: don't try to be something. Just go and do things you need to do. To me that's work, being a good developer, feeling like one of the HN crowd. I still don't feel any of that, so I just keep doing what I'm doing. Of course I try to learn a little every day, of course I try to improve my skills. I'm just not worried anymore about improving at a pace as fast as I think I should. Because the pace I believe I should be improving is humanly impossible. The problem is that I feel like if I'm not a Genius, I'm nothing. So I just shrug off those thoughts and I keep doing. Just do.

I had this similar problem, but I hit it when I was somewhere in elementary school and the expectations of me were unreasonably high, making me sadder and sadder.

My solution was simple at the time but has been a blessing: I want to be happy. My goal became "be happy", which is way easier than "be rich", "be a genius" or something along those lines, from my perspective.

I'm very happy (and have been for many years), even though I'm average.

My suggestion for you is just that: Change your perspective, aim for happiness and work toward that instead.

Just because you think something (“others are better than me”), doesn’t mean it’s real. It’s only an idea that exists in your head.

This is an error of thought.

We all live in our own heads all day long, but can’t see inside other people’s, we only see what others project.

We all have our own challenges and we’d probably look at you as someone that has it all together =)

your value as a person is unrelated to tech, money or accomplishments

Give up sleep.

By the second week you'll be studying physics to perfect a design for a zero point energy device or something.

Haha :D i would have loved it if that was possible.

As another poster already said, you may have ADHD. Earlier in life I was very much like you describe yourself. ADHD meds made a significant difference. Although meds didn't "do it for me", they at least made it possible for me to accomplish certain things.

i did consult an adhd specialist who said that i am unlikely to have it. and i don't have hyperfocus either, which seems to be common in adhd. even though i have tried to trick myself into getting interested in scientific and technical areas, my mind just shuts down or refuses to learn :(

Stop tricking yourself. Your mind is smarter than you.

Or: your conscious + subconscious mind is smarter than your conscious mind.

So, you're everyone.

Plenty of people do learn to push themselves and just keep on doing the next thing, and the next, and so on, and appear to be super-achievers, but I think if you look closely, the most important stuff happens when you're lazing in your hammock.

So keep it up.

Find a goal that’s close-to-impossible and then reach it. Don’t matter if it’s your dream job or a 10k run. You’ll force your being into utilizing all its mental and physical capacities into achieving it. Being focused is a skill that can be trained.

i have had goals like that and i did nill to achieve them and i hate myself for it.

Feel ya. Never forget who you actually are. Don't fall victim to social media's deleterious self-inadequacy effects. Reevaluate your capabilities, choose practical small-world goals and see them through. The path is the goal.

Try fasting. No, seriously. I hate food and I love the dopamine surge of results from brainwork, so I get addicted getting things done after waking up to the point of not eating till the afternoon. The unintentional fasting keeps your anxiety levels slightly elevated and gives a very productive state to body and mind. You could learn, code, work, apply for jobs or universities etc. Make a list of things you want to get done and start physically checking it off one at a time. It becomes addictive to keep a streak going. Knock down as many as you can before you eat. Once you eat, you calm down and may even get sleepy (take a nap if you’ve gotten enough done). Eating proteins only may keep your brain productive, but carbs will crash you to sleepiness. I hammer through and have my best big meal before bed time - that’s when you get a nice night of sleep and wake with a fresh brain ready to take on the list.

You could be onto something there, i have tried this and it works but i am not able to be anywhere close to as productive as i should be and i do not know why

See a therapist. Seriously. You are okay no matter what. You are loved and fun and a great person. The only thing missing is you seeing that. A therapist is one of many routes towards that. Life is too short to try to "be like you guys".

i am honestly not even that good a person to my loved ones, that makes things worse. i just wanna be a successful person who doesn't have to worry about money and tech is a good way to get there since i don't really know how to deal with and understand people either

Nth info possible depression and to see a therapist, if only to treat this world view of yours that everyone else is successful and I’m not. But a therapist would help you with what sounds like depression.

> an overachiever personality like the typical HN user

Methinks you exaggerate slightly.

> how do you keep learning so much everyday about the world, complex technical concepts, becoming technical experts, opening and running businesses, nurturing friendships and relationships, and fulfilling the various needs of modern life.

Little by little, day by day.

I agree with the above comment, you seem to be idealizing these mysterious others on the internet and assuming all are paragons of productivity. Meanwhile, this site is largely a locus of procrastination for me, as it is for many, many others, I suspect. My gentle suggestion: find peace with who you are and what you really value. Maybe through meditation, or through therapy?

Everything I have, I did it through consistency - a couple hours a day is all you need to get started.

Step 1 is to log off of HN.

The same here. But after 40 years of life experience, I start thinking.. where's actually the problem?

I couldn't find the answer and now I think - it's all a lie and pressure from a few people being put on others to have a "differentiator" which makes the putting on pressure ones happy and others sad. Like the social media/Instagram - when you think of it, each nice photo on the beach, own kitchen, own fast car, ..., with beautiful and handsome people seeming having much fun and success in their life.. all of that is staged. Staged to get more followers. Staged to show to the others a wonderful life (not to show it themselves) and let others kind of admire/being jealous/etc ... In reality, such posers are ordinary people and the success comes with their ability to manipulate other's thinking (steep learning curve, though). They also need it, because only this can make them happy.. to be followed, to be admired means success for them.

So, stop believing you're less worth because you can't compare with the ones presenting their life as perfect.

Each successful ones also have non successful parts in their life. But they don't show it. (Like a friend of mine.. being successful in job and life, earning 30k per month, wearing good expensive clothes and driving like 3 cars, living in a 3 floor house ... but his wife ran away without any other man involved after 6 years of marriage.. so she just left him, pursuing their own life and dreams. Is this successful, one might ask? .. it depends on how you decide what success means. For me.. nope. It's better to have a stable life, being healthy and having a warm family where true love is practiced - this is success because many many many people living can't even reach that status. They might be earning a lot, but they will never earn true love, because their aim is different.)

So, whenever I see one Show-off, I let him/her be like that and "give the apes some sugar" to let them feel good. Because this is the only aim in life, to make others happy. Everything other than that you can't take with you when leaving :) So, is it worth? :)

Concentrate on what you can do and evolve your ideas especially within this topic

8^)

You are depressed. You may want to check on that.

Aside of that, most people become good at something just by practicing. The first thousand hours of doing something are a chore, and suck. But once you start mastering it, it becomes a joy.

Finally, it is your choice, if you want to be like the "prototypical " HN user. HN is an anomaly in the US culture of "productivity" . And the US also has some crazy "work to live" culture you don't see in other places.

I'm from Mexico, and over here most people live a veeery relaxed life. No need to be ruthlessly productive. But that's a choice you ought to make.

Of course i am depressed, i have had some other revelations in the past 2 years that have shattered my psyche even more. You see, i was raised in a family where there is strong belief in God and living a good, honest and hard working life. but i finally realized that this entity my loved ones so strongly believe in to get through tough times and help people selflessly is a sham, that has caused terrible suffering that we can never quantify, probably is also the reason for our senseless overpopulation.

So it turns out life is inherently meaningless with no higher purpose, and i also wasted a lot of it daydreaming about making it big, and making the world a better place but put zero effort in that or any other facet of living.

Since life really doesn't have meaning, having money would atleast give me and my loved ones security and the ability to do nothing (which i love) but to get there, i need to be a productive, crazily-driven tech czar or something similar. And what better place to ask this than Hackernews. America's crazy work culture is why the country and it's people are so success and i want a piece of that pie.

Two paths to the relaxed lifestyle: 1) only work about as much as needed and keep a low-key, relaxed lifestyle; 2) work crazy hard for 15-20 years and then if everything works out perfectly, slow down and keep a low-key, relaxed lifestyle. All of my life experience suggests that option two is often a trap that keeps one away from relaxation.

Also, sounds like you could benefit from an existential psychotherapist, if you could find one.

Kind of random movie suggestion, but this all makes me think of the lovely movie I Heart Huckabees.

I want to work hard, but i am not even able to do the bare minimum work that is needed. Second, i want to work in such a way that i derive enough value (money) and not still be at the mercy of inflation and the various financial "Traps". So, two obstacles i do not know how to cross.

Lots of productivity tools available. If you can rouse yourself from the couch, look some of them up and try one.

Learning to believe your own bullshit helps/confidence in what you're saying. You probably aren't nearly as bad as what you're telling yourself and trying to come off as in your post.

Plus time helps, 24 is still really young and underdeveloped relatively speaking, and you're already trying to improve :)

believing my own bullshit only made things worse for me since i thought i am smart enough to do it tomorrow and never did.

i need something different since i have had tried to improve so many times :(

> if the average HN user met me, they would be shocked at this specimen of a human with the intellectual capacity of a stone-age hominid.

If the average HN user is shocked at you, I’d be shocked at such average HN user who has no empathy or a clue about how the world works. If anything, avoid associating with people who may make you think you’re worthless or are a failure.

> So, the gist of the question is how do i become like you guys?

Don’t! Be what you are, recognize or get to know about yourself (from close confidants or therapists) and choose what you’d like to change and why. “I feel like a failure when I see all those overachievers around me” is a terrible reason to change. You don’t know what sacrifices those people are making, how miserable they may actually be due to their choices or actions and how some of them may just be showing off (this doesn’t mean all of them are dishonest, but nobody’s life is perfect).

> how do you keep learning so much everyday about the world, complex technical concepts, becoming technical experts, opening and running businesses, nurturing friendships and relationships, and fulfilling the various needs of modern life.

I’d say there are too many assumptions here. The average HN user is none of these. The top tier of HN users, based on how you measure it, may be.

In most communities, the number of lurkers is a lot higher than the number of active participants. On a platform like HN that’s meant for startups and showcasing things, there’s going to be a huge survivorship bias — those who make it post and those who don’t make it or fail multiple times don’t post (or don’t post as much). Measuring yourself against what’s visible will not help, and could actually be harmful to you.

It seems like you could do some good for yourself with counseling, therapy, friendships and connections. If you’d like, add practices that are in general good — eat well, sleep well, exercise and connect with others. If you wish, add meditation to the mix and learn about the philosophy of worldly illusion.

Nothing happens in an instant. You need to find out why you want something and put the effort. Be patient and see where things go. This is as much as an internet stranger can advise.