Do quests, not goals
raptitude.com
raptitude.com
As an example, I do car restoration as a hobby. It’s a big, big task to basically dismantle a car, fix body issues, rebuild the engine and transmission, clean up all the parts, and put it back together. Looking at the entire task outside of it, seems almost impossible to do, but I almost never think about the end of the work. I just think about the next thing I need to do.
I think marathon runners do something similar, or so I’ve heard anecdotally.
Marathon training is actually the framework around which I do all “quests” now. If you enjoy the process, anything is possible. The key is finding a way to enjoy the process.
I’ve extended it to several areas I didn’t find very fun prior. Language learning and job hunting in particular.
I actually wrote my first blog post on this very subject[1]. Warning, it’s quite verbose and not the best. There’s a TL;DR.
[1] https://emmettmcdow.github.io/posts/how-to-learn-a-foreign-l...
In my experience, (This is a Mechanical Elves take on it (I studied Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu, Danzan Ryu, Small Circle, and my Professor Larry Cary said to me one session:
"The movements I am teaching you awaken dormant brain circuitry. When you do these movements, all the old Masters are with you"
That was the moment it really clicked for me.
Later, Soke Hatsumi was quoted in the infamous "Understand? Good. Play!" book -- my favorite quote:
"I am teaching you to wield a sword, even if you have no arms!"
--
The reason is that these two statements allowed me to see what the true nature of my Joy of Movement truely was: I was able to see the Principles of Movement flow through me - (we call this The Mode) - and it was that feeling that was being fully present is what I sought and I feel thats the nature of Mastery of any craft.
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@sebg:
You'd really love this Scientest's interview:
"Things like 'YOU' - that took the Universe Billions of years to generate 'YOU' - you have a lot of Time embedded in you..."
https://youtu.be/6o8OFTrSTpk?t=7832
Fn prphetic. This Scientists entire podcast and more is worth Time.
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I wrote this Haiku a long while back:
Movement and Measure
All is One, flowing through Time.
Another yourself.
Me, personally, getting past that critical point, embracing the suck. That's kinda the point. I hit that miserable point. I keep moving forward however I can. Whatever stupid bullshit comes up, you (I) just get through it. Somehow. it doesn't matter how. And then there's a bit of a release. Maybe just glide through the last few miles. Maybe rub some dirt on it and walk home. It doesn't really matter because I complete the loop. I sort of shed the vision of what it might be, and learn what it really is. And that's super helpful.
Mark Twain wrote life on the Mississippi, and wrote a lot about how cool it would be to be a riverboat pilot. The beautiful pink sky, the ripples on the water. And there's sort of a heartbreaking transition when he learns the pink sky means a storm is coming. the ripples mean there's a sandbar. In his unknowing dream, everything he loved about it was a disaster waiting to strike. He learned in his own way.
For me, there's a joy and romance to running a marathon that was completely unlike what I thought it was before I started.
So anyway, maybe the subtle shift from goal to quest is enough to help some people embrace the suck. Nothing is what you think it is without doing it. there are parts that are awful. if you can get through it, you'll get nothing you hoped for. but maybe the change of perspective is enough.
Also I feel you on the taking breaks part. There’s no rules. Nothing beats sitting on the curb eating some junk and drinking some Gatorade mid-run.
my experience anyway. your milage may vary.
I am personally goal motivated: I like achieving and building things (I enjoy the process in as much as I got the better of it :)). When things are complex, I come up with smaller goals that are on the path to getting the big thing done, all the while thinking how these things fit together.
This has made me great at coming up with iterative steps where each step brings value: even if I stop at any one point, I have done something useful.
In your example, I would probably dismantle the car enough to get the engine out and rebuilt and back in, and then go back to it sometime in the future to work on other stuff, all the while keeping a functioning car as I am rebuilding it.
This is really just getting caught up on semantics, and what you've described is essentially the same as a 'quest mindset'. The goal vs quest mindsets are basically waterfall vs (lowercase a) agile mindsets. In the former you risk building something you don't want or under-allocate resources to achieving it, in the latter, you've realized that you've misestimated what the final outcome will be or should be, and know that there will be a discovery process alongside development.
> basically, life intervenes and they got to leave with nothing really done at all.
And perhaps there is no sense in that journey being 'complete' as there's always some way to improve things. But I think the caution here on the 'quest' mindset, is to still have something functional early on – "Release early, and release often" as it were. But this caution also holds for the 'goal' mindset, perhaps moreso, as there's a higher risk of misunderstanding what 'complete' looks like, or all the side-'goals' you never anticipated, and becoming dismayed when you've found yourself settling in on a loong quest anyway.
But most people describe the difference as "enjoying the process" vs "enjoying the result". I enjoy the result, I only come up with multiple "results" along the way to an "end goal".
Instead of seeing it as a difference in semantics, this is probably how "goal-oriented" people can learn to achieve big things. As in, everybody can get there, and really, this means to me that you can be agile whether you are goal oriented or process/quest oriented.
I'm certain that most people that 'enjoy the process' also enjoy completing things, and are dismayed when there's a trail of half-finished works cluttering their mental (and physical) space. Similarly, I couldn't imagine someone who doesn't 'enjoy the process' ever embarking on anything that has no external motivation (e.g., a paycheck, prestige, etc.). But if we imagine them to actually be in binary opposition, and I had to pick between a life of 'quiet desperation' and eternal enjoyment, I'd probably opt for the latter. And this is as someone who's spent much of my professional career in anguish at the process and desperate to reach the goal to feel that sweet dopamine hit (and a lot of unfinished personal projects in my wake).
> this is probably how "goal-oriented" people can learn to achieve big things
The implication here – again – is that "process enjoyers" don't achieve big things/don't complete things, and perhaps also that "goal enjoyers" fail to achieve less often, and I'm not sure what that assertion is based on.
Perhaps an alleged 'goal-focused' mind is more willing to indulge in a lot of unpleasant work to reach a goal, but then a 'process enjoyer' can enjoy the work instead and also reach the goal. I would say the latter – 'the pig in shit' – is more likely to reach their goals. But perhaps you are under the belief that the 'process enjoyer' is less likely to do things that most people find unpleasant. Once again, I'm not sure what that belief would be based on, but it could be true.
Obviously: I assumed we do not need to be explicit that these are not the only options, but that everyone would be somewhere on a continuum between the two extremes, and even then, not all the time in the same spot either (eg depending on the motivation, circumstances etc).
My argument was a counterpoint to someone claiming how "their dad never completed anything because they were goal oriented compared to them" (paraphrasing) to point out that both can achieve things, but also both fail to achieve things.
So your rethoric seems misplaced: I am arguing none of the things you are implying.
I was mostly seizing on this line:
> this is probably how "goal-oriented" people can learn to achieve big things
I made the inference here that you meant process-oriented people are, at least, less likely to achieve big things, and that was my mistake. But it lead me on an interesting train of thought, perhaps even doubling down on my assertion: that actually being process-minded is not only as likely but actually more likely to compel someone to achieve great things.
I imagine most people (not necessarily you) look at a Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, or an Elon Musk and go, "They must be really goal-driven". But I couldn't imagine them turning up to work everyday and dread the meetings, talking to staff, and actually doing the work. Most people see this as the daily grind, but for people who enjoy showing up and getting to work, they are more likely to achieve great things.
That's of course not to say they don't savor seeing a rocket launch or something, but I bet they don't dwell on it either. They'll be straight back into the process. It's also not to say that those that enjoy only the goal can't achieve great things, but I'd imagine it would be a lot harder to navigate the 'development hell' that often accompanies such pursuits.
This is the point that I was originally disputing :)
And it is where I disagree: I find the "achieving great things" requires breaking things up into smaller pieces (agile, or engineer mindset), and it's orthogonal to your goal vs process character.
Basically, my counter is that just like badly managed[$] goal-oriented people might suffer through a long process to the goal (and thus give up), badly managed process-oriented people might enjoy the ride too much to not care about the end result. A common saying of "work smart, not hard" kinda supports that too.
[$] I am using "managed" here liberally: they could be self-managed, for instance.
What you need to do to achieve both small but especially big things is to be smart and manage yourself well along with having enough motivation to do it.
And the source of motivation is where I think the only difference is: neither goal nor process does warrant one having enough of it, but they are sources of it for different people.
And again, goal-oriented people do not necessarily dread all of the process, it's just that they get most of their motivation from achieving things. And certainly process-oriented people enjoy achieving things, even if they get motivated with the road as well.
I did suspect we were at odds with each other somehow!
> requires breaking things up into smaller pieces (agile, or engineer mindset), and it's orthogonal to your goal vs process character
Agreed.
> And again, goal-oriented people do not necessarily dread all of the process
I think much of what I'm saying is that achieving 'great' things probably entails a long road. Management style aside, I think loving the process would greatly improve your odds of going the distance without burnout during the inevitable development hell (e.g., tasks that take longer than anticipated, unanticipated tasks, unanticipated hurdles, etc.) of doing something novel or overwhelming in scale – which I think all 'great' things would have one or both of those characters. But I'm happy to agree to disagree here, and I thank you for the insightful discussion.
This is the true definition of the Yak Shave.
Yak shaving is spending time finding the ultimate editor, choosing between syntax highlighters and schemes, configuring git, et c., so you never actually get around to write any code. That is different from wrenching the last nanosecond of optimisation from some not particularly central part of the code.
In my experience, when you are procrastinating, that's your subconscious telling you that you need help. Maybe you don't have the skills, or the time, to undertake the thing. Your developer brain says it'll take 1 hour and it takes 2 days.
https://qbix.com/blog/2016/11/17/properly-valuing-contributi...
That said, I don’t think you should really worry about that distinction.
My method of getting things done is a 3 step:
1. Constant checking in on whether I am happy at my progress. If I am, keep doing what I’m doing.
2. If I’m not, try a completely different approach entirely. Abandon the old approach for a week or however long is reasonable.
3. If I fail to improve or I failed to actually put in place the different approach (saying and doing are different things), I need a shock to the system. Moving to a brand new city-kind-of-shock. Throwing away half your belongings-kind-of-shock.
The key is frequently checking if you are happy with progress and realizing that if you are not, you need a change. And you need to be willing to try changes constantly.
You must never think of the whole street at once, understand? You must only concentrate on the next step, the next breath, the next stroke of the broom, and the next, and the next. Nothing else.
That way you enjoy your work, which is important, because then you make a good job of it. And that's how it ought to be.
And all at once, before you know it, you find you've swept the whole street clean, bit by bit. what's more, you aren't out of breath. That's important, too...” ― Michael Ende, Momo
Admittedly when I'm at the base I take my time getting started. But once I'm started, I can power through.
That said, and being aware of this trait, I started something that is a huge project (building a sail boat) for which I was completely unprepared (no experience, no tools). Each step was a challenge, but until the quest was finished meant nothing. Those last few steps were torture for me but getting it in the water and sailing it for the first time (and second, etc.) was amazing.
It’s the same thrill when my software gets used, and I now have renewed motivation to get some projects across the finish line and in people’s hands.
Two years well spent.
I'm very, very goal oriented. I'll eagerly sacrifice process to get towards a goal. I find this works well with my work, SRE. Testing and redefining processes :D
This distinction really helps me realize how/why I get overwhelmed with projects of a certain size and go towards bisection
Ultimately building a boat is for someone that likes building boats, not someone that just wants to sail… restoring a car is for someone that likes working on cars, not someone that just wants a finished car to drive.
Gamifying it doesn't do much if you don't accept playing the game and continuing when you lose.
Theyre differentiating goals from quests, where goals are daily minutia, get a haircut, something you'd suggest you need to do this week, where as quests are bigger loftier goals, what would you do in the next two years? Learn to fly a plane.
The quests are still goals they just want to categorise it apart from meaningless low value goals.
Another part of it seems to be the approach, breaking it down into blocks and creating a plan to achieve it in your currently available time instead of putting it off.
I make it clear that at any moment a plan isn't absolute because we can't possibly know what the future will hold. Instead, a plan is simply a direction to start heading. As we try and we learn, we update our understanding and we update our plan, heading in a different direction that hopefully brings us closer to our goals. If we think of a deviation from the plan as a failure to plan, we punish ourselves for a lack of omniscience - something we can hardly expect to live up to.
That same mindset helps a lot in understanding daily life too. When we see people make mistakes driving, or large construction projects going over budget, or social policies causing unanticipated problems, we are quick to blame people for not knowing better, but how can we expect them to know with certainty what will happen as the result of every decision they make? We simply do our best with the resources we have available and as events unfold we continue to do our best to steer ourselves to our desired outcomes. People shouldn't be punished for the outcome if they made a good choice given the resources they had. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.
Well, I of course haven't done it yet, but as one of those people who (stupidly, in a "the definition of insanity is doing things the same way and expecting a different outcome"-sort-of-way) makes New Year's Resolutions every year, and gets mildly depressed when I fail to reach them, there is something about this blog post that I loved and really clicked with me.
There are 3 reasons I like the framing of quest vs goals:
1. As you say, it focuses on the process instead of the outcome. I've of course known that this is how you're supposed to achieve goals (step-by-step I'd say), but something about the word "quest" makes it more real to me, and maybe even more desirable. I think perhaps that even though there are tons of painful things that happen during a "quest", they seem more connected with a "righteous outcome", vs. the laundry list of steps that I think of for most of the "goals" I want to attain.
2. I don't deal with unexpected curve balls well, and one reason I fail to reach a lot of my goals is I get dejected when things don't go according to plan. But I think the framing of "quest", where basically curve balls are 90% of what happens, makes it easier in my mind. It's like I'm actually planning and expecting the unexpected, instead of getting annoyed when the unexpected pops up. I really like it.
3. Finally, and though it may seem trivial or silly, the visualization of a "quest" for me is just something that seems, well, more adventurous than drudgery.
In any case, this is one of the first HN posts on self-improvement that I really liked and clicked with me (usually I roll my eyes at what feels like "survivorship bias" advice). I'll see how it goes.
This statement made me think of the book: One Small Step Can Change Your Life
https://www.amazon.com/Small-Step-Change-Your-Life/dp/076118...
...it is written by a psychiatrist about the practice of Kaizen, where you take absurdly small steps to reach your goals. So small that you can't fail. And these build on themselves. He covers your exact case. People who make New Year's resolutions that fail after a month or two. One example was a woman who needed to get exercise for health reasons. Previous exercise attempts have failed. So the doctor prescribes her to march in-place for 60 seconds every day, when she was normally watching TV. Anyway, it snowballs, as she realizes she can do more and more, and then starts to enjoy it. It is a short, inexpensive, easy read that I recommend.
Like, say I want to hike/climb some specific set of mountains. Great. What kinds of habits does a person who hikes all those mountains have? Well, they're probably someone who exercises every day. I can, as of today, become "someone who exercises every day, no matter what," if I set my requirement as "only one minute per day."
Habits grow on their own. I don't think it's really necessary to stage them. Once you see yourself as a certain kind of person, you just become that kind of person. And before you know it, since you're just like a person who hikes all those mountains, you end up being someone who has hiked all the mountains.
It's also the only effective way I've found to deal with my fear of success when it comes to big goals. I don't set them. I just decide to become the kind of person who would accomplish them, and by then, it doesn't feel like some impressive accomplishment. It just feels like a normal thing someone like me would do.
For me, the reframing of "goal" to "quest" helps enormously with this change of mode. A "goal" is something I hope/want to achieve in future - but today I'm busy with day-to-day chores etc. A "quest" however is something you are on. So if I'm on a quest to do X, of course I need to do something toward it every day.
It very well might be my "fear of success" issue though. I don't have a fear of being different than I was before. That slips in under "part of the normal process of growth and change."
But being a person who's on a quest? Who might eventually achieve the thing? That lands differently, and in a way that prevents me from actually doing it.
I think my successes have to slide in under the radar so I don't sabotage them.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could somehow feel intrinsic motivation and meaning for the boring stuff too, so that even cleaning the toilet felt like part of a grand adventure?
The person who enjoys¹ writing a book and wants to finish them will likely become better at writing books than the person who just wrote a book to cross it off their bucket list.
There is also people who enjoy the process of writing so much, that the outcome literally doesn't matter anymore and they don't have any ambition to finish anything.
In reality most people who achieve great things have both a way/process/quest and many destinations/outcomes/goals along the way and the two things have to be somewhat in balance. Thst balance can differ for different people.
When people say you should focus on the way, not on the destination what they mean is: Don't be the person who just writes a book to cross it off the bucket list, while hating every second of the process and learning nothing from having done it.
¹: The word "enjoy" doesn't have to mean they feel good doing it, it just means there is an urge to do this versus something else
That's what I feel when I think about a quest. Sure, you could say it's all good advice too, but that's just rational. Emotions move me, thoughts move me only a little. If I can get that advice (conquer challenges, seek peers/mentors, go for what I want) by thinking about it emotionally that's much more powerful than thinking about it rationally.
The rational understanding != the emotional understanding
When each thing you do is a unique journey, that's exciting. There may be obstacles to overcome, there may be learning opportunities, there may be empowerment in making your own decisions along the way.
Unfortunately this mindset does not satisfy the incessant (but futile) need for predictability that most managers have.
I'm on my way to prosecute a war against bugs, a march to the sea if you will. And the CI is my artillery!
I'll see myself out.
Reminds me of the saying "A classic novel is one that I'd like to have read, but don't want to read"
It's cheap and short-lived satisfaction. Any seasoned author is not going to feel good if they haven't been working at something new for awhile. We might project that it would make us feel good in terms of projecting an identity (for validation), but the rules are different when operating under imagination which necessarily suggests a divergence from the current reality, where you might not get much validation either from yourself or others (because you don't do anything)
If you are not going to enjoy the process of writing a book, only the outcome of having written a book, chances are writing a book isn't a good use of your time.
Goals (outcomes) are useful, but never fully within your control.
A quest (effort, basically) is within your control.
One should focus on the things they control (mindset, process, effort).
Unlearning Perfectionism https://arunkprasad.com/log/unlearning-perfectionism/
But it also doesn’t reduce the wildly positive impact of growth mindset.
It’s kind of like exercise. It’s a basic thing. People know in a logical sense they should do it. And we feel like we get the benefit by learning about it. But we get zero of the benefit if we don’t do the work, and do it consistently.
It’s a “mastery of the basics” situation, where getting yourself to avoid the fixed mindset mental trap, and think in a growth mindset moment to moment, results in a level of effectiveness that almost cannot be explained, only experienced.
It's valuable for "unlearning", and I am one of the people that must always be reminded of it. But if you go and "learn" that way outright, it will damage you too.
Defining work as trips... I wonder... what kind of work do you do and are you happy with the fruits of your work?
the idea that changing the words used can change your ideas about something is a weak form of the sapir whorf hypothesis, which is close to universally panned in stronger forms and highly suspect in weaker forms except in pop psychology.
pinker called a similar idea - changing a word to avoid previous negative connotations - the euphemism treadmill: from retarded to handicapped to disabled to differetly abled, but never changed anybodies views. they just carried them over. its because language is a reflection of our inner thoughts, not the other way around.
Perhaps the finer points of those studies are not applicable to the topic at hand, which is an individuals strategy to gain new perspective on their own problems, rather than the nth-order effects of proxy words in culture, or researcher's anthropological interpretations and comparisons of languages effect on worldviews across extremely different cultures.
I get that it's a popular topic on HN to point out the replicability crisis in psych research, but the nature of the beast of a high level / subjective / messy subject like human psychology is that you have to be extremely precise about what you're testing and what conclusions you draw, or you're at risk of generalizing beyond the data. What you've cited has surface level similarity to the topic at hand, but is quite different in the specifics.
Plus it doesn't even stand up to the sniff test - language impacts us. Words impact us. The subtleties of how language is used can have profound effects on how we live our lives. Haven't you ever read a beautiful sentence over and over, or marinated in an obscure word and all its intricacies? This is a common sense proposition.
The challenge I find with so much language is the vast number of associations we carry with words and how connotations can vary so extremely even amongst people who "have the same background."
One of the best descriptions I heard for language I think was written by James Pennebaker talking about expressive writing and how words were basically putting a digital categorization onto an analog signal of experience.
Words are not very precise and are often very relative approximations that require so much negotiation to reach shared meaning. Some will read "quests," as I did, and immediately think of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and feel a bit goofy and have a hard time saying "I'm going on a quest" seriously. Others will feel excited and maybe encouraged to see it that way. Others might be annoyed because they love the word "goals" and have built their brands and careers around the word "goals." At the same time, with repeated usage of the word "quests," even my emotional reactions to it may change and I start to embrace the word with more seriousness.
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> just bad unreproduceable psychology research. there is zero proof of this. we actually have examples going the other way though.
For example, I read something like this and in my head, I often reframe it. I read "just bad unreproduceable psychology research" as "I do not trust the research you are quoting because I think it is not reproduceable." I read "there is zero proof of this" as "I have not seen any proof of this or do not believe any proof exists." I read "we actually have examples going the other way though" as "I have seen examples that seem to dispute what you are saying."
The way it was originally written, in terms of word choice, seemed to describe to me an objective truth in the universe, whereas the reframe I applied shows more of a relative belief that you may have. That's not to say your beliefs are not the capital T truth, but rather for me to feel less angry when someone tells me "how the world is" and to try to see the world from their perspective and learn from it.
A recent comparison might be SSRI's effects, which are proving to be no better than placebo at a population level, yet a large body of individual anecdotes show they have very positive effects on some. Rather than dismiss the anecdotes, we need to acknowledge the difficulty of measurement for such a complex & high level topic and be curious enough to look at the problem through different mechanisms of ascertaining truth like qual analysis, logic, and common sense, rather than just accept some murky methods and results as the final word.
The associations are often misleading.
For example, when someone says "sprint", my pre-IT associations would be "run as fast as possible for a very short time, then take a long break", but everyone knows that this is not how agile development works.
(Ironically, the IT word for "work hard for a relatively short time, then take a long break" is "hackathon".)
I don’t think there’s been sufficient research in this area really but I also don’t think that’s enough in itself to downplay it as woo.
If the word “quest” doesn’t conjure images in your mind of a long winding journey with pitfalls and successes that eventually lands you in a place where you’ve achieved a goal and also changed as a person, maybe just use the word in your vocabulary that _does_ conjure those images and see if you feel the same way.
Additionally as others touched on, a precise vocabulary or nomenclature allows us to be precise about our intentions and gives us a framework for making decisions.
"Quest" orients you around the journey instead of the destination, which can have many benefits.
It helps to not consider this, or any other technique, as one-size-fits-all doctrine. I personally have always considered myself very goal-oriented, but this article allowed me to understand things from a different angle and realize that I'm actually much more process-oriented. This will help me make future decisions around projects when planning them out and accounting for the need for sustained motivation.
And make that change because I, a stranger on the Internet told you to. Also pay for my woo training!
/s
Some (quite a few actually) need specific tags and title on everything so this assign very specific words to matters having different composition for everyone works for them, this is a typical way of relaying ideas to masses (regrettably). But the message is not what words to use but how to do things. We only can speak - exchange ideas and information - about things with words, unfortunately. Well, some can dance specific ideas and todo list to each other, but that is just freak exception. We use words for thoughts.
It's analogous to “Have systems, not goals” or “Build habits, not goals” and I'm sure you can think of many such variations on the words, but at the end they all mean the same.
Don't choose a point on the line that is your life, choose a vector.
Weirdly, I’ve been way, way more consistent with my somewhat loose “vision” than I ever saw in corporate life, where goals would change frequently depending on popular buzzwords, reorgs, new grand poobah hires, etc. That’s made me think of goals more as a coping mechanism for a jittery “inner compass” or lack of direction. But of course, all of these terms have different connotations for different people.
Goals are not what you do. Goals are sort of like desires, or outcomes you want, but you don't do a goal every day.
By building up habits and systems and processes, and do them every day, the routine will eventually lead to a goal.
Life coaches would tell you you should not only formulate goals, but also say within which time you want to get there.
As you I found this can kill all joy. A vague vision is sometimes better as it can be adjusted to life circumstances. E.g. if you're a musician of course your vision is to make good music of a certain style, but as you are one part of a band within a uncertain environment anything more precise than a vague "move the band forward" would need to be overhauled every other month.
But for other
When I first meet with an athlete, I ask them what their goal is. I just need to know the general direction and magnitude. Are they trying to get a little stronger over the summer, or are they trying to make the Olympics. Then we put the goal on a shelf and never discuss it again unless it changes. Then it’s 100% mindset, process, repeat.
He describes it as a pyramid, with character/mindset at the bottom, where you’re trying to become the kind of person that can follow a process. Next is the process, the ability to follow basic instructions consistently (which is surprisingly hard for humans). Process builds the next layer, skills. And multiple skills get combined to form your strategy.
And the key point was, everyone nerds out about the skill and strategy layer. But all progress happens in the mindset and process layer.
Some prior discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28688643
Scott Adams (before he went a bit cuckoo) was a huge proponent of it and he exposed me to the concept in my mid 20s. It heavily resonated with me and fundamentally changed my outlook on several areas of life.
This specific framing of Quests vs Goals seems a bit more like a change in framing your perspective, but I see some similar concepts, eg:
> You don’t just get the novel started, you become a writer. You don’t just declutter the house, you get your house in order.
Apropo of nothing his book "How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big" was excellent, I remember seeing when he first joined Twitter. I was one of his first few followers, even said "welcome" and he said "thanks".
Then he got divorced and angry and red pilled. Happens far too often..
A lot of GTD is just drudgery to accomplish. Quests are never drudgery. Difficult, maybe, but the journey is probably a bigger part of the quest than the outcome.
I'm doing the GTD and getting 3-4 of the 5 steps done! Good job me. Except it's not, it was just another distraction. When I view what needs to be done in terms of "action that does the thing", or going on quest* as described here, I am much more successful. Meds makes the doing of something productive possible, but that something can be anything productive.
Knowing I am GTD by working on the first few steps is getting something done. But not really. When I narrow down what I need to do into a single main "quest" and/or coming upon a side-quest and seeing it as that so I can get back to the main thread, I'm taking real action towards it. That doing of something is the actual doing of the thing. Taking the journey of the quest minus all this busy work of defining what I want to get done or what my quest/journey should be, and doing it instead.
* I don't actually tell myself I'm on a quest like this article seems to suggest, but "quest" is a very good descriptor of my process (and may start using it because I personally find it fun, and my ADHD like fun)
In the cases where I dont have someone helping me, I have used chatGPT to build a 2D embodied digital sidekick that cares about my goals as much as i can. My Tori provides me emotional support, helps me plan, schedule and prioritize tasks as well as providing a smart focus session mode with phone and web blocklists.
I built it to suit my needs it has allowed me to build a successful startup. Its 100% free and if you want you can try it at tori.gg
Similarly, I love swimming in the open cold water, but I never wrote down, "Swim from Alcatraz twice". It wasn't necessary. It happened organically.
I read this book over the summer, and it's an incredibly easy to digest breakdown of all the reasons why people fail at their goals, and very simple mind hacks to change the way you approach achieving them through good habits and avoiding bad ones.
I'm pretty sure it's not the type of challenge that differs. In DnD a lot of the challenges are logistical in nature or some kind of interpersonal conflict.
My take is that the main difference is perceived risk / perceived high stakes. In a game you are in a circle of safety, so you don't get as stressed about roadblocks - whereas if you perceive negative consequences for failing to reach a goal in real life, then any obstacle looks like a survival threat and the anxiety about failing distracts from fully engaging with the challenge. As an example outside of work: if you're playing DnD and the DM says: "the bartender gives you a rude look" you are intrigued and curious. If a waiter in real life gives you a rude look, most of our brain's will at least temporarily go into ego threat mode and fall into a default of freezing, leaving or arguing back. We will be distracted, bothered, and generally the opposite of open-minded and curious. My point is not whether these are ideal responses but to note how differently our brains respond in a situation where there is actually minimal risk, but our brain perceives high risk because of outdated programming. Another example in the other direction: people can easily start taking games too seriously and become ego-attached to the goal, and the same brain response occurs. These extreme examples strongly suggest that it is the perceived threat rather than actual threat that drive our responses, and perception can often be very out of whack with reality and inhibit effective problem solving.
For most people in most work challenges, the actual survival threat from obstacles is small. Our brains massively overexaggerate it because we evolved in a context where most problems (especially social ones) actually were life-threatening. I would even say that in cases where survival (or your income) is threatened by an obstacle, downregulating the fear/threat response will usually improve your chances of finding a solution. Negative emotions narrow attention, draw us inward and prevent both mental flexibility and engagement with the world, which make solving difficult problems much harder.
To summarize: given how much more inherently motivating it is to work on challenges that are similar in nature to the ones we procrastinate on in life, it seems worthwhile to try to downregulate our evolved fear/threat response when encountering obstacles.
In all other cases it’s a challenge that you don’t want, and impedes time and resources for desired enriching activities
So the former is growth, the latter is stagnation
If you die or fail in DnD, it just makes up for a story, there's no actual impact to your life, no consequence.
Setbacks at work could absolutely have a real consequence. Indirectly making it harder to get a promotion, bonus, better QoL at work, etc.
I agree that one should be used to challenges and avoid becoming stressed due to work but saying "you get excited when you encounter a problem in a game" is just ridiculous. The game is designed to tweak that obstacle to be just enough and you can always turn it off and go back to your life.
A problem in your actual life is not the same. Life is not a game.
No point tiptoing around my precious life because it is so boringly ordinary that it exists in the billions. It is fragile, a little miracle in fact, so better not waste it by taking too big risks but not risking it by putting it into a protective case and put in a guarded corner for show either. Risk it, so not to risking it becoming too insignificant. Insignificant not for the crowds and social media outlets but for yourself! Bad things will hapen to cautious and not that cautious people alike. At least at and around the end. Better not wasting the time until then by putting us in a comfort cage.
Nothing new was said here actually, with different words this was told a million times perhaps, yet, it needs to be repeated.
It's all fun and games until someone from HR reaches out to you for "a quick call".
I pattern match "Quests" in TFA to "projects" in GTD, and "goals" in TFA to "3-5 horizon + someday/maybe list", I don't have time to give nuanced thought to this, but I'm posting my hot take that this looks like a useful tactical method to help oneself take projects off of your someday/maybe lists and work on them, but does not fully address how to make the time.
Wait, no, it probably does, but I'm already running over my break time so I'm leaving this comment here as an anchor to come back and review after work.
However, I have recently looked into Zen To Done, and while I see it as Insufficient because I've already put in the GTD work, I think it could be a lower-effort potentially-close-enough alternative method to getting to the GTD Mind Like Water state.
Also, hope you had a good day at work!
I have emotional regulation issues. Abilify (medication), yoga, and running. Those keep me centered, reduce my (embarrassing) adult tantrums.
Social skills are the hardest part for me. I can read emotions but trying to understand people’s motivations is as complex as tracking bugs for me. It just doesn’t come naturally.
tl;dr exercise tho
The point is not that the structure of a quest works better. The point is that the framing of a quest works better. It inspires, it acknowledges there will be adversity, and thus makes adversity feel like much less of a setback.
So I tuned in to learn more about the technique but I was disappointed to learn that there's nothing more to it at least in the article.
It just suggests to re-label your goals differently and think of them as "quests", but it doesn't mention anything more.
I really want to learn how to make my chores and boring goals fun so that I can go about them doing them. Can anyone please shed some light on this?
I have tried to gamify my work but it hasn't worked for me.
Procrastination = lazy Or Procrastination = in preparation
Well, I'd have to have a different attitude and find something I enjoy about it, for starters. Listening to an extremely engaging podcast or audiobook while I do chores, for example, helps a lot. Or challenging myself to find the humor in a situation.
But those are coping mechanisms for dealing with necessary but annoying tasks. Work related quests require a different approach -- I guess my first question of something feels like a miserable grind is, "is this really the thing I want to be doing with my life?" Sometimes no amount of reframing a job will make it tolerable if it's just not your thing.
> This is exactly backwards. Forming and achieving aspirations is how life gets easier and more spacious.
So the real advice is the same as all life advice under the hood: just be born into privilege.
But even if you believe in upward mobility, the point is that needs to happen first before you possibly have time, energy, and money to devote to your passions. It's not backward; if you'd argue "no, succeeding in your passions is what enables upward mobility", then you (A) are thinking of a very small subset of highly marketable passions, and (B) have identified the catch-22 that makes upward mobility so uncommon.
Source: https://www.ramseysolutions.com/retirement/the-national-stud...
"You're likely to stay in the social class you were born into" - is basically what the predictor means.
Process VS goal always depends on the person.
If someone has a goal, and everything around them is distracting them from reaching the finish line, the a quest would be irritating.
Opposite is true too, a goal might have been the goal to start, but life changed and now they're chasing something that doesn't personally matter any more.
The answer is that you need to enjoy learning, because when you learn a thing most of the time you suck at it and most of the time there is something that you can't do or don't know. The person who is writing books because they like to learn about the universe, humanity and themselves will likely become better at writing books than the person who ticks off "Written a book" on their bucket list.
The way I look at it, if you want to become really good it needs to be a quest with a many small goals sprinkled on top. The quest needs to be something you could do literally forever (e.g. play music, write code) and the goals could be single projects, etc.
But for me the goals are just a means to do the quest, not the other way around.
Also , I've noted all this learnings in the same doc because I can't really retain my knowledge after over a year but if I keep seeing it , it might help a bit .
(Also, I'm trying to actual be involved in conversations here , instead of lurking , so that I can actual form my own opinions )
The Main Story section would be projects, and those bigger more aspersions goals to move the story of life forward. Side Quests would be those little things along the way, that are usually one and done.
I ended up realizing building the app would really just be procrastination, and simply make a couple Lists in Apple Reminders for Main Story and Side Quests. Good enough.
Functionally, but I guess it’s not much different than Projects and Random, but I find it slightly more assuming.
A quest is a journey where the final destination is not clear in the beginning. But if you are successful, you will be a better version of yourself on the other side of the journey.
Know what happens if I go on a quest instead of pursuing a goal?
I end up using every available moment of time to plan said quest.
So I don't do quests. I have goals. As long as I'm moving forward, it doesn't matter what specific route I take.
It’s about replacing OKRs with stories and maps.
I appreciate a lot if people share such insights.
but it’s easy to be a pessimist and pull down other work
i agree that goals are hard and in some sense, set people up to fail by making the target some ephemeral thing in the distance
maybe reframing it as a quest can help it’s something that can be hard it can change you the outcome might be different from what you intended
by all means. do quests. not goals. will go back to nike on this one. just do it
The one day I was stressing about it and called it a side quest to myself and immediately the stress dipped. It'll get done and it'll be fine. It needed done anyway and ultimately now I've been given a side quest by a randomly encounter. It's not exciting but reframing it like this helps reduce my stress and allow me to think about the other stuff while still making sure this gets done. So good timing on this post!
Doing the feature work and adding bugs was like breaking barrels to find loot. Convincing a co-worker to stop creating more bugs was like taking down a minion. Working the politics to get rid of the most dangerous coworker was like killing the boss (he was a contractor and it seemed that everything he did was to damage our team's work)