How Do you Motivate Yourself and Stay Focused?
bothsidesofthetable.com
bothsidesofthetable.com
"How do you stay focused, motivated, and maintain enthusiasm when things don't go the way you'd hoped?
"I think my, sort of, drive to get it done is somewhat disconnected from hope, enthusiasm, or anything else... I actually just don't care about hope, or enthusiasm, motivation... I just give it everything I've got, irrespective of what the circumstances may be... You just keep going, and get it done."
Remember how hard it was to pay a freelancer/individual/small company for a service or product online before Paypal? It was very hard since banks would not approve merchant accounts for every bum that walked into their office :-), and don't even start on international transactions.
The fact that people started abusing them in unimaginable ways (prompting the draconian security measures) is not exactly Musk's fault, and the frozen account issues of the past years might be over once the competition finally gets its shit together (or at least there's other options now)...
Because no one that's capable of independent thought will come to a different conclusion than you did right? There's no need to be condescending just because you don't agree with me.
Paypal is a shitty company because it fails to support sellers in any meaningful way. Part of this stems from the fact that it isn't a financial institution, so it will always lose to industry standard financial institutions if it tries to fight fraudulent charge backs. Unfortunately this renders the service close to useless for anyone trying to sell anything that's worth more than about $20.
It works great if you want to buy something, because you have a 100% chance of getting your money back if the seller doesn't come through. Unfortunately, people committing fraud against sellers also have a 100% chance of getting their money back, because Paypal doesn't even attempt to investigate these situations properly.
I love it.
"An engine broke and you are stuck on the moon and will die horribly. What do you do?"
Seems your options are to either accept your fate and die, or try to live.
I don't think he is really giving the deep reason why he is motivated (or driven, as you like) to get it done, he's just saying he strongly feels that he has to.
I'm in a completely stress free environment - every day blends in with the next; I can just do nothing one day and tell myself I will do it tomorrow. I'm financially stable enough to never be in a do-or-die situation. My passion for my project temporarily died somewhere after 30k lines of code. Yet, it is my dream to finish the project. I have to finish it, it's my self-designated job. But it's such a huge, abstract task, and I can just enjoy myself right now instead. There's literally no reward for working until after another year of it. It's so hard to stay focused and motivated when nothing is at stake.
How much would you spend on movie ticket? A blissful escape, sure, but you probably have other things to do with your life.
You're only going to live for maybe one hundred years at most, maybe many less. Spend your years wisely.
I want to want to work hard. I just really need to learn self-discipline.
Personally, I find that the only sensible and generally applicable solution is to set short-term goals based on a formally written project plan to yourself.
You don't ever have to give that project plan to anyone else, but you should write it as well as you possibly can. It should be clear on what kinds of things are feasible to do, what is required, what you can do first to prove the concepts, and so on.
I do this for every project I start, after struggling with the problem in graduate school a bit. It takes about a week per proposal to put something together of reasonably high quality, but by the end you actually probably have a very good sense of the strongest argument you can make to do the project as well as the weaknesses, as well as ideally a logical argument for why it might work based on citable evidence. This would also include things like "this experiment I can do" (translated to "this market idea I can test" in business) will generate some result that is clear and helpful in moving towards your medium term goal -- which is probably to either make enough money or be able to raise enough money to pay yourself and enough staff to move to the next medium term goal.
Then take that medium term goal and break it down not into time-based goals but sensible sub-goals. If you want to build a web service, a first goal might be "I think that people have a use for... I can test that by building... and collect data using... if that works, then it's worth doing the second goal..."
Break it down as small as is sensible to do, but limit this kind of strategizing so that you don't go really far down a road before putting it aside to sit and let you get a fresh perspective. Bounce it off others to see if they can poke holes in your strategy that you didn't think of. And so on.
Anyway, it's not so much self-discipline as it is realizing that big goals are always changing and medium term goals are uncertain. You have to always be able to change those goals based on the actual data you collect. But the short term goals should be achievable. And it will take time to isolate what good short term goals should be.
A good short term goal might be, to start, to make a good start on identifying short term goals...
To me, specifically. :) :)
Before you can do that you have to spend a great deal of your years to become wise.
Now it looks like im totally grumpy, but the concept seems nice. Just a reminder to beeminder to delete that awfull video clip.
If you are making an adequate return, but someone else might be able to make a better one, they will instead shuffle you into work where doing extra good doesn't generate much extra return. No sane employer fires good employees for not being exceptional.
(If you are working at an unpleasant cull the bottom 10% type place, that's a pretty low bar)
That may sound like a shallow phrase, but I've been there. You've convinced yourself that you're working on the most awesome thing in the world. You keep thinking that you're supposed to be motivated, because what you're doing is great. But deep down, you know that you'd rather do something else.
At that point it usually boils down to rewards. Is the reward worth continuing?
If the answer is yes, go on. Shouldn't be a problem. If the answer is no, you know why you aren't motivated. Drop it, look for something else.
Plus, with every failure, you lose a little bit of trust in yourself and belief that you can get things done.
There's always a point where the motivation is just gone and you have to push through somehow, and if you can't get this thing done, chances are that you won't be able to do it the second or third time, either ...
http://lesswrong.com/lw/9wr/my_algorithm_for_beating_procras...
It's not willpower for me, it's not even trying to focus on something. It's making a choice and meaning it - really meaning it: I'm gonna do this, you'll have to kill me (or the idea as the case may be) to stop me. Then I've got something to work with. What that decision is at the time isn't the most important part. Try to talk yourself out of that decision - depending on the time and resources, try to get other people to talk you out of it - if you fail then do the thing, if you succeed then don't. If it gets far enough, throw the dice and accept what may come with the knowledge you gambled as well as you were able.
The important thing for me is to make that initial choice. I find that works much better than indulging in doubting a course of action that I can't really define. Hesitation is often just another word for freezing, panicking or running away.
...
Not that I think that my style of thinking is suitable for everyone. I wonder whether the sort of choice making I'm talking about here is something that everyone can do. For instance, lots of people seem to have the fear that if they get attacked they're not going to act as they want to - which doesn't really make sense if you have the experiences to know you can make a decision and mean it.
We had a real good day at the office, I wanna say, Tuesday? After a string of really good days. And I had to physically stop everybody and go get a couple beers from the corner store and HAND them to people to celebrate our rad success. Because it was boring. It honestly was. We do what we do every day, and sometimes we get the bear and sometimes the bear gets us, but if we work hard enough we live another day, and eventually small stupid wins pile up.
Because some of us have trouble going on every day, but we have to give it everything we have - or, at least, we know that's what we need to do to progress beyond where we are - and it's motivational to know that even people who aren't Success Factor Superhuman Outliers 10X Winner Ass-Kickers are out there, too.
But it is very elon musk "don't believe in hope". If getting shit done was contingent on things working out according to plan I'd have quit years ago.
I just did a similar thing with my co-founder for my start up except with cold calling. We've broken our sales record this week. Bottom line I think negativity motivates me more personally than positivity. Lastly whatever it is, try to make that a habit, so you have to force yourself to do it at the exact same time and place. (my two cents).
I agree w/other comments that taking breaks helps, but I haven't found that to be as important as those two (passion and team). You can take as many breaks as you want throughout the day, but if you're stuck having to return to non-interesting work or a team you'd rather not work with, you'll still find it hard to get motivated and maintain focus.
I've seen plenty of startups hyper-focus on one product and fail because they couldn't position their product in the marketplace properly (seeing the forrest-through-the-trees).
Study some Daoism, Socrates, decideability, and other such intellectual resources regarding perception, conditional existence, and the possibility of solutions.
I get a high state of spirit from attacking whatever is in front of me. My progress begets progress. If I don't have progress, I start. Convolution of the topic of motivation is basically procrastination unless what you're doing is not leading you even on a meandering path to your goal, in which case you need more goals and to be involved in activities with more potential. I work on FOSS, maintain and develop FOSS, help users with the FOSS I work on, and there's no doubt that it pays off, monetarily and in terms of potential. Therefore, I am never in contact with this problem. I've worked dead-end jobs to get into financial and skill position to work high-potential jobs. Any time I'm not in such a position, I seek ways to get into such a position. The problem of motivation is rhetorical. Expecting an answer might give you one, but the existence of a problem or a solution to something that is axiomatic is a dead-end unless you get lucky and something totally outside your perception leads you to believe that you have a solution and a problem and that the two together have given you motivation.
Edit: Nevermind, Github username matches HN..
The brain is an organ, so it's really kind of like you can't run forever because your muscles tire out or you can't lift a car to save your own life (even though technically both are possible)...
There is no secret, it is willpower. Every person draws willpower from their own unique place. Find yours.
i think its well covered elsewhere. if spend too much time focusing on work, you'll lose that focus entirely.
So, for the past two years or so, my mindset has been "I'm basically out of 'at bats'. I don't get any more chances to make my dreams come true. I do this now, or I load my car with booze, drive to Vegas, and pull a 'Leaving Las Vegas' routine."
I just hope I can find a girl who looks like Elisabeth Shue. I <3 Elisabeth Shue.
I also draw a lot of inspiration from music. Since Suster started the Eminem references, here's one of my favorites:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1xXYeNrW9k ('Till I Collapse - Eminem & Nate Dogg)
Along with stuff like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQQcOQsCFnw (Keep Your Eye on the Money - Motley Crue)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gnJ-fQ1uwA (Stick To Your Guns - Bon Jovi)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liZKm86wW88 (Never Say Die - Jon Bon Jovi)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3MXiTeH_Pg (Here I Go Again - Whitesnake)
Of course, you have to realize, I grew up in the 80's, in the era of the "80's feel good movie" where the underdog hero has his back to the wall, all the odds against him, and through hard work, dedication, (and a training montage, of course) ultimately perseveres and triumphs over evil. Those are the kind of metaphors that are pretty deeply lodged into my psyche.
It also helps that I simply enjoy the act of creating things, and right now, my goal is to create this company that I have in my head. I see what we're capable of building and where this can go, and I want to make that happen.
Even more difficult. You have an offer to sell your company. Should you? You might net $1 million and that would change your life. But everybody is telling you not to sell and instead to “go for it” and you don’t know whom to listen to. One. Million. Dollars. I know it’s not what it used to be, but news flash – it’s still a million dollars! How can you wake up every day and process that decision. Five million? Ten?
This reminds me of the (in)famous "An acquistion is always a failure" discussion[1]. I said what I have to say[2] about this, in that thread.