
Your Goals Are Holding You Back - dshipper
http://danshipper.com/159185755#
======
unreal37
I'm probably twice Dan's age, but I am not sure about the "go to the gym,
whenever you feel like, just do whatever, doesn't matter if you skip a week or
two" advice.

I mean, that's traditionally thought of as the road to failure. 90% of people
who do that, or 90% of things you try using that approach, will fail. You'll
go to the gym 4 times, and then get too busy to go. And then never go.

I think you have to force yourself to go for the first month or two. Set a
goal. Lift X pounds. Run X miles. And try every day to reach that.

At least until it becomes a habit, and you get to the point where you miss not
going to the gym.

Good post though, and worth thinking about.

~~~
koz_
Or worse than never going, you'll keep going, but you'll always just do
whatever you feel like and never push yourself. Then years down the track
you've made no progress, but poured countless hours into the habit.

It's probably not going to work if your strategy is to only do easy things, or
only do really hard things. I suspect that the answer lies somewhere in the
middle, as it often does, and as ever there is no way to summarise that as a
simple and absolute rule, you just have to use your own judgement and self-
knowledge to guide you.

People who seek these kind of easy answers are already in a quagmire. The most
debilitating belief is the one that there's a perfect, general answer out
there that you just have to find.

~~~
billswift
Unless you are unsatisfied right now, "progress" isn't really important. The
most important part of exercising at least semi-regularly is to maintain your
condition, and that get more important as you get older. Nobody has the TIME
to do everything they might want, you have to prioritize. As Peter McWilliams
put it:

" _You can have anything you want_ : No dream is too big to achieve. _But you
can't have everything you want_ : We live in a finite world for a finite
period of time, but with infinite imagination."

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mej10
Without citations of scientific research, this is really just an exercise in
generalizing from one example.

<http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/>

~~~
Apocryphon
Scientific research is necessary for self-help or lifehacking now?

~~~
gjm11
_Necessary_? No. You can do what you like. But if you want to find out what
works and what doesn't, and _actually get the right answer_ , the scientific
approach is the only game in town.

~~~
drcube
I'm usually the guy who defends science, but I kind of disagree with you here.

Science looks for statistical trends. But I'm just one guy. Something could
fail for >90% of the population and still work for me. Conversely, something
could work for >90% of the population and fail for me. If the costs of trying
the solution aren't high, trial and error (guided by some basic scientific
theory) might be more successful than scouring the journals for whatever self
help theory happens to have a little bit of clinical support these days. A lot
of these theories haven't been tested, and a lot of them that have weren't too
rigorous.

~~~
freshhawk
trial and error with sample size of one (yourself) is called a bunch of
anecdotes. We have plenty of evidence by now of how useful this is when
looking for the truth about something.

trial and error with a sample size of one is great at convincing you of
something that's not true. It's horrible at everything else.

The least rigorously tested theories in the softest of sciences are still
orders of magnitude more likely to be right than something one person has done
through trial and error experiments on themselves.

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Swizec
Really cool post, I think I'm in a somewhat similar boat as you are albeit on
a smaller scale.

Except for this: > I now have a network of entrepreneurs and investors that I
talk to on a regular basis for advice. And I’ve done it all with no prior
connections to anyone, while still in school.

I keep forgetting to "keep in touch". I know I shouldn't, but I do anyway. Was
this something that came natural to you, or did you have to work on it?

~~~
dshipper
I had to work on it. Every day. I'm pretty shy normally. Around the end of
freshman year I started to get tired of being nervous every time I met with
someone. So that summer I tried to meet someone new or reconnect with someone
old every day. And I did.

I talked to so many random and interesting people that summer (many of whom I
still keep in touch with). I actually reached out to you, but we never found a
time that worked for us :)

But yea it's a skill that you have to develop like any other. Pays dividends
when done honestly and earnestly.

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adrianhoward
_3\. Be held publicly accountable by writing about your goals on your blog or
having your friend hold you to them._

Interestingly this doesn't always work as you expect. I've been poking at this
a bit recently since a side-project touches on intrinsic vs extrinsic
motivation in its users.

Basically for some kinds of goal stating it publicly actually make it less
likely that you complete the goal (the theory being roughly that just stating
it publicly feels like making progress, so you're less likely to actually make
progress.)

See <http://sivers.org/zipit> for some background info. There's been more
research but I don't have the references to hand ATM and am too lazy to Google
for it right now :-)

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lathamcity
I'm the same age as you, Dan, and just started to realize a similar thing.
Your post really struck home with me.

Right now I'm in the middle of a seven-month internship with IBM. Back at the
start, I distinctly remember when Hacker News was full of articles discussing
42 Floors' open job offer to you, and I felt miserable - "I could be that
awesome if only I managed myself better" - and determined to spend the entire
seven months in a mad self-improvement frenzy.

At the start of the summer I made this big sheet of paper with little letters
and numbers next to each day to be crossed off. There were different things I
wanted to do each day - read a bit of this book, work a little on this project
- and they were all meticulously planned out. Since the work was divided up
into such small chunks, however, it was easy to just miss one because
ultimately it didn't matter. I also resented that the paper was planning out
my day so much. Once I'd missed one, it was easy to miss another, and pretty
soon it all fell apart. I don't think it's a good idea at all to micromanage
yourself this much.

Next, I tried making the goals slightly more long-term. I divided up what I
wanted to do into months instead of days, making columns for each month
between now and January and writing down what I wanted to accomplish in each
month, all the books I wanted to read, etc. The problem again was expecting
too much of myself and being too strict on myself. When I wrote down a reading
list, suddenly reading the books didn't feel enjoyable anymore - it was
something I was forcing myself to do and so something that I _had_ to do. Even
writing "Do a Rails project" made it less of an enjoyable experience because I
felt like I was doing it because I had to instead of because I wanted to, even
though I had only written it down in the first place because I wanted to do
it.

I've grappled with the second goal set for the last two months, talking to my
friends and discussing a lot of the same ideas that you wrote about in your
blog. I think you and I both came to the same conclusion, which is that you
just need to have some vague idea of where you want to go and go there in a
way that you'll enjoy. When the inspiration hits, you'll be free and flexible
enough to do something with it, instead of being imprisoned by goals. So right
now, my goals are just "Learn more about algorithms and do cool projects",
which I'm enjoying a lot more. In particular, I think that we as programmers
have a bad habit of assuming that we're capable of a lot more than we actually
are, an assumption that kind of handicaps us by making us think we can jump
into things in an unrealistic way such that we feel frustrated when we're not
as godlike as we imagined.

If this is utterly unreadable, thank Bill Clinton, haha.

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freshhawk
I like the article but I'm always a little shocked when someone has put this
much thought into a subject and either hasn't even looked at, or at least
doesn't mention, all the recent research that has been done around goal
setting and motivation.

There was a really interesting study recently that compared two methods of
motivation for a habit/activity. The methods were goal setting and cultivating
an appreciation for the activity itself.

The goal setters improved faster and more of them had stuck with it after a
short period of time. After a longer period of time the appreciators were just
as proficient as the goal setters and more of them had stuck with it. A lot of
goal setters quit in the medium term.

I remember the explanation being that goal setting drove better performance
faster but the habit was more fragile and missing goals or reaching a plateau
resulted in more quitting, while the appreciators just kept plodding along
because they enjoyed it and were more successful long term.

I had no google luck finding that study again, and I have to get back to doing
some real work but if anyone recognizes it please post the link.

I can't be only HN user who appreciates these types of articles when they tie
in interesting _facts_ a lot more than those that just have a well written
argument based on personal experience and anecdote. Maybe that's just my bias
towards science over self help?

~~~
argonz
I got very interested and tried to find out but haven't suceed. So I just
second it that I would be very interested reading that study!

~~~
freshhawk
Found it, added the links to the end of my original post

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kine
I'm a big fan of doing one tiny thing each day to get the ball rolling. Set
that typeface you've been meaning to set or make that form submit to the
database. You can't just commit your code and stop there, you've gotta keep
going. Hopefully you get into a flow and do some good work from there out.
Works for me.

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lnanek2
> And so the biggest part of Step One is not to get better at doing, it’s to
> start doing.

Agreed. I see so many people just taking class after class when they could be
coding their own project instead of stupid homework assignments. I think they
are just procrastinating.

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charlieflowers
Very very interesting, particularly the part about the ego. I'm homeschooling
my 9 year old daughter, and I'm trying to get her to be self-motivated (at
least to a degree).

And I think your tidbit about the ego and its fear is going to help me.
Thanks.

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brady747
Wish I knew this 12 years ago at your age:) Now that I have gone through years
of becoming a more 'effective and efficient person', I agree with they key
points you lay out here and really appreciate you writing it (so I can refer
others to it). It seems that much modern thinking on 'how the brain works',
choices, and productivity is in line with what you are talking about here
(that habit forming is essential, but most people's brains find a way to get
in the way (or most people let their brain find a way to get in the way)).

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mmahemoff
I think this is not just good for getting started with things, but also for
times when you're feeling blocked from moving forward, or in some other kind
of rut.

Sometimes a problem can seem overwhelming and instead of formulating a grand
master plan to overhaul it, it's often more effective and keeps you more sane
to start taking action, any action, and see where that takes you.

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TimJRobinson
For those looking to set habits I definitely recommend chains.cc It's a super
simple way of tracking what you did each day and makes you feel good when you
keep up your habits. I'm not affiliated in any way, just a fan as most todo
and goal apps never really worked for me (for most of the reasons mentioned in
the article)

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zgm
This is exactly how I approach improving in programming. Since I didn't really
get into it until I started college, I always feel like I'm playing catchup to
everyone else. The trick to making progress is to not get discouraged.

You'd be surprised how far "do a little bit each day" will get you.

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msie
For me, one of the most helpful things I've read in a long time!

~~~
dshipper
Really glad you think so :)

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JoeAltmaier
Habits are more powerful than goals. That's a profound message.

