
I hate working hard - azeirah
I want to create things, and I do. I can never get myself beyond the point of simple demos and experiments, because I severely dislike working.<p>I fail school classes, I disappoint people, most importantly myself and I fail to finish simple tasks, only because I do not work hard.<p>Where do I go with this? I want to create things, but lose my motivation when it becomes hard.<p>How are others dealing with these kind of problems? I&#x27;m sure I cannot be the only person with a paradoxical lazy-ambitious attitude here.
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Exenith
All this self-help woo never worked for me. It probably won't work for you,
and I don't think it actually works for the people regurgitating it.

You're probably just spoiled, like the rest of us. You spend all your time
around things that are intensely stimulating. Delicious food that you barely
have to do anything for, this magical thing we call the internet, beautiful
music, captivating movies, hundreds of the most attractive women at your
fingertips.

All this stimulation with no effort -- and you think it's a surprise that you
don't like hard work?

Having this knowledge, now figure out the solution yourself. Something that
you're too spoiled to have done already. :)

~~~
azeirah
This is probably it to be honest.

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rmtutty
You're describing me until about age 30.

1\. You need to realize that if something was easy or obvious, it would
already exist. The only things _worth_ doing are things that appear
impossible.

2\. Don't try to keep it all in your head at once. Get good at making a plan
or a list of steps, following them (almost blindly), and correcting course
every few steps. Taking a big problem apart and bringing small steps to
completion keeps things interesting.

3\. Make sure you're doing something you're personally interested in. Not
everyone is cut out to dig ditches for the man.

~~~
azeirah
Where were you before you turned 30, what did you do that you did or did not
like? And what happened to trigger the change in your thirtieth year?

~~~
jkaunisv1
The mindset shift for me was realizing that I kept having really fun/great
ideas, but I didn't want to die with notebooks full of ideas and none of them
implemented.

One thing that helped me towards getting them done has been to make projects
as small as possible. For anything that I can't do in an afternoon, I try to
make sure I can accomplish something small every day.

But it also took a lot of practice at improving self discipline (reading about
it, writing about it, building habits), fixing my sleep schedule (way less
lazy when I go to sleep at 11pm and wake up at 7am), and starting on pills to
combat depression.

As others have said, make sure you love what you're working on. That's
important. Don't get sucked into our society's focus on "productivity" over
all else if it's not what works for you. There's more to life than producing
output, and you are not what you create.

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Isamu
First recognize that your abilities, motivations, likes/dislikes are extremely
malleable. It is not productive to view your abilities as primarily innate,
something you are powerless to influence.

* Building up your motivation, resilience, abilities is like building up muscles - it takes practice and work, pushing just beyond your previous limit each time.

* Understand better why you dislike working. Clearly you are able to do simple demos and experiments, that's actually a good place to start.

* Consider your diet as well. Do you find yourself often in a low-energy state? Look into what helps your energy level. Sleep is a factor as well.

It is hard to say what specific strategies will help you out - you need to do
your homework to come up with your own plan. There are decent psychology books
in this area - I recommend going for the ones actually written by reputable
psychologists rather than self-help gurus.

Here a few snippets of advice I've cribbed from a psychology blog (sorry I've
lost the link):

"Do the hardest work first. We all move instinctively toward pleasure and away
from pain. Most great performers, Ericsson and others have found, delay
gratification and take on the difficult work of practice in the mornings,
before they do anything else. That's when most of us have the most energy and
the fewest distractions.

"Practice intensely, without interruption for short periods of no longer than
90 minutes and then take a break. Ninety minutes appears to be the maximum
amount of time that we can bring the highest level of focus to any given
activity. The evidence is equally strong that great performers practice no
more than 4 ½ hours a day.

"Seek expert feedback, in intermittent doses. The simpler and more precise the
feedback, the more equipped you are to make adjustments. Too much feedback,
too continuously can create cognitive overload, increase anxiety, and
interfere with learning.

"Take regular renewal breaks. Relaxing after intense effort not only provides
an opportunity to rejuvenate, but also to metabolize and embed learning. It's
also during rest that the right hemisphere becomes more dominant, which can
lead to creative breakthroughs.

"Ritualize practice. Will and discipline are wildly overrated. As the
researcher Roy Baumeister has found, none of us have very much of it. The best
way to insure you'll take on difficult tasks is to build rituals — specific,
inviolable times at which you do them, so that over time you do them without
having to squander energy thinking about them.

~~~
sfilipov
> _Consider your diet as well. Do you find yourself often in a low-energy
> state? Look into what helps your energy level. Sleep is a factor as well._

This one is big for me - it's much more difficult to use your willpower to
continue working if you're in a low energy state. I found that eating a meal
with a lot of carbohydrates before doing mental work messes my energy levels.
That's why I prefer high fat, high protein meals to ones containing
carbohydrates. I try to get most of my carbs from vegetables and fruits.

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blatherard
It sounds to me like you are telling yourself a story: "I severely dislike
working" that quite possibly is covering for other issues.

Such as: "I am not naturally good at everything, and this is contrary to my
self image" or "I am not really interested in my chosen field, but feel like I
need to stick with it" or maybe "I am depressed."

I'd suggest talking to people who know you, if you know people who can be
honest with you and who you trust. Or maybe even try something like
[http://www.7cupsoftea.com/](http://www.7cupsoftea.com/) which provides
neutral people to listen to your problems.

~~~
ep103
that's an awesome service. Is it always only text based?

~~~
blatherard
The last time I tried it (which was a while ago), there was voice support, but
looking at it now it seems to only have SMS.

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davelnewton
There's nothing paradoxical here; you get excited at the beginning, and lose
interest when you actually have to work. That's laziness, not a paradox.

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err4nt
I used to be just like you — Don't worry, it gets better!

Growing up I was a natural with math and science, and had sensitivity to the
arts. I would often figure things out before needing to be taught, and because
of that I always felt more comfortable in the truths I _knew_ that I knew, not
just the truths that I _believed_ I knew.

I would get discouraged and frustrated when I wasn't able to use all of my
intelligence to solve a problem, but was told over and over again: "Even
though your answer is correct, since you didn't show your work or write down
the formula using the exact model I showed you how can I tell you know the
right answer?" and I would always answer, "Because if I didn't know the right
answer my test wouldn't be the first to hit your desk and I'd still be
working…"

Fast forward to high school, same thing. Even in college I had a me-vs-
teachers struggle where I fought to push the limits only to be told time and
time again to stay within the lines and do what's right in front of me.

Since graduating I've worked for a few companies, but for the last three years
I've been self-directed. My income comes from large contracts and small
freelance jobs and if I don't work - I don't get paid.

The other cool thing now - if I can work smarter, I can make more money!

So I would say that if you feel like your boss, your teacher, your leader,
your '_x_' is holding you back - cut them out and _become_ that in your own
life. You'll find the motivation to eat!

Now I've flipped. The amount of hours I work in a day _directly_ relates to
how much I take home. My freelance rate is also a multiple of my contract
rate, so it's easy for me to work hard and literally take home _double_ that
day.

Now I don't have a motivation problem, I don't have enough hours in the day ;)

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jqm
Working hard is habit.

Habit is born of doing. Doing is born of necessity. If you don't have an inner
need you probably won't develop hard work habits. So find the need.

It's an emotional thing at the basic level really. If you aren't emotionally
attached to what you are doing, the best thing you can do is something else.
Not all the emotions involved are positive either. Fear, hunger and
frustration are powerful motivators. But so is the joy of accomplishment. I do
work hard and always have. I love building things. And I'm scared of being old
and in poverty. The two of these together get me moving every morning without
even thinking about it.

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enlightened_j
Maybe you find work hard because you are not doing it right or don't have the
right mindset? A self-help book written by a computer science professor might
be helpful. Go to amazon.com and read some reviews on Cal Newport's "So Good
They Can't Ignore You" and see if it's right for you. Also check out his
blogs, especially this post

[http://calnewport.com/blog/2011/12/28/how-i-used-
deliberate-...](http://calnewport.com/blog/2011/12/28/how-i-used-deliberate-
practice-to-destroy-my-computer-science-final/)

------
msie
Perhaps you can overcome your procrastination by breaking down problems into
easy-to-accomplish tasks or tasks that you can concentrate your focus on. Or
get someone to do them for you and that someone prods you into getting things
done. I've faced this problem and the productivity experts say focus on
habits/processes and not on end-goals. Do some google searching on that. Good
luck!

Edit: There's also no shame in learning a trade and doing a 9-5 job for income
and indulging in your passion away from work.

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nickluft
Find a career that has immediate feedback and rewards. For example teaching,
customer service or acting.

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JSeymourATL
The obstacle is the way. If you've lost motivation, find an empowering focus.

Tony Robbins has some good food for thought>
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L5PMShQHas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L5PMShQHas)

------
ssmann
At least you identify the issues and many are in denial mode throughout their
life.Don't hard on you, once you find your passion you will be very
successful. Just keep looking your passion.

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crystalclaw
This sounds like me before I was diagnosed with ADD. I thought I couldn't work
hard, even if I wanted to. Not saying that's your issue, but something to
think about.

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sauronlord
Big factors for me:

Diet ( no sugar or carbs or red meat) Lots of sleep

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ceedan
Sounds like you're toiling in the wrong career field. Is there something that
you have been or are particularly good at or enjoy doing?

~~~
azeirah
I enjoy listening to music, I enjoy gaming and I enjoy the end result of my
projects and experiments, but as I've noticed, not the way.

Apart from that, I'm a pretty stereotypical started programming on the TI-84
and did nothing but gaming nerd. I haven't really ever done anything else,
except for a 1 year job at a grocery store. I simply took this path of the
programmer as something that instantly "made sense". But now, I really don't
know anymore if I picked the right thing, or maybe I did and that this is just
some kind of weird phase I'm going through.

~~~
gagege
I used to think I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write novels and
wonderful fictional worlds. The idea of crafting stories that people would
eventually enjoy was very exciting to me. I tried and tried for years, but I
could never write more than a few pages a week. I finished about 5 very short
stories and started countless other shorts and novels. Eventually I realized
that I didn't actually _like_ writing. The actual act of putting words on the
screen was never fun after the first page and a half.

So, I admitted to myself that I didn't like writing and no longer thought of
myself as a writer. I know it's cliche, but it was like a very heavy weight
had been lifted off of my shoulders. I didn't have to feel guilty anymore for
not wanting to do the thing I thought I was meant to do. I was able to focus
on the things that I actually enjoy the process of.

I was a little sad at first, and sometimes that feeling of "I want to write an
amazing space opera!" pops back into my mind for a second. But mostly, it
feels good to not feel guilty anymore.

If you don't like the process of making the thing you want to eventually make,
just quit.

It might be a weird phase, but I'd say give quitting a try and see if you come
back to programming. Once you quit programming, you might be able to better
recognize the things you actually love _doing_ , not just the things you want
to _have done_.

~~~
polybius
This was wise, thank you. People who revise their ambitions are interesting...
What proximate cause led to your admission to yourself that you didn't like
fiction-writing?

Did you know that Winston Churchill wanted to be an adventure author? '
_Savrola: A Tale of the Revolution in Laurania_ is the only fictional work of
Sir Winston Churchill... Savrola is in many respects a conventional example of
the "Ruritanian" genre, being published just four years after the classic _The
Prisoner of Zenda_ , by Anthony Hope...' Source:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savrola](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savrola)

~~~
gagege
That's cool. I didn't know that. That'll be good to remember if I'm ever on
Jeopardy. :)

What led to that admission was all the built up stress of trying again and
again to _have fun_ while writing. Eventually I didn't even start new stories
anymore, because I knew that even if I still had fun ideas for the story, I
hated writing them down. I realized there was no point in trying to push
through. I even _forced_ myself to write a 12,000 word (quite a feat for me)
short once and it was just awful (the story and the experience of writing it).

Things like NaNoWriMo were never fun for me, whereas game jams or hackathons
or Startup Weekend are a blast. That's the main thing.

~~~
denova
This is good to hear. I quit focusing on art (drawing, painting) recently for
the same reason. No matter what I'd do I would always end up agonizing over my
projects. I hated the process and I almost always hated the result. So I gave
up, and now I don't know what I want to do but I don't really care, because at
least I don't have to spend all my time thinking about what a terrible artist
I am. Oh, and I did this for like five years.

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codemonkeymike
Have you ever been tested for ADHD?

If you do have ADHD you can seek guidance from ADHD experts, who can tell you
how to manage it without drugs.

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ashleyp
Work on what your passionate about. Then it's not work.

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sp332
Work with a friend who encourages you and keeps you on-task.

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yutyut11
Find projects that intrinsically motivate you.

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panjaro
how about donating your money/ property to charity or to poor refugees ? Then
you'll get on track !!!!

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conchy
Move closer to the equator and live amongst the other lazy people. You may
even appear hard-working compared to them.

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creativeone
Hard work is the coolest thing in the world, and money shows that you are
capable of actually accomplishing things. Another great thing about money is
that you can put it towards nearly infinite good uses.

Now work hard and make money.

