

Ask HN: Advice on staying inspired/motivated - alecbenzer

tl;dr - programmer, need motivation/inspiration, can't finish projects, I lose interest and get depressed<p>I'm 18 years old, just finished high school in June. I've been doing coding-type stuff since around 5th grade, so for around 7 years? I've known a "real" programming language (C++) for maybe 5 years, been into web development for like 3 or 4. I'd like to think of myself as a pretty intelligent individual (warning: I'm also fairly narcissistic). To date, I can't really think of a complete project that I've undertaken that I've seen from start to end. I realize I'm pretty young, but I've also been trying for 7 years. And with the exception of a few small projects, none of the projects I've started seem to finish themselves. This mostly applies to projects I choose to start myself, or otherwise don't have a "client". When I have a client I tend to finish things. Once, a friend (M) and I were asked by a teacher to build a mock election system that would track votes during the last US pres. election. We finished that. More recently, I was in charge of making a web system that would manage a conference a club at our school held annually. I finished that. But when it comes to projects that don't have a direct client, I can't finish them.<p>Throughout high school, my friend, M, would push me to work on projects with him. Sometimes I would agree, but eventually as the project went on and on I would lose interest and stop working on it, which would normally cause him to stop, too. Other times I would refuse to work on things with him. I can't really remember exactly why, but I think it had to do with me seeing that I would eventually loose interest, and deciding to start the project up would just boil down to another folder in ~ reminding me of yet another project I couldn't finish. I don't think that covers all the situations, because I remember once us having an argument where he was complain about how I find problems with everything and I explained that finding problems with existing technologies is how we get new technologies, or something like that. Anyway, I don't see how that argument would have stemmed from the reasoning I gave above. Oh, and we argued a lot, too. Mostly over gchat, and I can't help but think that part of it was that we just didn't match up very well in terms of our abilities to express ourselves via only text. But we would've probably still argued a bit regardless. I forget the details of what we argued over, or why they came up in general. Once it was about whether or not Haskell could be as fast as C, or what C++'s flaws are, random things like that. A lot of tension would build up between us like that.<p>Anyway, after a while my friend kind of just started doing stuff on his own. He got involved in a community growing around a new programming language and did some work for them (though I think now his involvement has died out). One of the bigger things he did recently was launching a site that became fairly popular, in the context of the web, and really popular, in the context of stuff either of us had really accomplished before. The site's popularity came back to him in a pretty big way, not long after. Basically, we were both trying for the same school. In terms of numbers (GPA/SAT) I had him beat, noticeably. But in terms of stuff we had done that we could actually show off, he had me beat, pretty noticeably, and the site he launched was a big part of that. Anyway, he ended up getting in and I didn't.<p>I got used to not getting into schools pretty quickly after that. The school he got into was probably my first choice. On top of not getting in there, I got waitlisted at my second choice, and rejected at a bunch of other places. The school that I'm now going to I hadn't visited at all until after I got in, and really had not known much about. This is probably more my fault because other than my first two choices I didn't really visit many colleges at all. Why I didn't is kind of a mystery to be, despite it being only like a little over a year ago. Part of it was depression about various things, and a also a bit of typical teenage "everything (including college) is pointless" type thinking. But regardless of why, I'm disappointed in how things turned out.<p>I know not everyone needs to build a website to get into [that school]. Other people did it via other merits, and maybe if instead of trying to be a programmer throughout high school, I had been more of an overall student, it would've worked out via a different avenue. Not that my grades were bad, they were pretty good, but I didn't have a whole lot of extra curriculars, and some of my SAT scores weren't great (probably because I didn't study much for them). Basically, I understand why colleges might've rejected me. On paper, there wasn't much else to me but grades and some decent scores. I think there's a lot more to me, but not much I can put on paper, because I can't finish things that I start.<p>I need help to stay motivated. What I might really need is a mentor, but I've never really met someone that I could say I really truly admired (maybe due to the narcissism). But what I need on a more immediate level is the ability to _keep_ passion. I can generate passion pretty easily, but it dies out. I need to know how to keep it. How to not become depressed and bored with things, and how to keep the wonder in stuff alive and keep myself in the "engineer" state of mind where I want to go crazy and keep building things and coming up with ideas.<p>Admittedly, some of my problems probably go beyond the scope of HN. I imagine I've got quite a bit of psychological problems, for example. But I'm not really looking for help with that (though if you want to offer it, go ahead). I'm looking for advice on how to stay inspired and motivated, how to be that person that goes out and works on all this cool stuff without having their interest wane.<p>Not sure if I've done a good job explaining myself but advice is welcome. :)
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rush-tea
Props to you that you have done so much in your early life. It takes
tremendeous effort to do what you have achieve. :)

To be motivated, one need to know his/her goal towards it. I read your post
here, but I don't see yoru goal. Your friend has a goal of growing a community
around a new programming language. That's why he beats you on stuff. :)

If you want to be motivated, relax, think for a while (take as much time as
you need), and decide what you want to do out of it.

For example, if you have hobby of restoring cars, your motivation is the goal
of having the restored car in running condition with pristine condition.
THat's how car restorer stays motivated because they know what they want to
achieve.

Think about what you want to achieve, what goal you want to set...

Come back here with that in mind, and we might be able to help you set up
steps to ensure that you can stay motivated.

~~~
alecbenzer
Well, part of the issue might be that I don't have definitive goals in terms
of projects I want to complete. I like doing stuff (with code and cs and
related things). I enjoy doing stuff. I did some basic game development when I
was younger, and I do web development type stuff more now. I play around with
language development occasionally. I do lots of stuff and I like all of that
stuff... at first. But then the interest dies away.

I suppose part of the problem is that I struggle in achieving balance between
the means and the product. I feel like being passionate about the product but
not about the means is a bad thing, because the work itself can become
tiresome if you're not into it. But if you care about the means and not about
the product, then you'll lose interest (as I do) because you don't see where
the work is leading you.

So maybe I need to get some more passion about a product instead of just
enjoying the process of making it, even if ultimately that's what I'm really
after. But I'm not sure exactly how to do that (or to keep the feeling around
if it floats in for a bit).

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blackboxxx
Let's face it, there will be times when you'll have to work without motivation
and inspiration. It's in those situations where efficiency and giving yourself
rewards and treating yourself well are extra important.

Basketball star Kobe Bryant says (about basketball) that he "honors the
craft". That's why he's so good at the game.

That's what you need to do. Take what your already good at and get better.
Honor the craft. Don't wait for inspiration, go after it.

~~~
ulisesroche
You're right, of course. There's a good book called "The War of Art" that I
recommend to the OP, which is precisely about this.

~~~
alecbenzer
Looked interesting until I saw this in part of a description:

"The focus is on combating resistance and living the destiny that Pressfield
believes is _gifted to each person by an all-powerful deity._ "

Though I might check it out regardless...

~~~
ulisesroche
Yeah, I really hated those parts. The author calls them angels, but he also
says to call it what you will, (talent, instinct, genies, blegh). It's worth
reading, though, skipping the metaphysical parts as you would with Epitectus.

