
Ask HN: How do you stop yourself from stagnating? - krrishd
Sometimes there are points during which I&#x27;m doing pretty well for myself and am wholly content with where I&#x27;m at, without any strong desire for anything different&#x2F;better.<p>How do you stop such a state from stagnating you?
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zachlatta
Writing everything down and relentlessly questioning my priors.

2017 was a very difficult year, but one of the decisions I’ve most benefitted
from was deciding to write down my goals. I spent about a month, directly
putting in at least an hour a day.

I started by writing down what I already knew: I wanted to have a positive
impact on the world, there are certain types of impact that I care about more
than others, and that I wanted all of my decisions to operate on a long time-
horizon.

Immediately I found flaws. What actually is impact? What are the types of
impact I care about? How much of impact is a result of mitigating risk vs.
creating something new?

When I got stuck, I would open up a new text file and write stream of
consciousness until it physically hurt to continue.

After a lot of iteration, I ended with an outline of my goals and my rationale
that I was relatively happy with. And then I worked backwards to figure out
what I should be doing today.

It’s a constant work in progress, but this workflow has been immensely
helpful. It’s given me a single source of truth for whether something is
Actually Important, helped me prioritize, and made me realize when I was being
irrationally demotivated or complacent.

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buildawesome
I try to never stop learning. Here's a couple of ways I've done that seem to
work okay for me.

\- I always try something different and commit to it for a year. By the end of
the year, I've become at least proficient in it.

\- I buy something that makes me do something. A few years ago, I bought a
real estate investment, when I wasn't making too much money (still not making
a ton). Now, I'm able to do more home improvement tasks than the year prior.

\- I try to always learn something new everyday. I don't care whether I spend
1 minute or 1 hour or 1 day. As long as I do something to fulfill this goal, I
win for the day. (No Zero Days).

It's okay to be content, but it's not okay to be stagnant. A running river
gives life to those around it, but still water makes for no life.

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muzani
What I do is to force myself to do something painful every day. Make it a
habit.

It can be push ups. It can be a morning or evening run. It could be taxes or
cancelling a subscription. It could be doing algorithms or reading the white
paper of a random crypto.

Sometimes it's optimization. Find something you repeat a lot and optimize
that. It could be doing laundry or showering faster. It could be learning to
read faster, memorize better. Maybe automating daily tasks through something
like IFTTT. One of the best things I did in 2017 was getting my typos for
capital letters, semicolons, and brackets down by 50%.

The nice part about being comfortable is that you don't have to focus on
survival and have room to do painful things.

So just work on that one painful thing for half an hour each day.

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itamarst
There's nothing wrong with being happy where you are... but it's true that
since learning is always a little painful, you need to make sure that being
happy isn't due to not learning.

One thing I do: every time I make a mistake I try to figure out _why_ , and
how I can avoid it next time. Then I write it up for my newsletter
([https://softwareclown.com](https://softwareclown.com)), which forces me to
dive enough deeper that I can explain it.

Initially I was worried about running out of mistakes, but turns out I make
them all the time :) Which means there's always a relevant learning moment
around the corner.

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oriolgg
I have always at least one new habit being built. I find very useful acquiring
habits as automated routines. Whenever I have a new goal, I create a process
for achieving it, make it an habit, and stop focusing on the goal so much.

Whenever I feel stagnated, I review my current habits, and do either:

A) Improve/optimize an existing habit for a more ambitious goal (ex: "going to
the park and do a couple pullups before work" becomes "do a small strength
training routine at the park before work")

B) Create a new habit (starting small) in an area of my life that I'm not
taking enough care of - even without having a clear goal for it. I found that
many times, creating a process first has ended up creating an exciting goal.

By following this approach, during last year I created and sustained the
following habits:

\- Review my Japanese flashcards daily (>1 year)

\- Keep a budget (>8 months)

\- Journal (>8 months)

\- Body-weight strength training before work (>3 months)

\- Working/studying in early morning before going to the office (>1 month)

The key is to start small. If a process no longer helps my goals, I kill it.

For keeping track, I use the Loop Habit Tracker for Android, which is open
source
([https://github.com/iSoron/uhabits](https://github.com/iSoron/uhabits)).

EDIT: formatting

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taprun
Start a blog about a topic that you want to become an expert in. The
continuous push to publish is a great motivator for self-improvement.

~~~
zapperdapper
I think this is a good idea, but does anyone still read blogs?

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RIMR
I am currently only working in Tech Support while I learn new skills and try
to break into DevOps. My employer has been dangling promotions in front of me
for the past four years, but keeps indefinitely delaying them.

I keep becoming more vocal about my career development, but the company keeps
having new excuses as to why I need to "wait a few more months".

I have now escalated my demands and made it clear that my career is not going
the direction it needs to. I have laid out my conditions for further
employment.

Now, my employer either needs to get things moving in the right direction, or
one of the 50 places I applied for this week is going to replace them.

The real issue is that I am so valuable to my employer doing what I currently
do that they don't want to change my role and have to replace me.
Unfortunately for them, they're going to have to replace me no matter what
happens.

Don't get too comfortable in the same position for too long, and don't let
your company make you feel bad for needing more. If they won't give you what
you need in a career, get out and find an employer that will.

~~~
whatyoucantsay
> I keep becoming more vocal about my career development, but the company
> keeps having new excuses as to why I need to "wait a few more months".

> I have now escalated my demands and made it clear that my career is not
> going the direction it needs to. I have laid out my conditions for further
> employment.

You're not going to win this one. Make your plans and walk away when you have
a good offer.

~~~
RIMR
Oh, I know. I have interviews lined up already. Actually got a few dream
employers on that list, and callbacks from some really cool tech companies.

The sad part is that the company I'm working for now was really different when
I first got hired on, but a change in management really killed everything good
about the place. I miss the company that hired me and wish I could still work
there, but the company as it exists now isn't worth my time.

I am still vocalizing my issues and asking for a resolution. Maybe something
astounding will happen and they'll make it all right - but if they don't (and
they won't), then I'll be able to walk away, and they'll know why.

Not working paycheck-to-paycheck helps a lot. I mentioned to my manager, after
a pretty harsh diatribe about performance expectations that "conditional
employment is a two-way street". She actually countered "We could replace you
faster than you can replace us", which is a bullshit thing to say to an
employee, but she certainly shut up when I told her "I can go without a job
longer than you can go without me".

Tl;Dr: I should go ahead and quit for a new job, and then take the retired
founder of my old employer out to lunch and tell him what a shitshow his
company has turned into since his business partner took over. Also, don't let
the sunken cost fallacy convince you to keep working at a sinking ship.

~~~
whatyoucantsay
Wish you the best, mate. Someday you'll probably look back at this thread an
marvel at how far you've come since now.

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narag
Just don't let money get in the understanding of what stagnating means to you.
What's fun to you in a fundamental sense? In other words: try to find motive
inside you, not outside.

~~~
sanjava
Try to change job or move up every three years

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vinrob92
I found myself that asking myself a couple of important questions each week do
the trick!

These are a few questions that I ask myself every week:

1\. Are you talking to your clients enough this week?

2\. Are you making what people want and is your business going well?

3\. Did you pace check your vision?

4\. Are you measuring the outputs of your busines?

5\. Are you making money ?

6\. Are we planning enough creative stuff or just being stagnant?

7\. Is the team trying to scale itself enough ? (when you push the team, think
about that -- power of leverage and all)

8\. Do you scale yourself or are you doing same thing every day?

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allhailkatt
If you're happy, you're doing something right, so kudos.

To stop from stagnating, play with things. New things, old things, interesting
things you aren't going to need to worry about, because you're doing great.
Read about stuff, particularly from fields you haven't studied before.

It works for crows, anyway.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dWw9GLcOeA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dWw9GLcOeA)

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zapperdapper
I would enjoy it while it lasts if I were you!

If you are seriously worried about stagnation though you could perhaps set
some objectives to learn new skills or achieve some physically challenging or
adventurous goals.

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gameshot911
I stagnate. Initially it's awesome, but sooner or later I remember how shitty
it feels, and push off once again. (Starting again always sucks, too.)

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SirLJ
hobbies, there is always something interesting to learn/master, fishing for
example or art collecting, - its a whole other universe...

