
Focus on your own shit (2016) - gk1
https://justinjackson.ca/focus-on-your-own-shit/
======
craftyguy
While this is good advice, it seems as useless as all the other "just quit
doing <whatever bad habit you have>" advice.

What are some techniques that folks use to convince themselves to only worry
about their shit and not dwell on shit from other people?

~~~
manigandham
That's because advice doesn't solve anything. Action does.

You can ask for a million different variations of advice but you won't get
anywhere until you take action. And only _you_ can do that for yourself.

EDIT: for the replies, I don't mean that advice is useless. Guidance is
important, but even the best plan doesn't matter if you don't actually _do_
something.

~~~
matt4077
> That's because advice doesn't solve anything. Action does. > And only you
> can do that for yourself.

Aside from the continuing vacuity, and the rather oxymoronic nature of "Advice
doesn't help"-advice, I'm pretty sure that idea is just wrong?

Advice is a rather fundamental mechanism of humanity's success. Not just as in
"ask a lawyer/doctor", but as something so common we don't even notice. It
allows to tap into a vast repertoire of wisdom, and brings the benefit of
fresh sets of eyes, with often minimal costs and efforts for either party.

I also fear this you-can-do-it attitude is slightly too close to Prosperity
Gospel for comfort: Telling people they just have to be more disciplined is
bound to fail more often than not, and leaves them with the complete burden of
guilt. There's a point of diminishing returns for emotional pain as a
motivator.

That not only ignores the rather substantial influence of luck, other people's
action, and other factors beyond one's control. It also discounts all other
personal factors possibly contributing to someone's misfortune. Maybe they
just aren't cut out for professional sports/pulitzer price
journalism/whatever... Or they have chosen some endeavour that just isn't a
good fit for their personality (in terms of social v analytical, outside /
inside, action / concentration,...). In such cases, powering through is rather
ill-advised unless your stock options are close to vesting.

~~~
SllX
You’re leading an army off to war, your scouts have just reported back, the
first engagement is sooner than you thought it would be and you have to shift
tactics. You want advice from your (hopefully) qualifies advisors.

You are competing for a woman’s affection, and it is an uphill battle and
there are other potentially better qualified suitors but if you could just do
one thing to put her over the edge and squarely in your camp, you just might
be able to seal the deal. This wouldn’t be the worst time to get some pretty
decent advice from a good mate.

You want to lose weight. You want to put on muscle. You want to teach yourself
to draw. At this point you don’t need advice. All the information you could
possibly need is not only out there, but very easy to find. What you need is
to take action, and do the thing you claim you want to do. You’ll find that in
most respects, you are already eminently qualified to figure out which actions
you need to take and in what order. There has never been a better time to be
alive than now for finding out the very basics in a readable format for
whatever it is you want to accomplish.

Some things really are as simple as do or don’t do. That’s not to say
everything is, but most things in life are just not very complex once the
matter of first principles are essentially solved.

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binaryapparatus
"Quit worrying about what everyone else is doing." \- Good advice.

"Focus on how you're helping people." \- ?

How come is 'helping people' ultimate goal? "Focus on what you are doing."
looks as better advice?

~~~
TaylorAlexander
I mean, helping people is my broad goal. And generally the story with most
businesses is that you’re helping _somebody_.

~~~
binaryapparatus
Maybe so. In my experience 'helping' in most cases sides with other
time/nerves wasting exercises - like browsing twitter in other form. Role
playing, not actual real thing.

Getting better in what I do (whatever that is) first (so focusing on what I
do), then helping as a side effect, that's possible.

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Kaveren
This reminds me of the advice in "How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users
for My SaaS" (I liked the article overall). I'm more confident in my
disagreement now.

Ignoring competition does not make it go away. Being a competitive person is
good, and it gives you an advantage. The top of most any field is comprised of
very competitive people.

I do not agree with this very generic advice. You shouldn't back down the
second you feel any pressure / stress, this is not the behavior of a
competitive person. If you are getting _irrationally_ jealous or saddened to
an unhealthy degree, you should learn to deal with this. If you are unable to,
you should reconsider whatever field you're in.

It seems common for people to move goalposts when talking about this, as if
being competitive and not ignoring competition detracts from your ability to
improve your own project, or to be able to think independently of what
competitors are doing.

~~~
jm__87
> The top of most any field is comprised of very competitive people.

Being competitive is good, if it helps you succeed. The degree to which you
can be successful if you just "focus on your own shit" vs. paying close
attention to what your competitors are doing is going to depend on what you
are doing. If you play football professionally, you absolutely need to pay
attention to what the competition is doing to succeed. If you write code for a
living, you are going to be way more successful paying attention to your own
shit than spending time paying attention to what everyone else is doing. It is
just stupid to say that being competitive is the only way to get to the top of
your field. Being the best at what you do will get you to the top of your
field, by definition. The drive to get you there can come from wanting to be
better than everyone else, or it can come from somewhere else.

------
evross
"There’s only two things that will improve your situation:

1\. Concentrate on your users, audience, customers, fans. Figure out what they
want. Develop a deep connection with them.

2\. Improve your skill, expertise, competence, product. How can you get
better? How can you make your product better for the people who use it?"

There is also a responsibility for well-informed people to encourage and join
initiatives that are 'good' and interesting. This is the way ethical and
useful initiatives can be promoted and can 'win' in the marketplace of ideas.

------
paulpauper
_Agonizing over your competition doesn’t help you serve your customers better.
Being jealous of your peers won’t improve your craft._

It does. Without some envy where is the drive to improve?

~~~
rpdillon
Holding myself to an objective standard is far more motivational for me than
measuring myself against others.

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the_clarence
That's pretty much Feynmann's "disregard others" advice in a more vulgar tone.

[https://stepsandleaps.wordpress.com/2017/10/17/feynmans-
brea...](https://stepsandleaps.wordpress.com/2017/10/17/feynmans-breakthrough-
disregard-others/amp/)

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Animats
_My eyes crack open. 7am. Roll over. Grab my phone. Start scrolling…_

I think we've located the problem.

~~~
bitwize
Indeed. If he were a real Hackernews he'd be up at 4 am to do his daily 5 mile
run before eating paleo breakfast and then working on his MVP for 12 hours
solid.

~~~
jboles
“Killing it” all the while !

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mrmrcoleman
I’d agree that agonizing over what your competition is doing isn’t wise, but
at the same time if you have no idea what your competitors are doing you are
in trouble.

The goal is not to ignore the competition but get better at controlling how
you react to it.

------
person_of_color
Comparison Is the Death of Joy -- MarkT

~~~
abootstrapper
Theodore Roosevelt

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mrhappyunhappy
Sounds like advice from one bro to another.

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TaylorAlexander
Can we get [2016] in the title?

“Published on February 29th, 2016”

~~~
omarchowdhury
Timeless wisdom, imo.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
Definitely. Not commenting on the timeliness I just believe that is the policy
around here for articles from the past? I don’t actually know.

~~~
icebraining
You're absolutely right. The point is to help readers know if they might have
read it before, not to imply it's outdated.

