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| | Ask HN: How do I overcome mental laziness? | |
618 points by fickleycurious on April 19, 2020 | hide | past | favorite | 262 comments
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| | I have realized that I easily give up when I face a hard problem. This is hurting my career prospects. I have been thinking and it may have become an issue because I grew up in a high pressure environment, where a lot is expected from you. How do I change myself ? I have observed that a lot of times I have a vague idea of a problem I am trying to solve but I don't put in the effort to nail it down. This affects my confidence and I don't want to lead whenever I get an opportunity. How do I get out of this habit ? |
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So two pieces of advice. First, stop judging so much. Do what you love doing and don't feel the least bit guilty about it. Second, find things you love doing that generally make you a better person over time and do those things. This might require trying out new things every weekend for a while. Once again, don't judge yourself; instead find things you truly love that you feel are also good for you. There are plenty of these things for everybody, and each person has his own mix. Never feel like you have to have somebody else's.
A lot of commenters here are using the mountain metaphor. I'd like to say the same thing a different way. Stop being so goal focused and instead become habit focused. You don't want to accomplish some big goal, all you want to do is do fun stuff that makes you a better person. As a result of that, you'll probably accomplish some cool goals. But you'd never do that if you started from zero and tried to guilt yourself into striving towards some goal you couldn't care less about.
Habits are easy to change. The trick is to try new things and start with really, really small changes. Most of life is Zen anyway. You either enjoy doing things and die or you suffer and die. It's your choice.