[HN Gopher] What I do when I feel like giving up (2015)
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What I do when I feel like giving up (2015)
Author : sherilm
Score : 109 points
Date : 2022-12-14 14:47 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (jamesclear.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (jamesclear.com)
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| The mind as a "suggestion engine" is an interesting take. On one
| hand, it supports this idea that the mind is a separate thing
| from our "true self," but it at least acknowledges that some of
| the suggestions are valuable.
|
| Contrast to my pseudobuddhaguru friends who _think_ that the mind
| is 100% ego-driven and that, if they could only silence this
| alien voice in their head, their "true self" will take over and
| they will achieve enlightenment.
| defaultcompany wrote:
| This guy is driving himself like he's a machine. When he feels
| like giving up he pushes on the gas and forces himself to do it
| anyway. My take is he needs to loosen up and take a break, maybe
| rethink his inflexible definition of success.
|
| > What is life, if not the sum of a hundred thousand daily
| battles and tiny decisions to either gut it out or give it up?
|
| This is such a cynical and miserable way to think about life.
| Relax, enjoy yourself, find some pleasure in some simple things
| which aren't tied to "success". You don't have to live like this.
| gumby wrote:
| But ability to perform (which is not just a work thing) also
| appears to benefit from practice.
|
| I was interested to learn the Roger Zelazny went to his
| typewriter every day and refused to leave until he had written
| at least a page. I imagine many of those "single page" days did
| not result in anything I read. But still, his output was
| definitely worth reading.
| navs wrote:
| 'I feel like giving up' vs 'I give up'.
|
| Reframing that thought is powerful.
| Existenceblinks wrote:
| However, occasionally, showing up with bad mood will make things
| worse. Most of the daily life activities will require some
| interaction with human while producing whatever work. That's the
| resistance of showing up. "showing up" is close but it's only you
| are ready to fight the inner resistance.
| xyzzy4747 wrote:
| It makes sense to give up when the end goal doesn't justify the
| work involved.
| nigamanth wrote:
| The fact that the author had nothing to write about, but then
| turned it around by writing about the fact that there was nothing
| to write about shows how consistent the author is for writing his
| blog.
|
| That itself is a quality to admire, keep the hustle going man!
| phforms wrote:
| What I struggle with the most is not so much the struggle itself,
| but the repetition of the struggle. When I overcome the urge of
| giving up, it feels like a bitter-sweet victory because I know
| that with great certainty I will have to repeat this fight over
| and over again in the future and it will be just as painful.
|
| Sometimes when I don't see any progress, this thought is what
| really brings me down. It feels pointless and makes me want to do
| more enjoyable things.
|
| One of the hardest things in life is to recognize when you really
| should give up, because you are holding on to something just
| because you want to persevere to reach some questionable goal in
| the future, but in the end it just makes your present more
| miserable. Of course, this is not to say that there are goals
| that are really worth the sweat and tears.
| Tade0 wrote:
| This is more or less in line with what Dr. Alok Kanojia of
| HealthyGamerGG is saying.
|
| The feeling of wanting to give up is an evolutionary adaptation
| to not engage in activities that have a low probability of
| success.
|
| Unfortunately stuff like filing taxes or getting to work on time
| are relatively recent things, so our minds can't estimate the
| benefits of that intuitively.
|
| One way to get out of this is to think about the outcome. It's
| easier to do something if the end result will be satisfying.
| johnfn wrote:
| This doesn't seem to ring true for me. For instance, OP say he
| has written blog posts for 939 days consistently. That seems
| like a very high probability of success. How then are they
| thinking of giving up?
| Tade0 wrote:
| Not in the medical field, so don't assume competence, but:
|
| What is a blog post to a hunter-gatherer? Nothing that has a
| clear link to the next meal, the feeling of safety or finding
| a mate.
|
| Any feeling of accomplishment that a person gets from that is
| a product of culture, not something innate.
|
| Unfortunately that's just not enough to work every time.
| svnt wrote:
| Perhaps the author did not see the follower counts they
| expected after nearly three years of blogging.
|
| As far as it ringing true, perhaps your cognition is more
| derived toward consistent work than GP's.
|
| It is a good thing to have neurodiversity.
| manv1 wrote:
| TL; DR: Don't!
|
| This reminds me of a line from Tom Lehrer: "if you can't
| communicate, the least you can do is shut up."
| shanebellone wrote:
| "My job is to do the work and let the world decide."
|
| This is a particularly powerful line and something I will
| certainly reflect on.
| jameal wrote:
| It's funny how when I'm thriving it seems impossible to relate to
| the feeling of wanting to give up. And when I feel like giving up
| it seems impossible to think that I could ever be thriving. The
| state of mind can be so powerful. But it's all temporary. I think
| accepting that both thriving and discomfort are temporary has
| made me more resilient.
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| Showing up counts for a lot. Grit is a good, admirable trait
| which correlates heavily with success.
|
| I don't feel like leveraging grit works in all situations,
| though? Do others feel differently?
|
| For me, there are times I want to program, show up to program,
| and then fail to dictate the movement of pixels of light
| appropriately with my critical thoughts. It's not for a lack of
| grit. I could sit for hours making attempts to gain headway, but
| only build in frustration as I become increasingly aware of my
| failure to drop into flow state.
|
| The brain is a muscle, decision fatigue is real, and your body
| imposes safeguards on how much you're allowed to crunch it. There
| are some tasks which do not progress without a sufficiently
| critical mindset and require rest. You can do other, less
| mentally demanding tasks, and this will satiate some of your
| hunger to create, but, just as cleaning the house isn't a
| suitable replacement for that actually important chore you're
| procrastinating on, I don't feel that writing a blog post that
| just says, "I showed up." is sufficient to say you're continuing
| to progress in your own, personal character development?
|
| Happy to be told I'm being overly cynical here. I think I am and
| just need more coffee, but curious to hear other's thoughts.
| jameal wrote:
| I see grit as a trait expressed in the long-term. It takes grit
| to know when you're at that point of fatigue, to walk away and
| take a long walk so you can come back refreshed. And then to
| actually come back to it.
|
| I think that you and the author both have valid points of view
| that don't necessarily contradict each other.
| vsareto wrote:
| >I don't feel like leveraging grit works in all situations,
| though? Do others feel differently?
|
| Grit and the Sunk cost fallacy are often at odds with each
| other.
|
| Grit is useful when picking up a skill (programming) and
| sticking with it. But within that skill, you might not want to
| stick to something specific for too long if it's not working
| out, otherwise you deprive yourself of other learning
| opportunities.
|
| It also depends on what kind of success you want out of it. If
| you want to master a skill, no-matter-what, regardless of what
| kinds of jobs it has, then go for grit 100% to keep you working
| on it.
|
| If you want to try something new because you're seeking a deep
| passion, sticking with grit 100% will have an opportunity cost
| of not trying something else.
|
| Also a lot of this comes down to how hard you want to be on
| yourself. You can have strict goals of progress where just
| showing up yields no progress, so you might consider it a
| failure because there was no meaningful progress.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Grit is defined as "the perseverance and passion to achieve
| long-term goals".
|
| I have a lot of mental health challenges and completely lack
| the reserve capacity most people have. The advice to "suck it
| up and do it" fails spectacularly with me. At best, I burn out
| mid-day. At worst, I burn out for several weeks.
|
| This doesn't preclude having grit.
|
| I work to know myself and my limits. Other people do not get to
| define my limitations. I know me, they don't. I will never
| "live up to my potential" in their eyes.
|
| To them, I lack grit in all its forms.
|
| But grit isn't about each day, it's about the long term. If I
| have to give up today, it's only so I can be ready for
| tomorrow. Every day is a chance to start again.
|
| That is the very definition of perseverance. It's a choice to
| keep going after being defeated.
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| I agree with everything you're saying here. I'm sorry others
| do not see grit in you from their perspective. That must be a
| continually frustrating struggle.
|
| Are you able to speak more about your daily processes?
|
| How do you work to know yourself and your limits? How do you
| know if you're being lazy or recuperating? If grit isn't
| about each day then what psychological stat is?
| Mezzie wrote:
| I'm not the parent commentor, but I have MS which presents
| a lot of similar issues.
|
| For me, the main things I use to determine my limits are:
|
| - "Does doing this increase my odds of a relapse?": There
| are correlations between stress and risk of relapse, so I
| manage my stress very closely.
|
| - "Is doing this/pushing through sustainable, or will I
| need to borrow energy/sleep more/create issues going
| forward?": This one is hard because it involves knowing
| oneself and one's triggers and body very well. Like I'll
| down a shit ton of aspirin and Benedryl to work through
| migraines because I know they're brought on by either quick
| changes in barometric pressure or my menstrual cycle, which
| resolve quickly and can't spiral into worse problems. MS
| heat intolerance, on the other hand, means I need to stop
| and rest if I end up too warm because my nerves _will_ be
| fried until I rest even if the weather does cool down.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| > Are you able to speak more about your daily processes?
|
| My life is defined by the absence of process and
| discipline. It's basically managed chaos. I do what I can,
| when I can.
|
| The one process I have nailed down is medication. I use a
| pill planner and make it a habit to check it any time I
| can't remember if I took my medication. I use alarms
| because they are difficult to ignore and I can hit the
| snooze button if I'm busy. Reminders and calendar events
| don't work.
|
| > How do you work to know yourself and your limits?
|
| I've learned how my body and mind feels when I'm running
| low. I started with a mood tracking application, but once I
| learned to operate by feel, it became automatic. Once that
| problem was offloaded, I stopped using the app.
|
| My therapist gave me some great advice: "go with what
| works". If an app becomes work that I start to avoid, then
| it's time to switch strategies.
|
| > How do you know if you're being lazy or recuperating?
|
| I generally give myself 15~30 minutes to get started on
| something. If I can't manage any useful focus, I move to
| something I can accomplish.
|
| I may look lazy from the outside but I've had to be told by
| everyone (friends, family, doctor, therapist, support
| group, manager, etc) to slow down and take care of myself.
| That's been hard to accept but my productivity and
| happiness has greatly increased since I started doing that.
|
| > If grit isn't about each day then what psychological stat
| is?
|
| People aren't robots. We all have good days and bad days.
| There is no one stat, only patterns and trendlines. In a
| way, it's heartening. We can always make better decisions
| tomorrow. :)
| padobson wrote:
| I identify with this.
|
| I heard somewhere that certain high performing folks only
| need five hours of sleep a night. I tried this for a week and
| it was a disaster. Damage to work. Damage to relatonships,
| etc.
|
| But it did lead me to a years long experiment to discover my
| limits for sleep (while also struggling to understand how
| diet and caffeine intake interact).
|
| I just finished a year where I aimed for 49 hours of sleep
| per week (5 nights of 6 hours, 2 nights of 8 hours, 1 or 2
| naps of 1.5-3 hrs), and after 11+ months I started having the
| same problems I had from the initial 5hr/night experiment
| that last only a week.
|
| So I've accepted I'm not a 35/hr a week guy. I might be a
| 45/hr a week guy, with precise diet/exercise/caffeine dosing,
| but in the meantime I'm comfortable accepting decent
| productivity at 55/hr a week.
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| There's that old tale of the people chopping wood but one
| takes a bunch of breaks but chops way more wood than the
| other, and it turns out every time they took a break that
| they were sharpening their axe.
|
| That's what sleep is to me, the most effective nootropic
| "sharpening the axe" you can do for your productivity.
| Unfortunately, that doesn't quantify easily like "hours of
| sleep" so it's harder to track.
| fragmede wrote:
| I'm not a sleep scientist, but Fitbit's advanced sleep
| tracking has been a boon for me to collect data on how
| I'm sleeping.
| shanebellone wrote:
| I do chores when I'm stuck. I strategically engage diffuse
| thinking to overcome my current obstacle. More often than not,
| I sit back down with a solution.
|
| Give it a shot :)
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| This is one of the productivity boosts WFH has over the
| office. Two birds with one problem to work out.
| rg111 wrote:
| Yes.
|
| Breaks are wondrous in problem-solving.
|
| When stuck (and when not), take breaks and do other stuff.
|
| In ~95% of the cases, solutions come to you. In the rest 5%,
| you reach out to someone who can help.
|
| Breaks are miracles in problem-solving.
|
| And I mean not only in case of programming/math, but also
| social situations.
| waprin wrote:
| I'm similar, though not necessarily chores - usually other
| projects.
|
| In my goal tracker, I set high levels goals to be productive,
| but then about 30 different possible tasks count as
| productive. I track them at a low level so I can keep a good
| track of my time, but they all count towards the high level
| daily/weekly goal of being productive. That way I make sure
| I'm just doing _something_ productive, if not the thing I
| planned to do, rather than screw around surfing Reddit or
| something.
|
| Of course, this strategy works much better if you're a
| bootstrapped founder with 40 important tasks in front of you.
| It works less well if you have a daily standup with a project
| manager stressing the importance of only doing the JIRA
| ticket at the top of the backlog. So YMMV.
| shanebellone wrote:
| I typically maintain a list of tasks that can be
| accomplished in 6 hours or less. I pick a task based on my
| mood and motivation. I rarely work more than 6 hours.
|
| Usually accomplishing a small task builds enough motivation
| to accomplish another small task or a larger task. Getting
| started always seems to be the hardest part.
| sublinear wrote:
| Yeah I think a lot of people are misunderstanding "grit" as
| "foolish stubbornness".
|
| These are different words for a reason.
|
| I think of grit as just not giving up and maintaining the
| integrity of a schedule and the quality of the work.
|
| It's a learned skill like anything else. Grit soon enough just
| becomes competence with experience, but you need to stop
| procrastinating first :)
| Existenceblinks wrote:
| You've said better than my comment here. I haven't had a single
| tear in the past 10 years but back then it helped kickoff the
| process of showing up a lot. The fighting action has its
| reaction that eat soul. Being strong is being painful while
| keeping everything functioning. I wish I had ability to cry
| again. Idk, it's a magic to yield back energy to start a new
| cycle.
| bad_username wrote:
| Knowing when to give up is a skill that is as valuable as grit,
| if not more so. Our time and energy are finite, and sometimes
| it is rational to redirect the resources from a goal that
| proved too expensive to achieve for a given benefit (e. g. due
| to newly found circumstances).
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