Discussion on: Don't Give Up. Keep Iterating

Thank you for your comment! :D

It takes consistent effort to move our definition of success from the outcome to the process.

Indeed it does.

So excited that we underestimate or downplay the effort that will be involved, and end up being faces with a harsh reality when we finally start turning those thoughts into (a far less perfect) reality.

YES

I'm trying to set goals more along the lines of 'work on this for 30 minutes a day' and forget, as much as is possible, about the final product. Just keep building. Make a discipline out of it, so that I'm at the keyboard even when motivation hasn't struck that day. I'm hoping that by focusing on small, consistent inputs and trying not to think about the final output I may actually complete a project for a change.

Something that has helped me build such a habit is to work on low stakes, very constrained and time-boxed projects. For instance, build a 13k game within a month and see how far I get :D. Investing a month on something is not a huge commitment so it feels ok to stick with it for at least that month and if after a month I'm not feeling it I have an easy way out, and I still feel like I've achieved something.

Make a discipline out of it, so that I'm at the keyboard even when motivation hasn't struck that day.

I've found that the best way to break the inertia is to just start. Tell myself, let's just do it for 5 minutes, I can do it for 5 minutes right? And then I typically start enjoying it and just continue with it :D