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"You need a public deadline for sharing your work" This is a deeply contentious claim, and definitely varies by person and personality. The dominant opinion cu
by endorphone 9y ago
"You need a public deadline for sharing your work"
This is a deeply contentious claim, and definitely varies by person and personality. The dominant opinion currently is that publicly announcing and sharing goals undermines motivations because it puts the reward before the work, and it can handcuff and lead to a spiral of failures. We put too much stock in our intentions, and not enough in our actions.
To speak to the reward thing, people often announce big plans up front because they want to receive accolades/respect for what they plan to do, often claiming that it's the motivation. Whether it's donating time, going on a diet, a new exercise regimen, or that new game or novel idea, it is a success death-knell when it is announced at the outset. And then the speaker, who has already demonstrated a need for affirmation, is in a situation where the best they can do is not disappoint. Their failure is blamed on the lack of perpetual accolades for what they haven't done yet.
For most people, private commitments to yourself, and then a feedback loop with constant self analysis, is the real route to success, seeking accolades only on the results or actions of those private commitments.
- pault 9y agoIn my experience people that talk about what they're working on don't finish anything. Come back a year later and they'll have some new grandiose project and a handful of excuses for why the last thing didn't pan out. I have a personal rule that I take very seriously, which is: don't tell; show. People will write you off as a flake and a blowhard if you are always talking about what you're working on. (I learned this lesson the hard way :)
- z3t4 9y agoIn order to finish something it has to feel somewhat acute, eg it shouln't be easy to postpone it forever. This doesn't contradict your advice on private commitment though. Public announcement can be a motivation "hack" to make it feel more important.
- endorphone 9y agoFor this you need internal goals, ideally with honest self reflection and continual assessment. Everyone is different, and there are those people who truly get the motivation by announcing intentions and then try to stick to their word. Research has shown that this isn't true for most, however: Most people sabotage their own success by announcing in advance. If you don't have the internal motivations, external motivations are unlikely to have any beneficial impact, but are likely to have a detrimental effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implementation_intention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implementation_intention
- z3t4 9y agoWhen it comes to internal vs external motivation they work equally well! An example of external motivation is money. It's healthy to have internal motivation, eg you like what you are doing, but it's not needed. It works best to have both internal and external motivation, for example really enjoying the work and get paid a lot for it, then you'll be very motivated, and wont have any problems to get to work.
- shultays 9y agoWell it worked for me. I released an indie game title this year while my github is full of half finished old projects. Pretty much only thing I did differently was a public deadline and a few people that supported me to finish it on it (more like nagging tbh :)) I am sure this is not for everyone but I agree with OP about being public. Otherwise you just find a thousand excuses to not to finish anything