What I get out of all these different posts on motivation is that the amount of motivation matters a lot, the type of motivation matters very little, and motivation and come from very different places for different people.<p>Some of the most successful people are highly motivated by their insecurities (eg Warren Buffett). Some have a very specific vision they want to accomplish. Some like dhh follow one goal at a time. Some simply grew up with the expectation that great things were expected of them and see their success more as a result of their habits than their goals. Some are motivated by revenge. Some are motivated by proving others wrong. Some are motivated by not wanting to be ordinary. Some are motivated by wanting to be accepted and loved. Etc.<p>So really, the best thing you can do is look back at your own life and figure out what drove you to action. What was the time in your life when you were most productive & effective? And what was your life like then?
This is actually a pretty powerful mental hack while you're running or training. To get some extra mileage.<p>When you're getting tired, look ahead and pick an approaching landmark. Think "ok, I'll just run to there and I can stop." When you reach the goal, mentally celebrate then ask yourself, "can I make it to another?"<p>It's less daunting to run to the next lightpost than imagine a distant goal. My personal take away from this article is not that you <i>shouldn't</i> reach for the stars, but rather let the little goals take priority and save the bigger goal thoughts for when you aren't running.
A very thoughtful article by DHH. I think there seems to be two "goals" at work.<p>1. Short-term, achievable goal. Acts like a milestone and gives you momentum, feedback, encouragement.<p>2. Long-term ambitious goal. This is something that acts like a lighthouse in the distance.<p>To me, it's interesting how these two types of goals interact and how one manages them.<p>For example, some companies seem to be formed by the small achievable "goal" method. They start small with little ambitions. They get traction and initial success, and then grow from there. This is similar to DHH's racing journey.<p>However, there are other examples of people starting out with more audacious goals, like Elon Musk with Tesla or even SpaceX. The long-term audacious goals seem to drive development and the short-term milestones. Without the long-term audacious goal I don't think that there would be enough momentum/energy/vision to push through the short term goals.<p>I'm not sure how these two goals work together, and would love to hear your thoughts on this.<p>Can you just have the short term achievable "goals" and then grow from there? Or do you need the long-term audacious goal to guide your short term milestones?
'You can think of goal creep as the test-driven development of a real-life pursuit.'. No!!! Think about it!!! Test-driven development would be to start writing your winning speech before learning to drive!!! Besides, goal creep is a way to get good motivation, but it's usually very bad for design!!! If you wanted to be very good at racing in the first place, you'd have hired the best instructor out there, and you probably wouldn't have taken all the bad habits that you have now, and would probably be a much better driver today!!!
I remember a friend in high school who I used to go on mountain bike rides with. I tried to get him in to racing, and he seemed enthusiastic. However, he said he didn't want to race until he was fast enough to win. He never participated in any races as long as I knew him. I didn't win many, but did pick off a few here and there.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncFCdCjBqcE#t=52" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncFCdCjBqcE#t=52</a><p>Baby steps out of the office.
Great post. Very similar to PG's concept that ambitious ideas should be approached obliquely (<a href="http://paulgraham.com/ambitious.html" rel="nofollow">http://paulgraham.com/ambitious.html</a>).
Slightly off-topic, DHH racing: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1GG7-1AW3A" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1GG7-1AW3A</a><p>I've been obsessed with auto racing, so thanks DHH for the illustration.<p>Getting into an LMP is a distant goal, and who knows if that's where I'll end up, so the advice about completing much closer goals makes sense from where I'm standing, and is exactly what I've experienced in other area of life where I've already accomplished 5+ year goals.
What a great thought and a what a great way to express it. 37signals proves time and time again they have mastered the art of expressing so much with so few words.