Category: Personal Development

Action wrote about Feeling Success, a phenomenon in which you can actually feel yourself succeeding. I think it sounded like being in The Zone. You can’t lose because you are in a mode that is beyond your normal capabilities. It’s a good read, especially the part about cultivating this feeling.

One of the drawbacks of “feeling success”…is that you get super-focused and put a lot of things aside. When I begin to “feel” the business….I am so focused that I have to stop a lot of other activities.

Can I “feel” the business, while still living a balanced life. Maybe. But I think hyperfocus is imperative.

I think the key to maintaining a balance is to apply your ability to focus on things other than your business. Being able to maintain focus on a single task or event is key to keeping from being overwhelmed. The best part is that it works for everything, not just your business.

Are you hanging out with friends? Stop worrying about the coding issues you’re having! If you come up with an idea, by all means write it down, but stop thinking about it and focus on being with friends.

Are you eating? Focus on your food. Taste it. Chew it. Swallow it. Enjoy the experience. Then go back to the business after you’re done.

Some people make it a point to work for an hour early in the morning, every day, without fail, no matter what. People can die, disasters can happen, but they will do whatever it is they dedicated themselves to doing at that early hour. Dan Kennedy writes, for example. The ability to focus on the task at hand is important in getting things accomplished and making progress on your goals.

Amazingly, I was just thinking about this very topic today. I realized that it can be very easy for me to be distracted from a task. I was writing down the somewhat-detailed action plan for my game development work tonight. Whenever I got stuck or paused for a moment to think, I realized that I mindlessly started browsing through my Active Bookmarks. I would read someone’s blog (in fact, two blogs at the same time! Yeesh!), then stop and work on my plans. I would check email. I managed to get the plans finished probably because they were so small. I could have finished them in minutes, but instead I let distractions get in the way. A little too easily, I think.

Maintaining focus is something I will need to improve. I’m able to accomplish quite a bit as it is, but if I could really focus on my tasks, I would be unstoppable.

Action wrote Debugging Habits: “Wait and See” vs. “Act and Learn” in which he discusses the results he gets by taking action versus waiting around for things to happen or fall into place.

On a similar topic, David Seah wrote Building a Niche of One, in which he discusses leveling up abilities by orders of magnitude. He cites an article that claims talent isn’t the only thing. Practice is just as important.

Just like successful songwriters need to write hundreds of songs before they get their “overnight” hit, chess players need to play thousands of hours worth of games to become good at chess. Seah was nice enough to provide a graudated scale. 10,000 hours over the course of 10 years might make you a master, and it sounds daunting. Well, yeah. It is. That’s a lot of dedicated hours. But 1,000 hours is doable within a year if you work full time, and you can be an experienced expert. Already have something taking up your full time? 100 hours can be done on the side, and you can still be somewhat of an expert. 10 hours could be a dedicated weekend or spread over a few of them, and you’ll definitely learn enough to be dangerous. Even dedicating an hour to a task will give you practice with the basics.

I’ve never liked the idea that some people are just never going to have certain talents. It sounded too much like your lot in life is set before you, and you never had a chance to make a difference one way or another. “Some people just aren’t meant to be programmers” or “Some people just aren’t musically inclined”. I personally think that if they aren’t going to be able to do it, it is because they’ve decided that they won’t do it. It wasn’t due to any inability except to take action, any action. I’m sure talent is important, but I also believe that talent isn’t always inate. Left-handed people might be more creative initially, but I’m sure if I practice being creative enough, I’ll also get a +4 creativity roll. Or at least be much better than I am. No law says I must stagnate.

I can play chess, but I don’t have nearly as much experience as a friend of mine does, and he destroys me almost every time we play. Almost, because I’m slowly getting better. One game I almost won, and one time I managed to take his queen before he realized his mistake. B-) I also play as Terran in Starcraft, and while I know “how” to play, I am almost always struggling to survive by the end of a game. Almost, because there were a few games where I made a decisive strike that would have turned the tide of battle permanently in my favor if I had only paid attention to producing more units (Larry, I will defeat your Protoss!). When I first played Quake 3 Arena, I was the n00b that would stand on a platform and look around while rockets and machinegun fire found me like mosquitos on a hot summer day. Eventually I became the regular leader on the boards within my group of friends. Well, until they remembered how to play again (there was a long absence from the game for a lot of us). Even then, I was holding my own. I gained experience and was able to play more competitively. I became better, even though I stunk something fierce when I began.

Whether it is programming, meeting women, writing novels, juggling, brainstorming, or playing games, taking action and getting the experience of the attempt, whether you accomplish your goal or not, will always improve what you know. How can I possibly learn the best way to design a C++ class in my game project if I don’t get familiar with the problem domain? How will I learn how to write the next great American novel if I don’t try to write anything before taking it on?

I’ll make mistakes. I’ll make HUGE mistakes. I’ll probably look silly. But I’ll only have myself to blame if I don’t learn from it. I’ll take a variation of “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me” as “I stumble once, and that’s expected. I stumble again, and I should have marked the stupid rock on a map!!”

Perfect practice makes perfect. No one is perfect. You’re expected to make mistakes. Learn from them. Then do better. Then do better again. Take action, practice and learn.

I’ve been trying to wake up earlier since I found that I could get a lot accomplished in the early morning hours. Eventually I’d like to get up at 5AM, get some of my own work accomplished, then leave for my day job.

Some days it is easy. The alarm goes off at 5:45AM, and I get up pretty much immediately. My backup alarm, my cell phone, will go off in about 15 minutes, and so I sometimes find that I’ll need to take it with me to breakfast so that I can turn it off before someone else wakes up. B-)

Other days it is a struggle. I can actually feel a battle between my body and my mind. “Ok, I’m up. I just need to move out of bed and get going. Move the blanket, move my leg, move my arm…why am I not moving?”

Why the difference? Some days I just don’t feel like getting up. Everyone has those days. Some people have them more than others. Sometimes the feeling is overwhelming. Logically I know I want to get out of bed. I’ll be late for work if I don’t get up. On Saturday and Sunday, I still like to get up early so I can get a lot accomplished before most errands and appointments are set. I’ll end up with less time for the things I want to accomplish. And yet, I’ll still stay in bed.

I had to take care of my cat when my parents were away for a week. My father would generally feed him and change the litter box, but I had to take over these responsibilities. My father works early, and so he wakes up even earlier. My cat is used to getting food at a certain time. I woke up to my alarm and stayed in bed long enough to think about getting out of it. It was one of those epic struggles between the mind and the body, and my mind was losing.

Then I remembered that my cat was depending on me for food. I got up immediately and easily.

Again, why the difference?

Purpose. I woke up with a purpose. Apparently getting to work on time wasn’t as motivating as making sure my cat was happy and fat (I found out that week he was 18 pounds, or 8.16 kilograms to the rest of the world).

When I spend the night before thinking about what I want to do the next day, I find that waking up is a lot easier, even if I went to sleep very late. On the other hand, when I just go to sleep without a thought to tomorrow, even if I get enough sleep, I’ll struggle to get out of bed. I’ve found myself lying wide-eyed and awake but unable to move simply because I didn’t have a compelling reason to get up.

I’ve read about how making todo or next action lists the night before is useful because it makes the next day purpose-driven. It also helps remind you that you have a reason to get up in the morning.

I remember when Steve Pavlina started his personal development website, stevepavlina.com, and his picture at the top was kind of jarring. It’s like any online personality, I guess. When you read the words of someone online for any length of time, you might have some vague image in your head of what they look like, but when you see a picture of the person its…well, it’s kind of weird sometimes. I remember people on the indie gamer forums poking fun at how much of a nerd Pavlina is, and some noticed he looked a lot like the famous Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings. Others just treated it like any of us would. “Cool, so that’s what you look like!”

It’s what I thought when hearing Steve Pavlina’s voice in his first podcast. “So that’s what he actually sounds like!” It’s not the voice I had in my head when I read his blog posts and articles!

Now, I’ll say that this is the first podcast I’ve heard. Ever. I don’t have a portable digital audio player so I would have to be in front of my computer to listen to them. I’ve also heard that most aren’t of good quality anyway. I thought it was kind of jarring how he paused mid-sentence a number of times at the beginning. Perhaps he was reading from a script? Idolizing Captain Kirk? Anyway, I am very pleased with it otherwise. I may have to start looking for more personal development podcasts.

It is an introduction to personal development, and he starts it by talking about how he was in jail for three days when he decided that he could grow to “lift the weight in front of him”. He talks about all the things he “went to work” on, such as his physical energy and his skills. In a matter of years he was able to completely rework his life. And he notes that there was no quick fix. It required thousands of hours of effort. And everything he is today is owed to the main in the jail cell years ago who made a decision to grow.

Finishing this blog post, I just heard it a second time. There is something infectious about a person who is enthusiastic and positive. Even if it is weird to hear their voice for the first time. B-)

After Blog Day introduced me to some new blogs. I started reading through The Master Smiled and found Crossing the Ocean.

In this one, the Master points out that those who sailed the oceans first had to ignore the warnings of those who told them they couldn’t do so. He then wonders what it is that the naysayers actually were really saying.

The Master thought for a while, than he continued: They were saying: The ocean is my limit, and so it has to be yours too.

How many times has a person been told, “No, you can’t do it. No one has every done it before” and then listened? How many people wanted to become artists or poets but were convinced that they should take business courses? How many people wanted to start their own businesses but were warned away by how “insecure” and “hard” it would be?

Fewer responded to “You can’t do that!” with “The hell I can’t!”

Anthony Salter writes about success.

He basically found what I found: that most productivity and success gurus all know the same things. Clearly there are some basic principles to success.

Essentially success can only come to those who have a specific goal. After all, how can you succeed when you don’t know what success looks like? The next step is to make a definite plan for achieving that goal. Definitely planned work saves a lot of time and effort. Finally, take action on that plan. It really is that simple, and yet most people aren’t taught this procedure.

Salter notes that self-discipline is necessary and rare for success, but he finds that the same authors and speakers that talk about success don’t seem to say much about motivation except to have faith in God. That’s fine, but what if you don’t believe in God? Obviously atheists have had success, so what gives?

I haven’t read the same authors that he has. For motivation, Steve Chandler’s “100 Ways to Motivate Yourself” audiobook is the only productivity audiobook I have currently. Listening to it always makes me feel motivated. It even helps me feel motivated if all I do is have it on while I am driving and not paying attention to it. I think the reason is that I am feeding my mind positive thoughts. Anyway, one of the coolest things Chandler mentions is “knowing that you are enough”. No one is coming. It may sound lonely, but it is really quite empowering to realize that you are all you need. I believe in God, but I am a firm believer in Benjamin Franklin’s assertion that “God helps those who help themselves.” Rather than abdicate responsibility for your life, you should embrace it.

Will power gets you started. Self-discipline keeps you going. Motivation reminds you why you’re doing it in the first place. And all of these things will be most effective when you define success, make a plan to achieve success, and have something to start in the first place.

I really enjoyed reading Build Something Cool in 24 Hours. Basically, set aside a weekend with some peers and decide to make something new. You’ll likely be more motivated with others than you would alone and you’ll learn a lot in the process.

I cannot imagine a better, faster path to creativity, innovation, and most importantly getting something done!

Similarly, David St. Lawrence posted a third entry for Creative Time that describes the same thing on a more personal level.

Creative time is a period of outflow. Watching TV or listening to a lecture is inflow, as is reading, eating, and mindless vegging. There is a time and place for all of these activities, but creative outflow will give you more bang for your buck than any other activity you can think of.

Game in a Day was great for me because it allowed me to set aside a weekend to making a simple game, and I did it. Within 24 hours, I went from having nothing to having a creation of my own. It was very satisfying and I learned way more in that shortened period of time than I did in the two months since then. I think I need to schedule another one…

The Power of the Force is an older post about Anthony Salter’s specific experience with great opportunities resulting from his actions. He’s a game developer, too, so that’s a bonus.

It’s always inspirational to read about what someone else did, especially when you know that you can do it, too. It was probably this time last year that I was worried about my programming abilities. I was basically telling everyone, including myself, that I was out of practice and needed to work on it. Except I never did much to work on it for some time. Reading programming books wasn’t enough. I needed to actually DO something. When I started working on chapter exercises from different books, I realized that I was programming again. And when I did my first GiD, BOOM, I was making games! All I had to do was stop worrying and start doing. Taking action resulted in taking more action. I was no longer just thinking vague thoughts about what I would like to do. I was doing.

I’ve had self-confidence problems my entire life. In the past I have managed to overcome my fears and self-doubts long enough to do some great things, but afterwards I always reverted back to type, thinking “Whew! Glad I got away with that, now let’s never do that again.” This has kept me from seeing the truth – that everything I’ve really tried to do, I’ve succeeded at. And every time in the past that I have conquered my fear and moved resolutely towards my goals, the results have always been positive. But now I know. This most recent experience is simply the icing on the cake. I’m not going to be afraid any more. In a few years I’ll be speaking at the GDC. Just you wait.

Perhaps by then I’ll be attending myself. I’ll keep an eye out.