HN Books @HNBooksMonth

> Has anyone had success with particular workouts or strategies to keep motivated?

Not to knock you, but this sentence is where I think the issue is - at some point motivation drops off and you need what I like to label as "discipline" to progress further.

The best piece of advice I heard was from someone getting awarded their 5th degree black belt in Aikido, something that takes decades to earn [I'm paraphrasing here]: Training is like a marriage. It is great in the beginning because you are learning all these new things and improving, like the honeymoon phase, everything seems to be great. But over time, that feeling will decrease a bit. Sometimes you wonder if its worth it at all. But, like a marriage, training takes effort and even years down the road you still have to work on it. Not just maintaining it, but actually working on it.

I also like a book by George Leonard called "Mastery" [1] that I think I've linked on HN before. In the book, he's taking the position of the instructor to explain types of "student behaviors" he's seen over the years - Dabblers, Obsessives, and Hackers (people who just "show up"). As learners, people will behave like one of these types on their way to becoming masters in an domain. Each student type stressed the same topic - dealing with when improvement "gets hard" and what steps can be done to help curb some of those issues.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Keys-Success-Long-Term-Fulfil...

Good study. The phenomenon is also well documented and explained in George Leonard's book Mastery:

https://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Keys-Success-Long-Term-Fulfil...

James Clear has a nice summary here:

https://jamesclear.com/book-summaries/mastery

I also went to graduate school in The Netherlands, studying Space Systems Engineering at TU Delft. The article does a good job at describing what the student life is like there and common pitfalls that will set you back. The ideas are good, and work great for the author, but they are better generalized as "fall in love with the process" [0]. He found ways to fall in love with the process of graduate school, primarily by finding a morning routine that he enjoyed. Just buying the things in the referral links is misguided. It is better to find ways that make YOU enjoy your daily routine more while on the path to mastery (in his case a PhD).

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Keys-Success-Long-Term-Fulfil...

I found this approach was leading to depression. My attempt to have "extremely productive hobbies" just made me feel bad about them when they were neglected. It also led me to taking on too many things that interested me (garden, car, reading, tech, and so on). I found that when I quit prioritizing and just did stuff I enjoyed doing without worrying what the long term outcome would be, I was happier. If you've ever read Shop Class as Soulcraft [1] or Mastery (by George Leonard, not the Robert Greene book) [2] you will have some idea of what I mean. I began to pursue things for the sake of pursuing them, not because there was an end goal in site.

I realize that this is a purely personal anecdote and I realize this is not how people get rich, run a triathlon or change the world, but maybe I just can't do those things.

[1]: https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/shop-class-as-so... [2]: https://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Keys-Success-Long-Term-Fulfil...

⬐ projektir

> I found that when I quit prioritizing and just did stuff I enjoyed doing without worrying what the long term outcome would be, I was happier.

Eh, this only works if the stuff you enjoy happens to line up with "productive" activities. :P

⬐ darkerside

"Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through." -Ira Glass

I think some of the frustration comes from not sticking with any one thing long enough to get meaningfully better at it.

⬐ taurath

It only works if you keep your eye on the goal, rather than what’s in front of you immediately. Otherwise it’s just self punishment

⬐ stinkytaco

This assumes getting better is necessarily the goal, which it may not be. For example, I like to play soccer. I'm not terribly good at soccer, nor do I spend much time outside of playing to improve (i.e. doing soccer specific workouts, drills, etc.). I have the self awareness to realize that my ceiling is limited and my enjoyment would not be greatly impacted by "fighting my way through." I just want to play. In a twisted way, I feel I achieved a sort of mastery just by doing the thing for the thing's sake.

This isn't to say that it's not good advice, but when I spent my life relentlessly trying to optimize (a trap I still fall into frequently, I'm reading these comments after all), I just got frustrated and felt like a failure. I decided it was OK to watch a TV show I enjoyed, to read books that had nothing edifying except a story I enjoyed or to simply waste time.

I think regular self assessment and awareness are possibly more important that optimization or improving.

⬐ darkerside

Getting better at soccer is so much fun though! Watch a little pro soccer (try the EPL or Champions League) and see how the pros can do more with less effort. Force entire defenses to rotate by changing the angle of your body. First touch the ball into space instead of nowhere. Make the tight cut at the right time to slice through a defense.

⬐ stinkytaco

Oh, I watch soccer, though less now since I did the above self assessment and decided the hours I spending watching it were probably not really making me happier. And I can admire Robben cutting in diagonally from the wings on his weak foot to create an opening or even Suarez's almost instinctive genius. But firstly, I will never be Robben. Secondly, the level I play at has limited tactical sophistication (the traditional 4-4-2 formation has given way to more of a 0-5-5 or 5-5-0 depending on where the ball is). Thirdly, I'm "good enough" for my level.

Off topic, but if you're interested in sports theory and writing, Suarez always makes me think of John McPhee's "A Sense of Where You Are", a profile of Bill Bradley when he was at Princeton. Probably one of my top 5 favorite sports books or articles.

⬐ darkerside

> I will never be Robben

And that's ok! And neither will I. I think some of my enthusiasm comes from picking up soccer later in life. I've found learning things as an adult is a totally different skill from learning as a child. By accepting that my goal is improving myself, and not competing with the world's best, I've found great joy in the smallest steps towards being a more perfect player.

> it's not incumbent on the student or athlete to develop it, it is the sign of a good teacher

Its more a sign of both - the student's willingness to adjust and the teacher's willingness to refine. The reason I say both is that you run into students that have a better chance of picking something up right away (prior experience) and others that do not. The student that does not have that prior experience still needs it in order to be successful. A good instructor knows not to only focus on the people with prior experience and help boost the latter as well.

For example, in martial arts (as I noted elsewhere), you have someone who has prior experience in body coordination, which makes it easier for them to pick up an art (or dance or a sport). A student whose never stepped on to a mat in their life still needs body coordination. While a good instructor should see that and help build that coordination, the student needs to develop motivation and discipline to do these things without the need of someone else. An out of shape student should needs to recognize they need to put in extra work to move up a level - that is something the instructor can only point out.

A great book I use as a backing to my teaching philosophy is Mastery by George Leonard[1]. It categories the different personalities of the student into Dabbler, Obsessive, and Hacker (not in a good way). Dabblers try but quit when things get hard; Obsessives consume everything possible until they start seeing diminished returns; and Hackers just kind of "show up" and steadily maintain/improve. People can be all three for different things but its handling the particular category appropriately that pushes people toward mastery.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Keys-Success-Long-Term-Fulfil...

⬐ altonzheng

Excellent, will check that book out. Something I've noticed in my own life is practicing mastery in one area creates learnings and attitudes that aid in mastery in another area. The actual skills are not there, but the ability to navigate the learning terrain is. Many facts I thought about myself (eg. I'm unathletic) were simply assumptions I made somewhere early on in my life, perhaps because I lacked prior experience that my peers had. Which makes me think, is talent simply unconscious prior experience?

⬐ tsumnia

Unless we want to go into an all night drinking philosophical discussion - I'd say its a combination of nature and nurture (though how "unconscious" is nature would be the drinking topic). There's a great article the argues that practice isn't enough [1]. It will be incredibly difficult for me to become a professional basketball player, even with practice. I'm too old, bad knees, and 5'9" (again, Mugsy Bugs was 5'3"... possible but difficult nonetheless).

[1] Deliberate practice: Is that all it takes to become an expert - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613...

I think as we become more experienced in something, we draw from that to make metaphors to another domain (no paper link, but I'm sure there a psych one out there I've yet to read). My current research is inspired by my years in martial arts. I draw analogies from it because I see the parallels to CS - poor retention rates, difficult subject matter, etc.

A long time ago I determined I was not a genius, rock star, pro athlete, whatever person. I'm just a guy that works really hard to be better than myself.

You are being impatient and at risk of giving up prematurely.

Read .. Mastery by George Leonard

http://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Keys-Success-Long-Term-Fulfill...

Get a mentor

Write code every day

http://norvig.com/21-days.html

Ask for feedback

Learn the culture. Watch the movies Hackers. Learn perl, C, or BASIC.

Install Linux on your main computer.

Find an open source project and contribute to it. Even if it's just documentation.

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/09/overwhelming-force/

That's exactly how I feel about powerlifting. Once you get to a certain level, the attention to detail, specificity, and focus you need to progress are great analogues to other areas such as programming or entrepreneurship. It's become my personal meditation time where I disconnect from everything else and focus intensely on optimization and improvement.

If anyone is interested, this book has given me a vastly different perspective on things like exercise (or in parent's case, martial arts): http://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Keys-Success-Long-Term-Fulfill... When put in that perspective, I think exercise would greatly appeal to most hackers.

⬐ jborden13

I want to tack on cycling to this. I can't count the number of times I've wanted to solve all of the world's problems at the beginning of a bike ride. And the result is always the same. The primary problem that I end up solving is 'how the hell do I move myself over the next 60+ miles without blowing up and getting dropped by the pack.' And not falling - not falling is key. Dodging cars, cyclists, potholes, cracks, animals, gravel, basically anything that can ruin your ride, becomes a major focus. Then after you finish the ride, you are on a physical high from the exertion and a mental high from getting to take a break from your petty little problems.

Man I want to go ride now...

> But here I am, feeling normal and useless. I lead a moderate sized club at RPI, but I don't even feel accomplished for it. I haven't seen any of the job offers that I felt were promised to me when I enrolled at the school, I haven't gotten any major internships.

I struggled with this as well. A big turning point for me was dropping entirely the notion of being entitled to anything. In reality, no one owes me anything just because I think I'm smart or because I think I work hard.

On the feeling unaccomplished part, maybe try reading a book like http://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Keys-Success-Long-Term-Fulfill.... It's sort of a "the goal is the journey" book with some practical advice thrown in.

> As a kid I used to hit the video games pretty hard, but at some point I started to realize how fake the achievements felt. I literally can't stomach playing video games anymore. It feels like taking some sort of numbing drug. I have good memories, and I don't even regret most of the weekends I devoted entirely to video games (and the costs associated).

Me too! It sucks sometimes because I want to enjoy playing a game but don't. I've found that I can't play games, like Skyrim, that are just time-based grinds. Instead, I play games for the nostalgia, the story, for creativity elements, or for the competition/skill factor. Sometimes even then I feel uneasy playing games because I feel like I should be doing something more productive.. that's a tough feeling to get over.

> I worked a job last summer teaching kids. I still visit from time to time, and the trend of positive reinforcement and lack of criticism seems to be gaining momentum in our youth. My boss would not let me criticize my own students.

I don't think these things are mutually exclusive. You can certainly criticize and be positive (or at least not negative) about it.

⬐ jasey

I'm the same.

I have a hard time enjoying myself playing games now also.

Could be doing other more productive things and at the end of they day no one cares what you archive in a game.

I recommend a book by George Leonard called "Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment". It talks about this topic... very fascinating and useful read (also quite short)

http://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Keys-Success-Long-Term-Fulfill...

⬐ electromagnetic

He wants to stop reading things and start working and you're recommending a book, cruel bastard :p