If you have a vision/dream/passion, what's holding you back from pursuing or, if you're already in pursuit, achieving it?
I'll start: I don't think I know or maybe even have let myself decide on a vision to pursue. A lot of you have "life's work" visions or passion projects here and I admire that, but for me my attention span for any single vision thus far has been quite short (~1 year) and thus unfruitful in terms of traditional "success" metrics..
So I'm curious - what do you think is holding you back?
There's no right/wrong answers here, except to maybe just write what first comes to your mind. Thanks all :)
The first is that at age 40 I finally started taking my health seriously. Long story short, I got bit by the “lift as much heavy weight as I can”. I’d love to one day lift respectable heavy weights. But at 44 with 2 shoulder surgeries in my rear view, I have to come to terms with I probably won’t ever hit a few of my goals. I still believe that I’m stronger than most 44 year olds around me though :)
The second is work. I believe I’m average to above average developer. I’m good at keeping the big picture in my head. But because of depression (under control but still affects me) I am the worst procrastinator. I play schedule chicken with myself all the time. I’ve tried GTD, Pommadoro (sp?), and countless other “get shit done” techniques. Nothing works. I fear at some point I’ll play chicken and lose. At this point in my life, I’ve kind of come to terms with it. I can usually say “OK. Slack off today. But tomorrow you have to commit to at least 4 hours of work”. And that usually works. But the last couple of months - not so much. Hoping it’s not becoming permanent.
The third is I was pretty isolated before COVID. I’m even more isolated now, and I like it. I’m afraid that I’m going full hermit (not in the strict sense of the word since I do work). And it scares me that I’m not MORE afraid of isolating myself even further from human beings.
For some reason, I always end up with an unhappy team. Even if the company is successful on paper in terms of numbers, there is always the feeling you hurt feelings no matter what you do, there's always someone who will feel attacked by someone else's internal communication. To a point where that even leaks to customers.
This sounds easy to fix, but I am really conscious about it, and tried various strategies, with less involvement from my side, more involvement, having someone else do the hiring decisions, etc. - with my latest company, six years ago, I tried to stay out of it, hired CEOs, but now the company "works, barely" but there's nobody taking any initiative, nobody is passionate about it, everyone is just doing the minimal they can. I predict will not survive more than another few years.
It makes me sad sometimes because the ideas behind the companies/products/services seem to be fine, the market is there, the money flows work, even without VCs. I'm just getting tired of all the social problems. This is not something my CS degree and all the coding and later management books and training prepared me for.
(Throwaway account to protect the innocent.)
I feel fatigued all the time. I sleep a lot and will wake up exactly 1 minute before standard working hours begin.
It doesn't seem like there's any time. The second I finish work there's a black hole of making dinner, cleaning, doing a few chores, and then falling into bed.
Enough money to have a yearly income such that I don't need to have a job anymore, and can devote my time to building https://concise-encoding.org and all of the technologies that will be built upon this foundation (protocols, streaming and communication technologies, data transports, etc). Over the past 3 years, I've had two periods of a couple of work-free months where my output went sky-high, and I miss that.
Don't get me wrong: I love my job, the people, the industry, etc. In fact I was hired there because they built a major pillar of the company on one of my open source projects. But at the same time, 8h a day uses up a significant chunk of my creative juices that would otherwise turbo-charge my open source initiatives.
I see all of these people who have enough money that it generates a comfortable income for them with minimal effort on their part, and it tears me up to see them wasting all that luxurious time on frivolous pursuits rather than contributing to humanity. I won't complete most of my works because there's not enough time in a human lifespan (and I'm at peace with that - it just means I have to prioritize), but there's so much more I could accomplish without these other claims on my time...
So, knock on wood, nothing is holding me back right now; however, money did hold me back for many years. The recent stock rally helped me close this gap and can now give this a shot with some safety. I really hope, one day, we can live in a world where following our passion is not decided by luck nor privilege. I'm hoping I can succeed and help others achieve their dreams.
I'd love to one day leave my tiny hometown in Canada and get exposed to foreign cultures (primarily interested in US/Japan/Germany). However, I find it hard to stomach tossing out the ~$10k worth of crap that I've accumulated over the years so that I can move abroad -- even though I've heard from my friends that top companies have ludicrous signing bonuses that can allow me to replace everything.
Maybe once Covid is finally under control in a year or two, I'll be able to overcome my personal bias. For now, I'll focus on studying foreign languages in my spare time and avoid impulse buying.
For me, I have to find the will to push through those moments and get it done.
- A website about video games that I love to work on - but which has a niche audience and is ultimately quite frivolous.
- A programming language implementation which could provide significant value to its future users - but building it is frustrating and not always interesting.
There is some crossover of skills and knowledge between the two projects, but at the moment they’re both progressing very slowly.
I’m also losing time to analysis paralysis - should I stop working on one of them? Which one? (Might I find a purpose in games, or a passion for languages?) Or should I carry on trying to progress both?
Plus it needs to be native in iOS/android to pull off the ui patterns. It just feels like a shit ton of work, but I sincerely believe it’s the obvious solution.
I’m perturbed by the mountain of work and execution necessary here, so of course, I indulge in the fantasy of it being built vs putting in daily progression towards making it a reality. All this leads to disliking who I am.
With hindsight though I know now it was having not found the right co-founder.
Startupschool.org was a huge help and I'd recommend it to anyone.