I noticed something embarrassing about my motivation: I could work on a goal for weeks in private, but the moment someone started expecting me to follow through, I wanted to stop doing it.

It wasn't even criticism. Sometimes it was the opposite.

I'd mention that I was learning something new or working on a personal project, and someone would say, "That's actually cool. You should keep going with that." Suddenly, the thing I'd been enjoying felt like an obligation I'd accidentally signed up for.

I started noticing it in small ways. I'd avoid opening the project when I knew someone might ask about it. I'd postpone working on it the evening before meeting a friend. If nobody remembered what I'd told them, I'd feel this weird sense of relief.

The uncomfortable part was that I genuinely wanted the result. I wasn't pretending to care about the goal. I just seemed to lose some of my willingness to pursue it once it became something other people could measure.

For a while, I thought the solution was to tell more people about my plans so I'd have accountability. But that sometimes made me focus more on how I'd explain my progress than on the actual work. I'd mentally prepare an update before I'd even done anything worth updating them about.

What helped was making a few small changes.

First, I stopped announcing goals while they were still vague. Instead of telling someone I was going to get good at something, I'd mention the specific thing I'd been practicing that week. It made the conversation less about a future version of me and more about what I was actually doing.

Second, when someone asked how it was going, I tried answering honestly without turning it into a report. "I worked on it twice this week, but I got stuck on this part" was enough. I didn't need to make the progress sound impressive or promise to do more next week.

Third, I started keeping some goals completely private, not as a secret or a rule, but simply because I enjoyed having something in my life that didn't need an explanation.

The counterintuitive thing I've found is that accountability doesn't always make me more consistent. Sometimes it makes me perform consistency. I start worrying about looking committed instead of figuring out what would actually help me continue.

I still think sharing goals can be useful, especially when someone can offer practical help or when another person genuinely depends on me. I just don't think every personal ambition benefits from becoming a public commitment.

I'm still figuring out where the line is between healthy accountability and feeling watched, because sometimes the same person can help me keep going with one goal and make another feel strangely heavy.

Has anyone else noticed their motivation change after telling people what they're working toward? Did sharing your goals help you follow through, or did keeping them private make it easier to actually enjoy the process?

I have been trying to start a business or make money outside of my day job for a while now. I have tried and failed at everything from crypto, options trading, consumer goods, iOS apps, affiliate marketing, faceless social media (YouTube, TikTok), etc. It has been a rough road to say the least, and I think the realization didn't fully settle with me until I sat down to write this post.

My aversion to putting myself out there had me trading options for a few years thinking I could make easy money hiding at home pressing a couple of buttons. I lost a lot more than I would like to admit. I really regret not putting that money and time into my own business back then, with the lesson being that there are no shortcuts.

I tried dropshipping, which also failed. Cold ads just don't work when you have no community and no identity. I also built an iOS app, which I felt proud of at the time, but I again spent 0 time creating a community and too much time creating something that nobody knew existed or cared about.

Around the same time I was also working on starting a couple of CPG ventures: a chocolate brand and a RTD beverage. The trademark registration for my chocolate brand got opposed by Mars and the one for my drink got opposed by Nestle. I had already spent thousands on branding, molds, formulation, samples, legal, etc. When the oppositions came in I had essentially 0 goodwill, and I decided that spending money and time defending a ghost brand was not smart.

I kept trying to build things without anyone knowing who was behind them. But every day it seems more like building a community is the right way to get people to see what you make.

I am starting something new and, after some very expensive lessons, I will do it differently. I am determined to make it work, mainly because I dream of having my own business and hopefully creating something that has a positive impact on people's lives.

I cheer for the small side, most of the time, whether it is a team I have never heard of or one person taking on something a thousand times bigger, and when they win it feels a bit like a personal win.

So I wanted to find out how often it actually happens, and whether the numbers could get more people to believe that a Goliath, whatever yours happens to be, can be beaten. There is a line I keep saying to myself these days, and it has really helped me move.

I can do anything, and it will work out.

The perfect setup can stay on the wish list for a while. A clear patch of floor and a few familiar exercises can be a starting point. Today’s goal can simply be to finish one manageable workout with what’s available.

My mom has been dealing with arthritis for over a decade. For years she wore a knee brace almost every day.

She had a stim machine at home, but the wires and pads were too confusing to use without a professional, so it ended up in a drawer.

At 19, with zero engineering experience, I decided to build her something simpler. I’ve been working on it ever since.

This year I challenged myself to beat what the average billionaire makes in a minute ($1,902) in 60 seconds, starting from $0. I found a pitch competition the night applications closed: 150 companies, 3 days to prepare, 60 seconds to pitch.

We were the last team called. I pitched the thing I’d built for my mom for exactly 60 seconds, and we won $35,000.

Years of work came down to one minute, and it was pretty insane.

I'm not claiming anything medical just wanted to tell the crazy story. Investigational Use Only. Not available for commercial sale. The device has not been approved or cleared by FDA as safe and effective for its intended use.

I recently fell sick and I'm on the last day of my meds. They just make me so freaking sleepy and drowsy I have no motivation to do anything at all. Im on unpaid leave from work to do this studying but idk im just not able to at all. All I want to do is sleep and eat and watch TV and sleep again that's it. Im not able to do my household chores as well. I know I'm supposed to study and work hard but for some reason I'm just not able to. I just feel so tired and drained. I need some motivation pls.

I just turned 18 and life has been hard, I can't focus on studying for a long time because of my health issues, and now that I am 18, I don't know what I should do

These days I wake up around 5 and spend an hour building small tools before the workday starts. Things like a PIA questionnaire helper I wanted to exist. Funny thing is it didn't start as a motivation strategy. I'd just gotten tired of doomscrolling the GO train commute and arriving at the office already feeling behind. Now the habit carries me on the mornings I don't feel like it, which is honestly most mornings. Still haven't figured out the evenings though. What part of the day actually feels like yours?

I kept wondering why I could work hard on things that mattered to other people but felt strangely stuck on goals I chose for myself.

The uncomfortable part was realizing I wasn't actually lacking discipline. I was constantly asking my goals to justify themselves before I gave them any attention.

I noticed this pattern when I started learning a new skill. I would sit down at my desk around 8:30 PM, open the notes, and within five minutes I was asking myself questions like "Is this really useful?" or "Will this even matter six months from now?" I wasn't avoiding the work. I was putting the work on trial every single time I started.

The weird thing was that I never did this with small things. I didn't ask whether washing dishes was aligned with my purpose. I didn't question whether taking a walk was going to change my life. But anything connected to a bigger goal had to prove it deserved my energy first.

After noticing it for a while, I changed a few things:

I stopped judging goals during the early stages. I gave myself a rule that I wasn't allowed to decide whether something was worthwhile while I was still a beginner at it. A lot of things only become meaningful after you get better at them.

I also started measuring progress by whether I showed up for the process, not whether I felt excited about the outcome. Some of my most useful sessions were the boring ones where I almost talked myself out of starting.

The biggest surprise was that motivation didn't always come from finding a stronger reason. Sometimes it showed up after I had spent enough time doing something to understand why it mattered.

I think a lot of advice says to find your "why" before you begin, but I've noticed that can become another form of procrastination. Sometimes the reason appears after the repetition, not before it.

I'm still catching myself doing this. There are days when I want certainty that something will pay off before I invest in it, and that habit is hard to notice because it feels responsible.

But I've started trusting that some things need room to become important instead of needing to prove their importance immediately.

Has anyone else noticed that they lose motivation because they keep asking a goal to prove its value before they've really given it a chance?

Dans cette vidéo, nous allons explorer les secrets pour développer une discipline et une productivité exceptionnelles, essentielles pour batir un business prospere et atteindre I'independance financiere. En adoptant un mindset de réussite et en cultivant une motivation intense, vous pourrez surmonter les obstacles et atteindre vos objectifs. Le développement personnel est au coeur de cette quéte, et nous allons discuter de stratégies pour améliorer votre force mentale, votre persévérance et votre ambition. En tant qu'entrepreneur, = est crucial de posséder des qualités de leadership et de comprendre I'importance de la discipline et de la motivation pour atteindre le succes. Nous allons également aborder les sujets de richesse, de liberté financiere et de stratégie d'investissement, afin de vous aider a réussir dans la vie et a atteindre vos reves. Avec les bonnes techniques et une attitude positive, vous pourrez développer un succes mindset et acquérir la liberté financiere que vous méritez.

https://youtu.be/eYqOUUb4XxI?list=PLbsoG6T3MIlY

I'm in deep shambles, man.

I've spent 8-9 months doing brokerage in Dubai Real Estate. I've tried so hard, but I've wound up closing nothing.

For the past 3 months, I've been looking and applying for SDR jobs because I'm very good at cold calls, doing discovery, basically what you'd expect from a proper salesman. But when there's a geopolitical crisis at hand, the reality is that not many people are looking to invest in a piece of land, apartment, or villa where turbulence has hit. Transactions have fallen drastically. And I don't have the relationship equity a seasoned broker does to survive this market.

I've had direct meetings with investors off a cold call man, we have real discussions, and their arguments make perfect sense to me. Ultimately, I realised if I had chosen to lie then maybe I would've made some money but that doesn't sit right with me. I enjoy solution crafting and what this real estate game is, what I've experienced, it's just not viable.

I feel I haven't been given the right support nor guidance. The entire time I hit it off with a prospect on these calls, I keep realising, "if only I were selling something else, I would've made enough to finish my degree". Most prospects in my pipeline tell me they'll be exploring next year. My inventory produces no leads despite being listed online.

I'm really stuck.

And the worst part is nobody wants to give me an interview for an SDR role either. I've cold-called AEs and been well-received, but to of no avail. they don't owe me a job, obviously. they'll ask me to forward my resume and they'll pass it on.

The only ones that have interviewed me are offering commission-only roles, and once again I'm going to be in that hellscape but at this point, I'm considering it because if I can succeed selling a brand new start-up, maybe it'll save me for the future.

And I keep looking for stories similar to mine, but I just can't find anything tangible, so I'm asking if anyone has a story of someone who's faced such circumstances and succeeded. Please share them with me. This has honestly been one of the worst 8-9 months of my life.

Im 20 and this year changed something in me and im not sure what did. I just feel so empty going to work so I thought I maybe hated my job but I also kinda like my job at the same time cause I like my coworkers so im not exactly sure. I also tend to start feeling empty at home too and I dont know why cause I like being at home alone or with my brother, playing video games, and watching new shows a lot ever since I was a kid cause theyre my favorite hobbies ever, though i have quit some of my hobbies like basketball and drawing but i have got interested in finding music that i like. I also been thinking about what I wanna do with my life but I try not to stress too much over it.

Nothing really changed in my lifestyle recently so im not really sure why Im feeling this way this year when I was a fine with it every other year so I wanted to ask if it's normal to constantly feel empty and what to do about it so this empty feeling can go away.

Starting something new is usually the exciting part.

But I've noticed how easy it is to lose interest once the work gets repetitive or the results aren't showing up yet.

I'm trying to get better at finishing what I start, even when the result isn't exactly what I imagined.

Anyone else working on this?

I realized I was making progress harder because I thought a productive day should leave me feeling like I had proven something.

For a long time, I only counted work as "real" if I finished the day completely drained. If I still had energy to cook, talk to someone, or relax, I weirdly felt like I had taken it too easy.

The strange part was that this made me avoid starting things. I had trained myself to believe that beginning a task meant signing up for an exhausting version of myself.

I noticed it one night around 9:40 PM while looking at a project I had been avoiding. I had already spent 45 minutes making progress earlier that day, but because I didn't feel mentally destroyed afterward, I dismissed it as barely trying. That was the moment I realized I wasn't measuring my consistency. I was measuring my suffering.

After paying attention to this pattern, I started noticing a few things:

- I worked better when I stopped asking "Did I push myself enough?" and started asking "Did I keep the promise I made to myself today?"

- I began ending some work sessions while I still felt capable of doing more, instead of always squeezing myself until I hated the task.

- I started writing down small completed actions because my brain was much better at remembering what I failed to do than what I actually finished.

The counterintuitive thing I found was that protecting my energy made me more consistent, not less ambitious. I used to think discipline meant constantly proving I could tolerate discomfort. Now I think a lot of discipline is also knowing when not to turn every effort into a battle.

I still have days where I overdo it and fall back into the old pattern. But I notice it faster now. The goal isn't to feel unstoppable every day. It's to stop making normal progress feel like it doesn't count.

Has anyone else noticed that they lose motivation because they only respect effort when it leaves them completely exhausted?

I (24M), have worked out on and off for years, but never consistently enough to see real results. I purchased an online coaching membership about 5 months ago (6 month contract), and the first two months were great, but I just completely lost motivation over time. My coach would never respond to me, and all the workouts and nutrition tracking were things that I had been doing before and for free. The last week, my coach completely ignored me, which I understand things happen and he probably had some situation come up, but for me to be paying quite literally thousands of dollars for this program to be ignored makes me feel like my progress isn't worth it. I recently moved in with my partner which has been awesome, but when I come home from work everyday all I want to do is hang out with her or my friends or go outside. I feel terrible about my body, but I feel like with this combination of things I just haven't been motivated at all. Any thioughts?

Things don't need to always be perfect to be meaningful.

I have the biggest dream of making it in music, but I found recently that I’m all bark but no bite.

I find myself constantly dreaming of situations where I do make it, but I never execute. I don’t just want to be a dreamer, I want to be a doer, but I’m always holding myself back.

I’ll make a song one day, and completely forget that repetition is the key to mastery, where I’ll go on an extremely long hiatus rather than constantly making new music every day.

words cannot explain how much I want this dream. I talk to the right people, and I get so much advice, because I’m always telling people about how I’ll “make it” in music but I just never do what I’m supposed to do, and stay in bed and doom scroll all day.

I also remind myself that one day I waste is a day less that I’ll be able to put towards making it, because I’m not going to live forever. but it just doesn’t work.

I just need someone to give me a reality check, a slap in the face. as nice or as cruel as it can be. thats all I ask for. because honestly, thats the only way I’ll ever get up and do something.

so if you guys can throw some reality checks in the comments for me, I’d really appreciate it. because I really want to understand the value of the time that I’m wasting, and the people that are surpassing my spot by the second because they want my dream more than me.

thanks ❤️

I’ve been into computers and software since 1983, when my father brought home our first personal computer. I was 10 years old. I learned to code, played and made small videogames, and I was really happy!

After finishing secondary school in the early 90s, I started university to study Information Systems. But I hit a hard wall. I was doing really well at coding, but the overall degree was oriented towards management and the parts of information technology that I really did not like. I wanted to make videogames. I had made a few on my Commodore Amiga, but at university I was learning Cobol. Well, also C, C was fun, but not Cobol.

My father wanted me to finish at all costs. “It’s very important to have a degree,” he used to say, but for me it was too much. We had a lot of discussions, and finally I decided to quit university and go my own way in 1995.

My father passed away, almost unexpectedly, in 1999. It was a really sad moment. I was 26.

Almost 10 years later, I decided to emigrate from my home country. To have better chances abroad, I also decided to return to university and finish my studies.

My second experience at university was really amazing. I finished as the third-best student, got a full scholarship, and they also hired me as a professor before I finally emigrated. It was one of the best experiences of my life.

Now I live in Germany. I make software and videogames, and I really love what I do. My university degree allowed me to work in different countries and at different cool companies. My father was right, but obviously the 90s were not my time to finish university. On top of that, in 2023, I also finished 2 videogame related diplomas, that I wish they had existed in the 90s… 

The path is not always the preset path, and sometimes we need the perspective that time can give us to see it.

I wish my father could see my achievements, but my skepticism prevents me from believing that. Anyway, I still love the idea that he can.

i crave routine but can never stick with it, and i have fallen into the mindset im not smart enough to do anything. i am now medicated and it does wonders but its taking a lot to get myself right. i have a vague plan for college/switching to a job in the field im interested in for experience, and im more hopeful than ever, but its still so hard. has anyone else started "late"? still dont have my GED, only have my drivers permit, stuck in the USA while the economy and society crumbles. my upward change is happening but its slow, i feel like im losing a race.

Somewhere along the way, humanity decided that if you're not traveling, partying, starting a business, running a marathon, healing your inner child, or drinking coffee in another country, you're wasting your life. Personally, I think sitting in a chair and experiencing absolutely nothing is one of civilization's greatest achievements. Our ancestors spent thousands of years fighting wolves, surviving plagues, and dying at 34 so that I could spend a Sunday staring at a ceiling fan without consequences. And now some guy named Brandon with a podcast wants me to wake up at 5 AM and optimize my potential? Absolutely not. I have reached the top of the food chain specifically to avoid unnecessary activities. We invented machines to do our work, medicine to extend our lives, and smartphones to entertain us, only to develop a culture where relaxing makes people feel guilty. At this point, doing nothing without feeling ashamed might be the most rebellious thing a human being can do. Maybe the real winners in life aren't the people constantly chasing experiences. Maybe they're the ones who can sit alone in a room for three hours without needing to turn it into a personal growth journey.