On the process MoC • On motivation and getting started MoC

Balance your effort with enjoyment

You wrote a 3,000 killer article with curated images and crazy value. It took you a whole week to put this up. You hit publish and... crickets.
You feel angst, disgust, and frustration as if you've just been betrayed by the whole world. If you're particularly tenacious, you might do it a couple other times, but you inevitably give up after a while because it seems that it wasn't your calling after all. Or was it?

There's a case to be made about the disproportionate effort one can put versus the lackluster effect produced. It's the big difference between pros and amateurs. Pros fail like amateurs, but with one difference. When the amateur fails, he crashes spectacularly because of too high expectations, and never returns. The pro always knew failure was a possibility, but he just ran an experiment. He didn't went all in out of blind hope, and as a result, didn't burn himself out.

It's pretty much like having a crush on someone you barely know, doing all sorts of crazy things for this person, then hoping she'll fall in love back with you. Only works in the movies. In reality all you'll achieve is freak out the other person.
And so you're more or less doing it on yourself. You're trying to move mountains, telling yourself—consciously or not—that this will bring you fulfillment. But it's a self-deception, and you end up freaked out by your own effort and give up.

You're often trying to do too much, and this usually comes from having too much expectations from whatever you're doing. Managing expectations.
This doesn't mean only doing half-ass work.
This doesn't mean doing things only when you're certain of getting a result (because you can never be).

It just means not putting an insane amount of effort into something for the only reason that you hope / expect that it will produce a big result. This is exactly When you should not want to be doing things.
You have to adjust your effort to your level of enjoyment. That's the essence of play. And yes, life is a game. That's why you never have to force yourself and time flies by when you play. There's still effort involved in any interesting game, but it is so worth it because you're getting enjoyment from your efforts. The goal of playing is to continue playing, not finish the current activity as as quickly as possible. So if you're already thinking of finishing what you're doing while you're doing it, you're not playing. You are expecting a result.

Embrace Tinkering. Stop going helplessly all in each time you want to achieve something.

Now by all means, if you truly enjoy doing something for the sake of doing it, indulge in spending hours doing it. But if not, then don't make yourself miserable just in hope it will bring you a desired result. It's almost never in your control. That's why running every day for an hour to get fit when you hate running is a surefire way to burn out (and giving up and never reaching your goal).

To keep going, you must do what is fun and enjoyable

Make efforts as much as needed for you to keep enjoying what you do, regardless of any outcome, and no more. (this is also correlated to Pareto's Law 80/20 rule).
We often burn ourselves out trying to accomplish too much, too quick. A little every day beats a ton just once.
Let any unexpected outcome be the icing on the cake and bring you even more enjoyment. But avoid at all cost overdoing things, being miserable making untenable efforts just because you hope for a result. This will only remove the pleasure from the activity and make you avoid it in the future.

Curiosity first, then mastery, focus on the process, and joy always. Remember that Things get accomplished by iteration.
No end goal is worth pursuing if you’re miserable along the way. As matter of fact, end goals are not pursued, they’re byproducts, the result of pursuing never-ending goals.