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We've all been there...

It's too dark to continue working but you do so anyway. You're getting more frustrated every minute. You haven't made near the progress you thought you would because again you underestimated how long this job would take. "Couple of hours, easy..."

You reluctantly call it a day and pack up. 

What can you take from this? Is it still enjoyable to you? Will you be keen to continue going in the morning? Will that f**king bolt that wouldn't come out play on your mind over night?

I need to know what keeps you guys motivated when it doesn't go to plan. Hopefully I can feed off your suggestions to be ready tomorrow to keep going.

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lol, sounds like every day I try to work on a car :)

Everything seems easier when it's a new day. Especially if it's not cold and rainy :)

Plus, plenty of problems get solved in the sub conscious overnight that you'd probably never work out if you didn't take a break

  • Like 1
5 minutes ago, Duncan said:

lol, sounds like every day I try to work on a car :)

Everything seems easier when it's a new day. Especially if it's not cold and rainy :)

Plus, plenty of problems get solved in the sub conscious overnight that you'd probably never work out if you didn't take a break

Ha! That's funny because I just had a look at some YouTube videos and I'm face palming at a very simple mistake I made.

And you're right, a solid sleep because everything hurts can only be positive.

42 minutes ago, Duncan said:

Exactly!

What amazes me is that people were able to do new stuff before youtube videos. I never would have got anywhere without AvE's solutions to every problem.

Back in the day I had completely reconditioned my Austin Healey 3000 and on my first run was disconcerted to see a cloud of smoke coming out the exhaust pipes. Luckily only two weeks later I got the answer in the (snail) mail  from the (UK) club newsletter. " if you have reconditioned your oil pump you may find excessive oil getting up into the top of the engine" . The solution was not the kind of oil restrictor I have been selling to RB users the last few years but "chop a section out of a six inch nail and drop it into the feed" .

These days you just Google the problem and instant solutions are put in front of you.

  • Like 2

I thought that this was a post about trying to escape from Victoria. The motivation is to get away from the sick people.

Youtube and this forum have been great resources. The downside with Youtube is that it makes some things look so easy and it makes idiots like me attempt things that we probably shouldn't.

  • Like 2
  • Haha 1

did you go better today Christian?

I did the trailer bearings (4 of the bloody things) and brake rewiring, stagea fluid check, fire trailer refill and water transfer done so it was better than average. Even got to start the race car for the first time in a few weeks, even if only to move it back to the shed.

  • Like 1

 I've been down a similar road( as probably everyone has) and lately its been worse across the board.

So i started to have a serious look at how its generated and found we, in life are bombarded by negativity to the point of conditioning.

You turn on any media stream and its how bad things are not how good we are doing, no matter what the subject.

You start to think the negative side of things are the norm and expect it to go pear shaped even before you start.

So, how to get over it ?

Well, for me, behind my office desk I have a few quotes, framed up on my wall and they go like this:

1. - "Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done its always your choice." - Wayne Dyer 

2. - "If you wait by the river long enough, bodies of your enemies will go floating by." Sun Tzu - The Art of War.  

3. - "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. Its Not" - Dr Seuss

4 - "If you always do what you've always done, you will always get what you've always got" - Henry Ford.

And lastly I really get motivated when someone tells me I cant be done.

If you re-think how you think your mental process will change and along with that your problem solving ability and so you motivation will be renewed.

 

2 hours ago, PLYNX said:

 I've been down a similar road( as probably everyone has) and lately its been worse across the board.

So i started to have a serious look at how its generated and found we, in life are bombarded by negativity to the point of conditioning.

You turn on any media stream and its how bad things are not how good we are doing, no matter what the subject.

You start to think the negative side of things are the norm and expect it to go pear shaped even before you start.

So, how to get over it ?

Well, for me, behind my office desk I have a few quotes, framed up on my wall and they go like this:

1. - "Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done its always your choice." - Wayne Dyer 

2. - "If you wait by the river long enough, bodies of your enemies will go floating by." Sun Tzu - The Art of War.  

3. - "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. Its Not" - Dr Seuss

4 - "If you always do what you've always done, you will always get what you've always got" - Henry Ford.

And lastly I really get motivated when someone tells me I cant be done.

If you re-think how you think your mental process will change and along with that your problem solving ability and so you motivation will be renewed.

 

 

I like that first one. Issue with motivational quotes and speeches etc. is you very quickly condition yourself to them. I'll admit I got a little surge of enthusiasm for today reading that first quote, but the next time I hear it I won't get the same response. I know, because I've heard all the others before and I barely finished reading each of them before I got bored haha.

 

Interesting topic Christian. Running my own business working for myself, I do struggle quite often with this. My biggest problem is that money is 0 motivation for me. It does not matter how much a job is paying me, if it isn't an interesting job then I will hate every second of it. It's a curse, because the jobs that I do find interesting are invariably the exceptionally challenging jobs that require loads of imagination and engineering which tend to take weeks if not months of work - which of course nobody wants to pay for, so I end up doing most of it for free just to satisfy my own desire to conquer a challenge haha. 

 

I agree with Duncan completely. I do an extreme amount of problem solving between the hours of 12am-6am, and I honestly come up with some of my best ideas in that time. In fact just on Friday, my day consisted of cutting a piece of wood to a specific shape and size and drilling a couple of holes in it, and from there I literally spent 6 hours staring at it. Just could not form the picture in my head of what needed to be done. Eventually gave up, called it a day, and went home. Some time during the night my brain found the image of what I needed to do, I came back in the morning and got it done in 2 hours. I think it just becomes a case of learning to walk away from something when it just isn't happening, and knowing that you may well be more productive because you did so.

  • Like 1

I like the one "If you don't turn the steering wheel you'll end up where you're headed."

End result for the weekend was a partial failure. The car isn't back together and I've had to order some parts to finish the job. Good thing we're still working from home a lot.

I do definitely find that getting started is my biggest hurdle. Once I'm working I can keep going for a while. If I don't get what I need done I find the night difficult because I get stuck in my own head and can't escape the feeling that I failed or that I wont have the motivation to start up again the next day.

But, that said, I do solve a lot of the problems when I'm not thinking about them - this is a key part of meditation. When my mind is on something else my subconscious mulls over the problem and delivers a result. Happens a lot.

 

1 hour ago, PranK said:

 

But, that said, I do solve a lot of the problems when I'm not thinking about them - this is a key part of meditation. When my mind is on something else my subconscious mulls over the problem and delivers a result. Happens a lot.

 

Definitely. I actually trust my subconscious mind more than my active mind. Often I fall into the trap of desperately trying to force a solution while I'm thinking about it, and this is when my conscious mind thinks of shit that genuinely makes me question if I might be on the spectrum. I've lost count the number of times I have completely stuffed something up because I made a stupid decision that I knew was stupid before I did it.

  • Like 1
12 minutes ago, Unzipped Composites said:

 

 

Definitely. I actually trust my subconscious mind more than my active mind. Often I fall into the trap of desperately trying to force a solution while I'm thinking about it, and this is when my conscious mind thinks of shit that genuinely makes me question if I might be on the spectrum. I've lost count the number of times I have completely stuffed something up because I made a stupid decision that I knew was stupid before I did it.

Thats very similar to myself. Its nice to know its not just me.

  • Like 1

Yeah. I have times when I just up and leave the project for an hour/day whatever it might be. Especially if i am stuck. I find that ignoring it completely will make me want to go back out and give it another go after a little time has passed.

There are times when I will work through a problem by slowing down and looking at the issue one small bit at a time and sometimes it's a case of head inside, ignore or youtube it and then go back for another crack.

I often find I will jump from car stuff to artwork to xbox so as not to get bored with any one thing.

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