Focus on your own shit (2016)

https://justinjackson.ca/focus-on-your-own-shit/

by gk1 • 8 years ago

170 58 8 years ago

justinjackson.ca

person_of_color• 8 years ago

Comparison Is the Death of Joy -- MarkT

abootstrapper• 8 years ago

Theodore Roosevelt

craftyguy• 8 years ago

While this is good advice, it seems as useless as all the other "just quit doing <whatever bad habit you have>" advice.

What are some techniques that folks use to convince themselves to only worry about their shit and not dwell on shit from other people?

hn_throwaway_99• 8 years ago

Exactly. I call this the "no duh" advice. It's like saying "Are you an alcoholic? Stop drinking then!" or "Obese? Just eat less!"

nickjj• 8 years ago

It is "no duh" advice, but as some type of entrepreneur it's really really easy to fall into a trap where you're scrolling through Twitter and seeing people who are more successful than you always talk about how great life is, and you see them sell 5,000 things in 2 hours because they have half a million Twitter followers, etc..

Then you listen to their podcast or read something they wrote, but after you approach them 1 on 1 you quickly find out they don't even follow their own advice and you suddenly begin to get angry because these people are successful from lying to people but they put on a good show in public, and there's nothing you can do about it.

When really, all you have to do is unfollow them and concentrate on your own stuff because you'll improve your situation by focusing on things you can control.

It's sort of like Nike's phrase "just do it". There's so many ways you can apply this to life, and it's a text book example of "no duh" advice, but sometimes you need a reminder from something outside your brain that it really is that easy to snap out of it and do whatever you're trying to do.

weliketocode• 8 years ago

Now, that is the real question.

One thing that I'd like to think helps me is being genuinely happy for others' success.

This is the easiest to do for your close friends and family, but as you get to fringe friends, acquaintances, and former colleagues, the seeds of jealousy start to sprout.

mlthoughts2018• 8 years ago

You can be genuinely happy for others’ success while at the same time feeling extremely stressed that a competitor’s version of Foo is doing better than yours, etc. In fact, others’ successes can often be real, genuine, not-ego-or-jealousy-related-at-all indicators that whatever you’re focusing on is not good enough and there is not room in the market for what you’re making, which is both critical to know about and respond to, and also super stressful.

IMO anyway, being genuinely happy for others’ successes is totally orthogonal to the topic of this thread. Being mean-spirited about others’ successes would possibly be some other, different type of stressor for a different type of discussion.

hu3• 8 years ago

What are some techniques that folks use

For me it is Stoicism such as reading Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Epictetus.

rhizome31• 8 years ago

Would you have a particular title to recommand for a start?

manigandham2• 8 years ago

That's because advice doesn't solve anything. Action does.

You can ask for a million different variations of advice but you won't get anywhere until you take action. And only you can do that for yourself.

EDIT: for the replies, I don't mean that advice is useless. Guidance is important, but even the best plan doesn't matter if you don't actually do something.

matt4077• 8 years ago

That's because advice doesn't solve anything. Action does. And only you can do that for yourself.

Aside from the continuing vacuity, and the rather oxymoronic nature of "Advice doesn't help"-advice, I'm pretty sure that idea is just wrong?

Advice is a rather fundamental mechanism of humanity's success. Not just as in "ask a lawyer/doctor", but as something so common we don't even notice. It allows to tap into a vast repertoire of wisdom, and brings the benefit of fresh sets of eyes, with often minimal costs and efforts for either party.

I also fear this you-can-do-it attitude is slightly too close to Prosperity Gospel for comfort: Telling people they just have to be more disciplined is bound to fail more often than not, and leaves them with the complete burden of guilt. There's a point of diminishing returns for emotional pain as a motivator.

That not only ignores the rather substantial influence of luck, other people's action, and other factors beyond one's control. It also discounts all other personal factors possibly contributing to someone's misfortune. Maybe they just aren't cut out for professional sports/pulitzer price journalism/whatever... Or they have chosen some endeavour that just isn't a good fit for their personality (in terms of social v analytical, outside / inside, action / concentration,...). In such cases, powering through is rather ill-advised unless your stock options are close to vesting.

FooHentai• 8 years ago

Plus there's a certain irony in the existence of the attention economy willing to wax at length on the idea that a lot of things are more complex than 'just stop/start doing it'.

'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.'

afarrell• 8 years ago

Advice is a toolbox.

It doesn't solve anything directly, but it gives you the means of directing your thoughts in a way that will help you solve things.

Regardsyjc• 8 years ago

This might be counter-intuitive but in addition to stoicism, I love helping others when I can. Whether it's answering easy questions online, helping a friend with a business problem, somehow being a startup mentor, or volunteering. I feel the best when it's in person because it gets me out of my own head and sort of into someone else's- trying to understand them, what they're going through, what they're thinking. Being able to see things from another perspective gives me insight into my own problems. Hearing other people's fears and anxieties, sharing my experience with similar issues, and being like hey it's normal and this is how it turned out for me. Sometimes they just need to be heard or get it off their chest and be told everything will be okay, because it usually will.

It has also made it easier for me to ask for help about problems and be receptive to advice and feedback from my mentors- all the times when I was on the other side, helps me see the other side. So I guess maybe that's why people advise to always be teaching someone else while also being taught yourself.

Last, patience. I know I'll get there eventually. Marathon not a sprint.

johnfn2• 8 years ago

What are some techniques that folks use to convince themselves to only worry about their shit and not dwell on shit from other people?

1. Just removing the sources of unhappiness can go far. Block all the websites that make you feel bad. Unfollow people that stress you out. Uninstall apps from your phone. Or go even further, and turn off internet entirely.

2. Mindfulness meditation can help catch these negative thought patterns and redirect them.

dominotw• 8 years ago

Freedom from something is no freedom. Modeling your life based on things you want to free yourself from is not truly freeing you from them.

To be free is to understand the root cause and tackle that. To truly understand why seeing pics of your buddy's hawaiian family vaction makes you feel bad.

asknthrow• 8 years ago

You're framing this as an internet problem, which it is not. Before the internet it was called "keeping up with the Jonses" and one can not simply uninstall their environment, whereabouts and reception of social status and class telegraphing from others.

I honestly couldn't care less and consumerism is deeply offensive to me. I often think I belong in a different time, when commercialism and consumerism wasn't such a thing. There was a time not so long ago that people took pride in saving, repairing and making do.

gameswithgo• 8 years ago

setting up a website blocker in firefox has been amazing. yes I can easily turn it off, but I don't. I still habitually type in time wasting distraction urls and it blocks them and I go "oh yeah"

so you could do something like block all news websites except on weekends or something

segmondy• 8 years ago

A technique that works for me is to focus on my own shit.

baxtr• 8 years ago

I’d love to give some advice on that, I believe I could. But I’m not gonna. I'm going to focus on my shit instead.

crwalker• 8 years ago

Recognize that other startups are rarely the threat. Doing nothing / business as usual is the threat. Care about solving real needs for your customers.

matwood4• 8 years ago

it seems as useless as all the other "just quit doing <whatever bad habit you have>" advice.

At the end of the day, that's what you need to do though. The sooner you accept that, the easier it will be to change. It's about self discipline. Everyone is looking for some easy way, but it's not easy. It's doing what you know you should be doing every second of every minute of every day. Will you slip up sometimes? Absolutely, but don't let it derail you.

Check out Jocko Willink's podcast sometime (or the Youtube excerpts or his Instagram). His no BS approach is what finally made me realize that there are no techniques, just self discipline. When asked how to get up early, the response is set an alarm and get up.

brennebeck• 8 years ago

I’ve heard good things about Jocko’s podcast. Do you have any specific episodes to recommend re: self-discipline, etc.?

DoreenMichele• 8 years ago

Decide what you are trying to accomplish. Determine useful metrics for the goals in question. Check those metrics and try to improve on your performance as indicated by those metrics.

Rinse and repeat.

If you want to make $500 this week, it isn't relevant if Joe Bob McMillionaire did that in five minutes on Monday morning. It is relevant that it's noon on Friday, you want to call it quits by 5pm and you are only at $400. Can you make another $100 in just 5 hours, or does it look like you need to choose between hitting $500 and quitting at 5pm? What can you learn from this week's failures and successes to make it more likely that you hit $500 next week and also get to go home on time?

rakoo• 8 years ago

I've been reading "The subtle art of not giving a fuck" (https://www.amazon.fr/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitive...) and there's one point I try to follow: if you don't have control over something, then you shouldn't let it emotionally affect you, aka "you shouldn't give a fuck". Otherwise your life will be emotionally driven by things outside of your command and you'll just become insane.

Example: you can prepare all you want for a job interview or a date, dress appropriately, rehearse all you need, this is all something you control. But ultimately you have no control over their final decision, so you shouldn't let it negatively affect you and be mad/sad/puzzled. Reach for rationality, understand why you failed and improve on this for the next time

Animats• 8 years ago

My eyes crack open. 7am. Roll over. Grab my phone. Start scrolling…

I think we've located the problem.

WhompingWindows• 8 years ago

A singular problem, however the larger problem with comparing yourself to other people unnecessarily isn't just about phones.

bitwize• 8 years ago

Indeed. If he were a real Hackernews he'd be up at 4 am to do his daily 5 mile run before eating paleo breakfast and then working on his MVP for 12 hours solid.

jboles• 8 years ago

“Killing it” all the while !

binaryapparatus2• 8 years ago

"Quit worrying about what everyone else is doing." - Good advice.

"Focus on how you're helping people." - ?

How come is 'helping people' ultimate goal? "Focus on what you are doing." looks as better advice?

TaylorAlexander3• 8 years ago

I mean, helping people is my broad goal. And generally the story with most businesses is that you’re helping somebody.

binaryapparatus2• 8 years ago

Maybe so. In my experience 'helping' in most cases sides with other time/nerves wasting exercises - like browsing twitter in other form. Role playing, not actual real thing.

Getting better in what I do (whatever that is) first (so focusing on what I do), then helping as a side effect, that's possible.

TaylorAlexander3• 8 years ago

Can we get [2016] in the title?

“Published on February 29th, 2016”

omarchowdhury• 8 years ago

Timeless wisdom, imo.

TaylorAlexander3• 8 years ago

Definitely. Not commenting on the timeliness I just believe that is the policy around here for articles from the past? I don’t actually know.

Kaveren• 8 years ago

This reminds me of the advice in "How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS" (I liked the article overall). I'm more confident in my disagreement now.

Ignoring competition does not make it go away. Being a competitive person is good, and it gives you an advantage. The top of most any field is comprised of very competitive people.

I do not agree with this very generic advice. You shouldn't back down the second you feel any pressure / stress, this is not the behavior of a competitive person. If you are getting irrationally jealous or saddened to an unhealthy degree, you should learn to deal with this. If you are unable to, you should reconsider whatever field you're in.

It seems common for people to move goalposts when talking about this, as if being competitive and not ignoring competition detracts from your ability to improve your own project, or to be able to think independently of what competitors are doing.

jm__87• 8 years ago

The top of most any field is comprised of very competitive people.

Being competitive is good, if it helps you succeed. The degree to which you can be successful if you just "focus on your own shit" vs. paying close attention to what your competitors are doing is going to depend on what you are doing. If you play football professionally, you absolutely need to pay attention to what the competition is doing to succeed. If you write code for a living, you are going to be way more successful paying attention to your own shit than spending time paying attention to what everyone else is doing. It is just stupid to say that being competitive is the only way to get to the top of your field. Being the best at what you do will get you to the top of your field, by definition. The drive to get you there can come from wanting to be better than everyone else, or it can come from somewhere else.

mrmrcoleman• 8 years ago

I’d agree that agonizing over what your competition is doing isn’t wise, but at the same time if you have no idea what your competitors are doing you are in trouble.

The goal is not to ignore the competition but get better at controlling how you react to it.

mrhappyunhappy• 8 years ago

Sounds like advice from one bro to another.

the_clarence• 8 years ago

That's pretty much Feynmann's "disregard others" advice in a more vulgar tone.

https://stepsandleaps.wordpress.com/2017/10/17/feynmans-brea...

paulpauper• 8 years ago

Agonizing over your competition doesn’t help you serve your customers better. Being jealous of your peers won’t improve your craft.

It does. Without some envy where is the drive to improve?

rpdillon• 8 years ago

Holding myself to an objective standard is far more motivational for me than measuring myself against others.

evross• 8 years ago

"There’s only two things that will improve your situation:

1. Concentrate on your users, audience, customers, fans. Figure out what they want. Develop a deep connection with them.

2. Improve your skill, expertise, competence, product. How can you get better? How can you make your product better for the people who use it?"

There is also a responsibility for well-informed people to encourage and join initiatives that are 'good' and interesting. This is the way ethical and useful initiatives can be promoted and can 'win' in the marketplace of ideas.

Focus on your own shit (2016)

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