I'm completely demotivated to work; what can I do?

[iyra72]

I'm two years before heading off to university, but I have no motivation to learn the things that are being taught at college. I chose to study the subjects that I thought I would enjoy, but sadly this isn't true. I'm assuming that if I had made other choices for subjects, I'd be in a similar problem. Maths is one of the subjects I'm studying, and although I enjoy maths itself, I'm not enjoying what I learn in school. I can't be motivated to put the work in, so that I can get good results at the end of the year. I spend my free time programming or researching instead, but I can't continue doing this if I want to get the A-levels I need to enter a half-decent university.

Are there any ways by which I could motivate myself to study more?

[bane]

I'm going to say something that's a little tough but it's meant as advice coming from years of mistakes before I finally got my head on the right way: Part of growing up is learning to prioritize what you need to do, even if it isn't fun, over what you like to do. This is how the real world works, and it's what you'll spend the rest of your life doing. Learning to do it when you're young, when mistakes are smaller, will make the rest of your life so much better.

When you get your needs out of the way, the fun stuff you can do is all the better, and you'll know more about the fun stuff that you're doing enabling you to open more worlds of enjoyment later that you'll never be able to conceive of without putting in the hard work to start. Doors will be open to you that you'll never even imagine if you put in the work to build the foundation of your life right now. Digging the metaphorical ditches and laying the metaphorical concrete for your foundation sucks, but that's how life is. Lots of sucky boring shitty work, for a few profound moments of bliss.

I know this sounds just like words right now, but I wish this was a concept that I had truly grokked much earlier in my life before I had to spend years fixing all the bits and pieces I needed to do that I had deferred.

Nobody gets to do the fun stuff for long, without working out all the dreadfully boring bits a head of time.

Want to be an explorer? Spend months raising money and building schedules and looking at maps and buying equipment.

Want to be a rock star? Spend years learning to play an instrument, playing in dive bars and making demo tapes. Get a break then play the same 4 hit songs for 20 years.

Want to write awesome code and run an awesome business? Spend years learning computational theory, business management and leadership, raising funds, and last but not least, writing thousands of lines of boring boiler plate, edge case handling and plumbing code.

Want to be an author? Spend a few years writing a couple hundred pages on your topic then get rejected by 99 out of 100 publishers. Then do an endless book tour where you read the same passage from your book 300 times.

Learning to do the boring, dreadfully dull, uninteresting stuff...learning to just muscle through it...is the most important life skill any human being can learn. It's the marshmallow test magnified by a million.

[crazygringo]

First of all, I want to say that this comment is completely spot-on, and it also took me waaay too many years to learn it as well.

The other thing is, because so many things are such a slog, to get to the good parts, you've got to figure out what it is deep-down that does motivate you. The truth is, it's not going to actually be motivating you most days, but since you're going to be slogging regardless, you need to make sure you're slogging towards something that you consider to be worthwhile.

For some people it's family, for others it's money, for some it's a particular sport, for some it's owning their own business. For some it's writing, for others it's photography, or music. For some it's being a respected member of their community.

Think to yourself, who are the people you most respect? When you're 40, what kind of a person do you want to be? What kind of success will be most important to you? The answer might not always be immediately clear or obvious, but a vague idea can still help point you in the right direction.

But also: nobody can slog away at the same thing all the time, so make sure you make plenty of room for friends, fun, exercise/sport, romantic attachment, and whatnot. As long as you have those kinds of things, you'll find you can deal with the slog after all. And in the end, they're really what life is mostly about. :)

[marvin]

There's another side to this line of reasoning. Sometimes, things feel tough because you are simply on the wrong track: Studying and working on the wrong things, have your ambitions set too high, working the wrong way (hard, not smart) or just push yourself too hard. If this happens to correctly describe the difficulties you have, the right answer is to ease off a bit - not just buckle down and push harder.

Which of these situations you're in at any given time is a difficult question which can't be worked out from three sentences written on a web forum. I would hazard a guess that given the "curse of the gifted", the former is more common in kids just out of High School. But I have often seen the latter as well, including on Hacker News. Both these situations can turn into mental health issues if you don't take them seriously.

[greggman]

I feel incredibly blessed that I never had to do any of this. I enjoyed computer programming. I learned to do all the stuff because it was fun. Learned to read and write files, learned to sort, learned to write languages, etc etc.

All of it was almost always in pursuit of some goal. I want to create ABC I needed to learn about DEF. etc.. Very little of it was just learning for the sake of learning.

I can't remember ever doing a boring thing related to programming off the top of my head. I can remember automating repetitive things but even that was fun.

I remember working lots of overtime but I don't remember disliking the work.

I don't know what to take from that. I've kind of assumed it's been the same for all the programmers I respect. I see them code as a hobby just like me. I assume they keep doing because they love it.

Maybe if you don't love it you're doing the wrong thing? Maybe if you don't love anything then your advice is true?

[ryandrake]

I had this long diatribe pounded out and ready to submit, but, why bother? It's going to fall on deaf ears. People have bought into the "hard work" lie so fully. I'll just leave it at this:

While there are notable exceptions, hard work is not a reliable predictor of success. Do you really think those multi-million dollar penthouses in Manhattan and those huge estates in the hills on the SF Bay peninsula are inhabited by people who simply "muscled through it"? Being (or knowing) the right people is a reliable predictor of success. By and large, those guys are the ones making it big.

My advice to someone going off to college would be: 1. Go to the most prestigious one you can afford/luck into and 2. Make friends with the richest/most well connected kids you meet.

[dsuth]

I think this is key, and it's important to understand that the self-discipline you are required to learn to excel in school and university is a large part of the reason you're there in the first place. It's not just about learning what's being taught, or even 'learning to learn', it's about conditioning your brain to function while withholding rewards for significant amounts of time.

I can spend hours and days programming incredibly boring, repetitive code, because the end result is valuable. Teaching your brain to understand this is the struggle the OP faces.

BTW especially with maths, teachers mostly fail at providing any context above 'learn this rule, so you can apply a slightly more advanced version of it next year'. There is a huge amount of context and thought around the mathematics that's being taught, but little effort ever goes into expounding it. If you're struggling with maths in particular, try reading up on some of the history of the topics to find out why they were invented, and what problems they solve. It brings an incredibly richness to what can be a fairly dry, abstract subject.

[g0v]

I'm relatively young and often fighting myself to get things done as well. I've taken steps to force myself away from distracting things and focus on stuff that needs to get done. For example, I've installed a website blocking extension on Firefox and blocked sites I'm drawn towards from 8am to 5pm, also uninstalled all other browsers (I have broken and installed chrome just to procrastinate, since uninstalled).

Right now I have a 1500 word paper to start but am stalling and finding a slow cooker recipe for dinner.

Nearly every day I am fighting myself to be productive, it can be pretty painful in its own way. I figure if I'm ultimately winning(being productive) then I am making some sort of progress in my personal growth.

What you said there is the main reason I know I have to push myself. I know if I don't then I'll just end up being disappointed in myself.

So, essentially, fear is what drives me.

[md224]

> Want to be a rock star? Spend years learning to play an instrument, playing in dive bars and making demo tapes. Get a break then play the same 4 hit songs for 20 years.

Wait, what? Is this supposed to be inspirational? Suffering for "success" to find yourself "playing the same 4 hit songs for 20 years"? It feels like this actually undermines the rest of your argument, so I'm kind of confused what you were going for here.

[linuxlizard]

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[kirillzubovsky]

Dude, whatever you choose to do, please do yourself a favor and ignore the bullshit advice that starts with - "this is how the real world works..." That nonsense only comes from people who had settled for the average.

Life works in any way that you want it to work.

Look, if you don't want to do the shit work, don't do it, but don't bitch and moan and complain about it. Instead, find a way to still get shit done, while not doing the work you don't want to do.

You don't like doing homework? Nobody does. It's a waste of time and you will not use 90% of what you've learned.

Spend the bare minimum time you need to pass high-school on work that you have to get done, devote the rest of your time to the work you want to get done. If that means learning computer programming, do it. I had friends in high-school who managed hosting companies, while at high-school. Guess what, while the rest of us were solving stupid problems and learning history, those guys made money. It's not a bad skill to learn.

Anyways, this discussion could go back and forth... Get off your ars, close HN and just f'ing do something!

[psc]

Great post. This is the kind of perspective you want to have. This reminds me of PG's high school essay:

"The important thing is to get out there and do stuff. Instead of waiting to be taught, go out and learn." - PG

Before I quote the whole thing, the OP (and anyone in the same position) should read the whole essay: http://paulgraham.com/hs.html

If you want the real world to be (quoting from the other post) "lots of sucky boring shitty work, for a few profound moments of bliss," that's fine. But if you don't want to accept that, you don't have to. What Kirill said above is totally right; life works how you want it to.

It's normal for someone in high school to feel like the OP, especially someone who's a hacker at heart. School limits you in a lot of ways, but you don't have to let it stop you. You just have to realize that the boundaries are self imposed. You can do real things. So treat school like a day job, get it out of the way, and do what's interesting to you.

[elwell]

Really?

> Life works in any way that you want it to work.

This, kids, is why you shouldn't smoke crack.

[s0rce]

"Spend the bare minimum time you need to pass high-school on work that you have to get done"

>> and get the grades you need to go to college to learn more

For me, the bare minimum still got me good grades in high school, but in college I worked really hard, sometimes the bare minimum isn't enough to succeed.

[j45]

Mind letting us learn more about what you did specifically yourself that that ended up in your recommendation and how it turned out?

The story often brings out more of a perspective.

[billyjobob]

So you don't like school work. You could get higher grades if only you were more motivated...

i.e. you are exactly like every other 16 year old I ever knew.

Most of them because more motivated once they started university and were able to focus on what they enjoyed studying. I'd be more worried if you were motivated at 16, because then you'd probably burn out, or grow up to be an obnoxious brain box.

Also, since you sound like you are in the UK, you should realise that grades don't matter here. No-one will ever ask what you scored in your maths A-level. Your success in life will mostly be determined by the connections your parents have. The only thing you can do to improve your chances is network and make some more connections of your own at university. Plenty of top jobs go to those who graduated with the "gentleman's third" because they spent their time networking rather than studying.

[cjfont]

> Your success in life will mostly be determined by the connections your parents have

Sorry but this statement doesn't ring true to me, because I know of several cases where two brothers have had divergent success outcomes based on their personalities and the choices they've made.

There's also MANY ways to forge your own connections in life.

[DanBC]

OP has to get into university first.

They're not likely to do that if they drop out of A level study now.

[mistercow]

>you are exactly like every other 16 year old I ever knew.

Really? Because when I was in high school I knew plenty of ridiculously overachieving 16 year olds.

[DanBC]

You have a temporary hurdle to jump over. Get good grades. The aim of getting good grades is only to get good grades. There's a bunch of stuff that you can do with good grades, and if that motivates you it's great. But at the moment you just need to get the good grades.

So, perhaps when you're studying you put in 30 minutes for school work, and 15 minutes for what you enjoy, then have a break. Then repeat that.

This allows you to get the good grades, and keeps you interested in the subject.

You'll have a bit more freedom in Uni, and you'll so you can see your current task (get good grades) as also being "learn some discipline".

There will be some people who want to get better grades than you. Thus, you should get best grades you can just to stick one in the eye of those people.

[marvin]

This is very good advice. If you get nothing else out of high school, make sure you learn the discipline it takes to study something that's not immediately rewarding. Not only is it important right now in order to have choices for the immediate future, it's a skill that will serve you well throughout life.

[tzakrajs]

Working for good grades caused me to get burnt out on school. What has motivated me to learn more than anything has been due to being engrossed by the value of the learnings application. If you can be motivated by increasing a grade letter, more power to you. But I argue that a student focused on a grade is going to get less out of the education than someone fixated on a subject for its own merit.

[allworknoplay]

Fuck school, it has no intrinsic value. It's not an end in itself, and it's not built for everyone. If it's not built for you, find something you DO like and dive into it hard. You're on hacker news for some reason -- what is it you're into? Learn how to do it yourself, get technical, build skills around that. Also, make friends who are likewise into it. I promise you'll be a lot more engaged.

Do the school work but do it with something else in mind.

Also: the guys suggesting drugs know nothing about you and are probably not doctors. I love drugs, but I'd never suggest them without knowing more about you. It's absurdly easy to build a serious amphetamine dependency that will leave you feeling a lot worse than you do now.

[nulagrithom]

Do you have a job? Go push a mop for a couple years. It will motivate you to do well in school and has the added benefit of giving you some money for university.

[jmtame]

I actually second this. I worked a bunch of odd jobs starting at 15 years old (you were supposed to be 16, so I had to get consent from the principal to flip burgers). As I was taking the garbage out while working at a grocery store, it just hit me: I can't do this for the rest of my life. I believe I was around 18 years old, so maybe a little older than the OP. I joined the local chamber of commerce and started consulting that summer and made more money than the previous 3 summers, and I enjoyed the work I was doing.

It's good to work awful jobs. It builds healthy character and eventually it'll probably hit you that you really want to be doing more intellectual things, which conveniently pays more money than most physical labor.

[ef4]

> Are there any ways by which I could motivate myself to study more?

Probably not, if you're asking the question. But I don't think you should study more. I think you should program more, since it's already something you enjoy enough to do for fun. It's a question of playing to your strengths.

Put in the 10,000 hours of sustained effort that it takes to truly become great at it. Prove your abilities through open source.

You will have no problem finding an interesting and well-paying career, if you push yourself hard to always keep learning both about programming and about the business of software.

If that sounds like a lot of hard work, well yeah, it is. There's no shortcut. Either suck it up and do your homework and color inside the lines, or summon the guts to blaze your own path. Or do neither and let the path of least resistance take you where it wants.

Which path are you more likely to regret 40 years from now?

[msutherl]

I'm not sure it's advisable to encourage somebody not to do well on their A-levels. It's not like the US where you can get low marks in secondary school and be fine. He won't be able to attend a decent university, ever. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[yuxt]

Open a map, close your eyes and point randomly. Pack you backpack, buy tickets and go there without any reservation. Spend at least 1 month away from home, comfort and routine.

When you are back you will know exactly what to do.

[discostrings]

> Open a map, close your eyes and point randomly. Pack you backpack, buy tickets and go there without any reservation. Spend at least 1 month away from home, comfort and routine.

This sounds like an interesting and exciting life-changing plan and everything, but I don't think it's particularly actionable advice for most sixteen-year-olds in today's world, and I don't think it's likely to help with the question at hand. The submitter isn't asking /what to do/; the submitter is asking /how can I be more motivated in what I'm doing/!

I think better advice is to focus on how the things you're learning relate to the things you like to do. So try to focus on how math can improve your programming, research, and other interests. Also, keep in mind that you're building a foundation--things are more interesting once you get to the stage where you're building on top of it. Even if you decide not to use it in a few years, it's a really nice thing to have that will give you a lot of flexibility.

[mistercow]

If you spend your free time programming or researching, and aren't motivated by academics, then you might want to reconsider academic direction you're going in.

For someone who has the motivation to learn programming on their own, I seriously question the value of a formal education in anything like CS or math. You already know you can learn that stuff more easily outside of a classroom, so I would argue that taking that academic path is a waste of both your time and money.

Instead, I would consider studying something totally different. Programming is a wild card - you can play it to improve any hand you have. Keep honing those skills, but go to university for something you can't so easily learn on your own.

This is the advice I wish someone had given me before I went and wasted time in college.

[danpat]

> Programming is a wild card - you can play it to improve any hand you have.

This is the truth. Every success I've had has been where I've applied my computing skills to an environment where no-one with those skills had yet appeared. The efficiency gains you can make to mundane, non-computing tasks by applying a bit of programming knowledge will often knock the socks off people who've been doing things the same old way for years.

[dhughes]

They way I think about it is you can work a dead end job for 80 hours per week making $8 an hour to make enough to survive and not have any free time to socialize, go to the gym or be with family. Or study for and try to get a decent job you like that pays half decent so you don't have to become a human eraser and wear yourself down doing the work of others. Having many skills to fall back on is great but trying to learn everything losing focus and never finishing anything isn't much help.

Or realize you need to focus and find a career that you like and is wanted by employers. I recall years ago they mentioned "The fear" and it is a great example of suddenly realizing shit I better start getting good at this life thing, now!

Time is shorter than you think your health can suddenly rapidly fail, saving for retirement is a constant worry. Time is so short it's as if nothing you do can be done soon enough. Realizing that early in life is fantastic. A big part of life I think is having mentors who are examples to follow it's good to have a person who you can think "What would Bob do?" as an internal guide.

It's easy to say all that but hard to do, I haven't mastered that yet.

[msutherl]

I've found this fear to be my greatest motivator, but it has also lead me down false paths. Truth is, your dichotomy is a fiction. There are plenty of people who live fulfilling lives without ever having consciously focused on learning skills and meeting qualifications wanted by employers. However, nobody gets anywhere by being lazy – one then needs to find another motivator. One I have in mind is: repulsion toward injustices in the world. Rather than fearing drudgery, you can hold yourself personally accountable for evils and optimize for effecting change. Of course this is also a fiction. An individual is most likely incapable of effecting significant change in the world.

All motivations are irrational, but you still must have one. If you haven't found one, keep looking. Watch documentaries, travel, read books. You will find things to care about.

[loceng]

Exercise. Relatively new discovery that lactic acid, that comes from muscle use, is a "pre-cursor" for motivation.

[timmm]

Counter-example: Me, I don't work out. I work 9-5 at a tech job and then spend the weekend working on my own products. I don't struggle with motivation as I literally enjoy what I do.

Always question advice that people like to rattle off - humans are very good at perpetuating bad memes without a second thought. Like that running a marathon (26 miles) in one go is somehow healthy, without ever questioning why a healthy activity would make them shit their pants and nipples bleed.

In fact exercising would probably decrease the probability that I would be productive as it would consume more of my time and energy.

My 0.02

[JamilD]

I know it seems like what you learn in school is boring, and perhaps even trivial, but it provides an important foundation to what you'll learn in University.

When I was in high school, I'd attempt to apply the stuff I was learning in math to more interesting problems that I was actually interested in – for example, using the simple calculus I was being taught to start to understand some aspects of machine learning.

The truth is, a lot of high school math is rather fascinating – you just need to find a place to apply what you're learning. I still use that technique now; I find a lot of the electronics courses at university extremely dull, so I'll write a program to solve, say, a diode circuit using the exponential model. And I end up learning so much more than I would just studying.

So studying high school math and learning interesting things doesn't have to be mutually exclusive :)

[alexkus]

Sounds just like me at 16. Wasn't very motivated despite studying the A-Levels I wanted to (Maths, Physics, Computing). Spent all my spare time stealing Internet access at the local University (this was back in 1992/1993). I got decent grades (AAB) and got into my first choice University, but the motivation to do well still wasn't there. Ended up getting a 2:2 where everyone expected me to get a 1st. After that I was lucky and ended up in a good job where degree result didn't matter.

Looking back I wish I'd talked to someone (not my parents) about it at the time. So I'd recommend finding someone to talk to at your college; your form tutor (depends, I didn't get on with mine), careers advisor, pastoral care reps, etc. Just remember that they should be there to help you do your best, not bollock you for not putting your full effort in.

[Goladus]

One way to overcome a lack of motivation is to ruthlessly eliminate distractions. Tailor your environment and to be (and practice habits that are) maximally conducive to studying. If you have a hard time "taking a step back" to take an objective look at your habits and lifestyle, you might find yoga and meditation helpful.

Exercise can also help keep your energy up, but in my experience exercise doesn't magically solve motivation problems and sometimes gets in the way. Working a hard labor can give you good experience but I think the motivation that comes from that sort of work tends to be vastly overstated and wears off very quickly.

Do you spend time programming because you're motivated to program? Have you produced anything of value? What sort of research do you do? What motivates you besides programming and research? Who is paying the bills right now?

[Aqueous]

It's nice to chip away at programming but if you don't have an academic basis to guide your studies it is going to keep you out of a lot of jobs when you get out. Take it from someone who knows - I've programmed useful things in just about every language, but because I didn't major in Computer Science (Physics/Philosophy instead) I'm unable to compete for the top tier of jobs. Hopefully this isn't permanent, as I'm teaching myself computer science now, but I could've saved myself a lot of work if I had just chosen a concentration more suitable for the jobs I was interested in.

You may be a confident auto-didact but even auto-didacts tend to have large blind spots. You don't know what you don't know, and school is there to tell you.

[matttheatheist]

As a Computer ENGINEER, I can easily tell you that Computer SCIENCE is essentially a liberal arts degree. Seriously, they don't know st about technology, unless it comes safely wrapped in an API.

And by the way, studying Physics is orders of magnitude more difficult that learning CS. And for that alone, I would hire a Physicist over a CS guy any day of the week.

Ask any recruiter, and they'll tell you the same thing. Physics is a higher pecking order than CS.

[eropple]

I don't know where you are, but if you're in the U.S. (or even if you're not), feel free to drop me a line. Some of the best developers I know come from non-CS backgrounds and I know folks who are always looking. Email's in my profile.

[cognitiveben]

Drop out and find something that motivates you. It's harder than the standard path, but if you're bright and industrious it can be a much more interesting ride. Also, university is always there later. I did the above, got bored in my second successful career and am now finishing up a Ph.D. that I started, as an undergrad, at the age of 27. I think I got more out of the program than my younger counterparts, and thanks to a decade of making money and connections, I did it in significantly better style. No regrets.

[RivieraKid]

I tried couple of anti-procrastination techniques and the only one I had moderate success with is the "no internet mode". When I have some project to finish, I make a decision that until it's finished, I won't use the internet at all from the morning to 8pm (except for work-related things and email). What's really important here is that you have to decide firmly. This usually lasts couple of days but I'm thinking about doing this every day.

[alecco]

Some things that help me:

    Visualize goal: close your eyes, imagine your acceptance letters
    When stuck, go for a little walk or physical exercise
    Do goal-oriented studying (e.g. Pomodoro technique)

Understand the education system wants you to comply, this is wrong, but the faster you get over it the faster you'll forget about it. It's better to keep your mouth shut, don't complain or antagonize, they are not going to change for you or anybody (they haven't in centuries). Give them the little self importance they crave for and get from them what you want (grades, diploma). Of course, keep your mind critical but keep it to yourself until they give you what you want.

Also don't overwork yourself, perhaps this is not the best time to spend many hours doing unrelated programming or research. It can be a distraction to your education goal. We have limited willpower, try to avoid depletion. Only when you achieve your studying goals for the day you get to do your own thing. Study in the mornings, play in the afternoons.

Modifying your routine takes a while, do it in baby steps. Remove all temptations that might get in the way to your goals until you achieve them. But keep a good chunk of the day to clean up your head.

Of course, YMMV.

[alecco]

It might help to go study to a special quiet and motivational place, a library or your aunt's house.

[gqvijay]

Wow, you sound like me 20 years ago. And I am quiet surprised at "that's life, shape up" responses.

Knowing what I know now, I wish someone would've told me: - Try to get into top schools like Stanford, Harvard, etc. - If you don't have the financial means or the grades or whatever, don't get discouraged one bit! - Since you enjoy "programming or researching", stop stressing over colleges. In my humble opinion, most colleges are overrated. They are designed for drones and will suck the passion out of what you are majoring in. (note: may not be true for all) - In my opinion, typical educational institutions in our country is broken. - Instead, start interning. Do small projects that you can showcase on your passion. Join programming groups, meet ups that are related, etc. - In short, make a living in doing what you love (programming). When you find a job and love what you do, you are no longer "working".

Finally, watch this: http://new.ted.com/talks/larry_smith_why_you_will_fail_to_ha...

[zacinbusiness]

Get a shit job. Get shot at by a thug. Clean up other peoples shit and piss all day for minimum wage. That's what worked for me.