I accidentally went viral on reddit and learned a key thing about motivation and quitting.
100+ replies later I think I have the answer to success.
I posted this question on r/learnjapanese that got 80k~ views in 2 days. And the replies I got made me laugh out loud, ponder, and really think about why motivation is such an important thing.
Here's the post:
What motivates you to keep studying Japanese?
When I was studying abroad in Japan I noticed there were 2 types of people in our intensive language programs.
Those who wanted to gain mastery of the language to live and work in Japan.
The people who just wanted to PASS with the bare minimum and have fun.
At first, I was obsessed with learning Japanese but after so much cramming it felt like an insurmountable obstacle.
And, after living and working in Japan I just felt like I couldn't really live live there.
So eventually... I lost the motivation to become proficient and stayed at N4 for the longest time with my conversational Japanese-- while everyone around me advanced to N2 and N1.
Now, I just want to learn Japanese for fun-- no lofty goal or objective. If I could just get to N3 level conversational without too many pauses that would be great.
So what's motivating you to learn this crazy difficult language?
The replies I got were all over the place.
Some people do it through sheer grit.
Some people do it because of sunk cost fallacy.
Others just want to listen to music.
Some said "screw" motivation and relied on systems instead.
One guy said "because I really fucking like Kanji".
All these different answers showed me that…
There's no one "right" way to approach anything.
There is only your way.
What do I mean by this?
Instead of copying what other people do, it's important to find your own method that works for you.
You don't need to be like Tim Ferris and growth hack your way to success.
You don't need to be James Clear and have a system for everything.
You don't need to be Naval Ravikant and read a book a day.
You just need to find what works for you and stick with it.
This applies to business, writing, learning languages, and everything else in life.
And yes, to find what works for you, it's important to be flexible and try new things...
BUT
The key is to not obsess over what everyone else is doing.
I used to do this all the time.
I would see someone successful and think "I need to do what they're doing".
Surely, they have the secret sauce and if I just copy them I'll be successful too, right?
Wrong.
I'd get burnt out and quit because I was trying to do things that weren't aligned with my values and goals.
Eventually I'd lose interest because I lost sight of why I was doing it in the first place.
Was I writing online because it was fun, exciting, and I loved it?
Or was I writing because I wanted to get rich quick and build an online business?
The latter didn't work out so well for me.
But when I started writing for fun again, things changed.
I stopped caring about the numbers and whether my articles would get popular or not.
I just wrote what I wanted to write without any expectations.
And guess what?
People started reading and enjoying my work.
My subscription count went up.
Writing became easier.
Sure, I didn't get rich quick.
But I'm 10x more happy and fulfilled.
And I'd take that over a big pay check any day.
Brian “Your way” To