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Author Topic: Any ideas on how to get more purposeful?  (Read 1273 times)

RoguelikeRazuka

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Any ideas on how to get more purposeful?
« on: July 31, 2015, 04:04:06 am »

I wanted to get good at mathematics a while ago, once I dreamed to master some martial arts, I also sought for making my computer game, etc. But none of those goals have been achieved yet. I worked towards either of them for some time, though eventually found my spunk gone out and gave up or some urgent things prevented me from continuing it. Now I’m trying my best studying English and it seems to me I’m about to let go of my passion again. I’m working hard but still making silly mistakes that apparently would have never been made by a 13-aged native speaker. I guess I’m just uncapable of doing anything well. What would you suggest?
« Last Edit: September 10, 2015, 05:19:48 am by RoguelikeRazuka »
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Urist McScoopbeard

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Re: Any ideas on how to get more purposeful?
« Reply #1 on: July 31, 2015, 05:03:44 am »

Seems to me that you're not giving yourself enough time. The thing about getting better at things to is to keep working when you get down on yourself about it, feel like there's something missing, or feel like other people are better than you. Mathematics can be particularly tough in this area, but for Martial Arts you just need to join a team or a club and really just work at it. Spend time doing it, enjoy it, even the losses. Once you come to appreciate the art, it's less about how good you are and more about how good the match was. Etc. etc.

As far as English goes there are many many people out there to help you. You write pretty well already, so there's that. Many native speaks make mistakes that 13 yr olds shouldn't be making so don't be too worried, especially if you live in a diverse area people understand that its a second language.

As someone who has struggled with similar passion and motivational problems the best advice I can give you is to not get too down on yourself... There will always be times where you really do feel pretty bad and won't want to continue and I can't promise you the best way to go is to power through, but if you channel your frustration into your work/art/subject than you will come out the other side stronger.
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taldarus

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Re: Any ideas on how to get more purposeful?
« Reply #2 on: July 31, 2015, 06:19:14 pm »

Screw completing things! It's for chumps!

I'm a mathmatician, scientist, writer, teacher, artist, dancer, martial arts butt kicking, zen guru!

Do you know how many books I have written? 20+
How many I finished? 3
Martial arts I trained, off and on, for almost 20 years. (college really messed up me up)
I can successfully do most math (up to around diff eq) in my head, but I had some of the worst grades in school.
Art, man I used to suck at it. I would try it at different times, but it always kicked my butt. One day, I just stopped worrying and started getting compliments on my work.

Failure is what makes you strong, and I spend almost all of my time teaching people to embrace and accept failure. People see me as, that guy who can do everything AWESOMELY, but don't realize I spent YEARS being a 'loser'. Losers aren't losers, just awesomeness waiting to happen.

Awkward Post, but I am the master  :P

EDIT:
Books published - 0
Art sold - 0
Martial Arts Tournaments Entered - 0
Math Test Score (college) - 75
Forum Posts Edited Poorly - 80%
« Last Edit: July 31, 2015, 06:23:55 pm by taldarus »
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My Name is Immaterial

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Re: Any ideas on how to get more purposeful?
« Reply #3 on: July 31, 2015, 11:42:38 pm »

I’m working hard but still making silly mistakes that apparently would have never been made by a 13-aged native speaker. I guess I’m just uncapable of doing anything well. What would you suggest?
I've been speaking English for all my life, and I still mess up every day. It's a weird language.

Bauglir

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Re: Any ideas on how to get more purposeful?
« Reply #4 on: August 01, 2015, 11:45:10 pm »

What was it about mathematics, martial arts, computer games, and English motivated you in the past?

A problem like yours is one that can't be solved at the level of abstraction you're working at - that is, searching for motivation is unlikely to motivate you. It's similar to the person who says, "I want to be happy". For most, happiness is a consequence of doing what you want. It's no good getting the reward mixed up with the goal. There's no path "to happiness", but there are many paths that can make you happy. In my experience, at least, motivation comes of having challenges you want to overcome; but making that challenge be the search for a challenge is a bit like trying to climb a wall by clasping your hands, placing your foot in them, and lifting yourself up. There's just something missing from what you're trying to do.

So look for something more concrete. Studies, for example - ask yourself why you thought they'd be a good idea in the first place. Is there a reason? Is it in order to get a job? Travel? Do you picture yourself as a student, and so study to maintain that? On the other hand, if it wasn't really something you chose to do for your own reasons, maybe you should look for something else.
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i2amroy

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Re: Any ideas on how to get more purposeful?
« Reply #5 on: August 02, 2015, 01:26:02 am »

The biggest thing to do, I find, is just forcing yourself to keep at the things you are doing, as well as maybe starting with smaller things and working your way up to larger ones. In a lot of ways motivation is like lifting weights. You don't just walk into the gym, never having lifted weights before, and start by lifting several hundred pounds. In the same way with motivation you don't necessarily start with all the big things at once. Pick a couple of smaller things, or maybe one big thing. Then force yourself to do it and stick to it. It's not going to be easy, there's going to be a lot of times where you want to just stop, or that you feel you aren't making any progress at all, but force yourself to keep with it (personally I like to change my desktop picture to a message like "Go do X right now!" whenever I start a new thing, or to set a daily alarm in the evening to remind myself to drop everything and do it right now). Eventually you'll notice that it doesn't take as much to force yourself to do something, and eventually you'll keep doing it without much of a thought. And that's the sign that maybe you can consider adding another thing to your list of things to do.

Like anything else with real rewards, it's not going to be easy. There's a lot of work involved, and that's something that you are going to have to accept if you want the results. But with time and effort it gets easier, and with each thing you train yourself to do then each subsequent one becomes that much easier to be motivated towards.
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Tiruin

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Re: Any ideas on how to get more purposeful?
« Reply #6 on: August 02, 2015, 04:22:42 am »

Maybe how you think about comparisons influence how you interact [Comparing yourself to a '13 year old native speaker' doesn't help...unless you use that comparison to nudge you forward into a critical and heuristic analysis of how you think and act and then move forward).

I'll drop a quote :D
Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them. (In this context, poking at how one faces those problems)
Motivation advances along with perception [of thought]--when one is truly motivated, their thinking supports their passion of achieving their goals.

But there seems to be another hint:
Quote
I worked towards either of them for some time, though eventually found my spunk gone out and gave up or some urgent things prevented me from continuing it.
You seem to be talking about these things like they're concrete achievements instead of abstracted and thought-based achievements (that's how it came off to me anyway). Like a math major instead of 'someone who can do math well without pen&paper or a calculator'? :O

I’m working hard but still making silly mistakes that apparently would have never been made by a 13-aged native speaker. I guess I’m just uncapable of doing anything well. What would you suggest?
I've been speaking English for all my life, and I still mess up every day. It's a weird language.
I don't. :) Though it's my third-language [second, but I got Tagalog, Ilocano {dialect} and then English...with little mastery in the dialect but I'm being technical -.-]. However when I've noticed errors in other people--it's usually in how they use the language (as in those itty-bitty tiny bits, as derived from how they use their native/first language as in following the same 'lingual rules')

I feel like you should just keep going on. Don't let yourself fall to base or shallow comparisons [if you would think about comparing yourself, do it humorously or philosophically--think about the other side when you do so :P ].
You've got a goal--set it and reach it. Being more purposeful is also in how you think about yourself/your goals.
It's like investing in yourself! :D

And when I say 'comparisons', I also mean the common idea of 'This is bloody frickin' hard :I'. Those seem to be comparisons too.
But Hard/Easy come off more like...difficulty levels. Take it as an analogy, or in the least literal sense, a guide on how much effort one has to generally expend. Reminds me of a scenario in philosophy: "How do you get to the other side of a hard brick wall."
> Climb it, using its hardness to support you. [Analogy of insight; taking strength from your trials]
> Go around it--the wall doesn't stretch forever [Analogy of multiple perspectives; you see the wall first but you look around]
[etc...There're also fun solutions of asking what definitely is 'hard' in this 'brick' "wall", but that's the silly part of approaching it :P ]

And a lot of other stuffs :< I only have what you've got in the OP to work on. But there are a lot of ways to be and become more purposeful.
It won't help you if you demean yourself or set your own level to the degree of common expectations and then demean yourself if you fail. Everyone is running this race of life wherein they themselves matter, but they run alongside everyone else instead of competing against everyone else.

I suggest checking how you think about what may be your problems or difficulties. :) It helped me a lot because I discovered that how I approached them before is mostly different from how I answered them and reached my goals--many of the differences, however, were subtle changes in my approach. [Ie "Learn English?" "You speak Tagalog first!" :I Well I learn the rules and copy from novels and read how others do it! Textbooks helped! But practice {live fire drills field testing} helps too!]
Subtle changes as in...a lot of influencing factors. But how I thought was one of the primary influences.
A positive attitude also helps here. :D
And by positive attitude--it is one that already expects failure, but also sees a lot of ways on how to get moving with it despite being with and experiencing it.

PS: The language examples are direct translations :P So the silliness is in the grammar.

E: I use a ton of smilies. ...Please excuse the moderate use of yellow faces here. :-\
« Last Edit: August 02, 2015, 04:30:45 am by Tiruin »
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