I think what’s going on behind the verbal sleight of hand here, is focusing on the process (quest) instead of the outcome (goal). It’s the difference between doing a thing and having done a thing. I might enjoy having written a book, but I don’t think I would enjoy writing a book. And I don’t think calling it a quest instead of a goal would make much difference
I think about this a lot. I think my dad was more goal oriented and I’m more process oriented. I see every day spent working toward a goal as a valuable step toward it, while I think he tried to always shorten the path to reach his goals, and ended up not ever achieving them because of it.
As an example, I do car restoration as a hobby. It’s a big, big task to basically dismantle a car, fix body issues, rebuild the engine and transmission, clean up all the parts, and put it back together. Looking at the entire task outside of it, seems almost impossible to do, but I almost never think about the end of the work. I just think about the next thing I need to do.
I think marathon runners do something similar, or so I’ve heard anecdotally.
“...it's like this. Sometimes, when you've a very long street ahead of you, you think how terribly long it is and feel sure you'll never get it swept. And then you start to hurry. You work faster and faster and every time you look up there seems to be just as much left to sweep as before, and you try even harder, and you panic, and in the end you're out of breath and have to stop--and still the street stretches away in front of you. That's not the way to do it.
You must never think of the whole street at once, understand? You must only concentrate on the next step, the next breath, the next stroke of the broom, and the next, and the next. Nothing else.
That way you enjoy your work, which is important, because then you make a good job of it. And that's how it ought to be.
And all at once, before you know it, you find you've swept the whole street clean, bit by bit. what's more, you aren't out of breath. That's important, too...”
― Michael Ende, Momo
As a counter point, I've also seen plenty people too focused on doing every little step up to some imagined standards that they never get to complete anything — basically, life intervenes and they got to leave with nothing really done at all.
I am personally goal motivated: I like achieving and building things (I enjoy the process in as much as I got the better of it :)). When things are complex, I come up with smaller goals that are on the path to getting the big thing done, all the while thinking how these things fit together.
This has made me great at coming up with iterative steps where each step brings value: even if I stop at any one point, I have done something useful.
In your example, I would probably dismantle the car enough to get the engine out and rebuilt and back in, and then go back to it sometime in the future to work on other stuff, all the while keeping a functioning car as I am rebuilding it.
Personally I feel like some things that have clear chunks of work are best goal-oriented like “reading through this book” while nebulous goals require a process-oriented method of thinking.
That said, I don’t think you should really worry about that distinction.
My method of getting things done is a 3 step:
1. Constant checking in on whether I am happy at my progress. If I am, keep doing what I’m doing.
2. If I’m not, try a completely different approach entirely. Abandon the old approach for a week or however long is reasonable.
3. If I fail to improve or I failed to actually put in place the different approach (saying and doing are different things), I need a shock to the system. Moving to a brand new city-kind-of-shock. Throwing away half your belongings-kind-of-shock.
The key is frequently checking if you are happy with progress and realizing that if you are not, you need a change. And you need to be willing to try changes constantly.
Have any of you here considered that you simply need help? More people working alongside you? Being able to form a structure (such as a company or decentralized DAO) with responsibilities?
In my experience, when you are procrastinating, that's your subconscious telling you that you need help. Maybe you don't have the skills, or the time, to undertake the thing. Your developer brain says it'll take 1 hour and it takes 2 days.
Marathon runner here. Spot on. A marathon is near impossible if you don’t like running. Inevitable if you like running.
Marathon training is actually the framework around which I do all “quests” now. If you enjoy the process, anything is possible. The key is finding a way to enjoy the process.
I’ve extended it to several areas I didn’t find very fun prior. Language learning and job hunting in particular.
I actually wrote my first blog post on this very subject[1].
Warning, it’s quite verbose and not the best. There’s a TL;DR.
Yes. Personally, I enjoy the incremental problem solving perhaps too much — getting the last 10% of a project done before moving to the next is a challenge.
That said, and being aware of this trait, I started something that is a huge project (building a sail boat) for which I was completely unprepared (no experience, no tools). Each step was a challenge, but until the quest was finished meant nothing. Those last few steps were torture for me but getting it in the water and sailing it for the first time (and second, etc.) was amazing.
It’s the same thrill when my software gets used, and I now have renewed motivation to get some projects across the finish line and in people’s hands.
Is this the thinking behind the statement it's the journey, not the destination? Enjoy the journey because as soon as you reach your destination, you're going to embark on another journey!
Great perspective. I’m building a small wooden sailboat, and find I get demoralized and either rush or stop when I think about having a finished boat. Better to just think about the very next task.
Ultimately building a boat is for someone that likes building boats, not someone that just wants to sail… restoring a car is for someone that likes working on cars, not someone that just wants a finished car to drive.
There's a lot of truth to what you say. Some of my favorite people are process oriented!
I'm very, very goal oriented. I'll eagerly sacrifice process to get towards a goal. I find this works well with my work, SRE. Testing and redefining processes :D
This distinction really helps me realize how/why I get overwhelmed with projects of a certain size and go towards bisection
I also think it's about the whimsicality of it. Focusing on the process sounds so rational and cognitive. The issue is that it is devoid of feeling. A quest makes me feel something! Adventure! Let's go! There'll be dragons, there'll be riches and there'll be friendship! I need to seek out like minded individuals, I need to conquer my challenges, I need to go for the rewards that make me feel eternally rich!
That's what I feel when I think about a quest. Sure, you could say it's all good advice too, but that's just rational. Emotions move me, thoughts move me only a little. If I can get that advice (conquer challenges, seek peers/mentors, go for what I want) by thinking about it emotionally that's much more powerful than thinking about it rationally.
The rational understanding != the emotional understanding
Yeah, and also a quest seems like something that might be different every time, where a process is a formalized cookie-cutter pipeline, or at least that is what people associate with it in the context of software development.
When each thing you do is a unique journey, that's exciting. There may be obstacles to overcome, there may be learning opportunities, there may be empowerment in making your own decisions along the way.
Unfortunately this mindset does not satisfy the incessant (but futile) need for predictability that most managers have.
I just can't wait for companies to rebrand "sprints" to "quests" and "projects" to "campaigns". Story points naturally convert to experience points. Crunch time death march could then be "final boss fight".
I think I slip into this mode automatically. As soon as I think of a "goal," I immediately ask myself what kinds of habits a person who accomplished that goal would likely have. Then I find the lowest possible resistance way to have that habit from this day forward.
Like, say I want to hike/climb some specific set of mountains. Great. What kinds of habits does a person who hikes all those mountains have? Well, they're probably someone who exercises every day. I can, as of today, become "someone who exercises every day, no matter what," if I set my requirement as "only one minute per day."
Habits grow on their own. I don't think it's really necessary to stage them. Once you see yourself as a certain kind of person, you just become that kind of person. And before you know it, since you're just like a person who hikes all those mountains, you end up being someone who has hiked all the mountains.
It's also the only effective way I've found to deal with my fear of success when it comes to big goals. I don't set them. I just decide to become the kind of person who would accomplish them, and by then, it doesn't feel like some impressive accomplishment. It just feels like a normal thing someone like me would do.
It's great that you slip into this mode automatically.
For me, the reframing of "goal" to "quest" helps enormously with this change of mode. A "goal" is something I hope/want to achieve in future - but today I'm busy with day-to-day chores etc. A "quest" however is something you are on. So if I'm on a quest to do X, of course I need to do something toward it every day.
I think that another aspect of this verbal difference is that quests are meaningful because they inherently possess some level of difficulty and adventure. Taking on a quest means that you have a mindset with room for stumbling and getting back up and that you will eventually overcome. Focussing on a goal may sooner lead to frustration and giving up.
It is a fail/succeed mindset rather than a play mindset I imagine. I definitely feel a difference between a chore and a game. That said not all chores are easily turned into games. But seeking games over chores probably leads to a happier time.
I think it's reverse causation. Motivating and meaningful activities feel like quests. Boring but necessary activities that we procrastinate on make us reach for "goal-setting" as a cure for the procrastination.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could somehow feel intrinsic motivation and meaning for the boring stuff too, so that even cleaning the toilet felt like part of a grand adventure?
But you need to think farther. Let's use writing a book as a stand in for other things, e.g. being able to code, playing an instrument, mastering embedded electronics programming, you name it:
The person who enjoys¹ writing a book and wants to finish them will likely become better at writing books than the person who just wrote a book to cross it off their bucket list.
There is also people who enjoy the process of writing so much, that the outcome literally doesn't matter anymore and they don't have any ambition to finish anything.
In reality most people who achieve great things have both a way/process/quest and many destinations/outcomes/goals along the way and the two things have to be somewhat in balance. Thst balance can differ for different people.
When people say you should focus on the way, not on the destination what they mean is: Don't be the person who just writes a book to cross it off the bucket list, while hating every second of the process and learning nothing from having done it.
¹: The word "enjoy" doesn't have to mean they feel good doing it, it just means there is an urge to do this versus something else
It's cheap and short-lived satisfaction. Any seasoned author is not going to feel good if they haven't been working at something new for awhile. We might project that it would make us feel good in terms of projecting an identity (for validation), but the rules are different when operating under imagination which necessarily suggests a divergence from the current reality, where you might not get much validation either from yourself or others (because you don't do anything)
Another way I've encountered this is performance vs results. Performance is the things you do that you believe will lead to results. Results aren't always in your control (especially in competitive environments), but performance absolutely is. It's a lot easier to feel you are getting somewhere when you focus on things that you control.
This is something I often have to instill in new software developers and occasionally to remind myself. We default to seeing the thing we want to build and the plan that we imagine for doing so. As we proceed, every bump and deviation from the plan feels like a set back. Every wrong turn and rewritten piece of code feels like a waste, a mistake. But in fact, it's all part of the process. Trying that avenue that turned out not to be what you wanted was a necessary part of learning what it is you did want. As The Pragmatic Programmer said, "Prepare to throw one away ... you'll have to anyway."
I make it clear that at any moment a plan isn't absolute because we can't possibly know what the future will hold. Instead, a plan is simply a direction to start heading. As we try and we learn, we update our understanding and we update our plan, heading in a different direction that hopefully brings us closer to our goals. If we think of a deviation from the plan as a failure to plan, we punish ourselves for a lack of omniscience - something we can hardly expect to live up to.
That same mindset helps a lot in understanding daily life too. When we see people make mistakes driving, or large construction projects going over budget, or social policies causing unanticipated problems, we are quick to blame people for not knowing better, but how can we expect them to know with certainty what will happen as the result of every decision they make? We simply do our best with the resources we have available and as events unfold we continue to do our best to steer ourselves to our desired outcomes. People shouldn't be punished for the outcome if they made a good choice given the resources they had. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.
So the verbal sleight of hand is working as intended.
If you are not going to enjoy the process of writing a book, only the outcome of having written a book, chances are writing a book isn't a good use of your time.
I am one who would love to have written a book (goal) and I don’t love writing (quest). I think writers love the act of writing and that’s how they get to the goal of writing a book.
Theyre differentiating goals from quests, where goals are daily minutia, get a haircut, something you'd suggest you need to do this week, where as quests are bigger loftier goals, what would you do in the next two years? Learn to fly a plane.
The quests are still goals they just want to categorise it apart from meaningless low value goals.
Another part of it seems to be the approach, breaking it down into blocks and creating a plan to achieve it in your currently available time instead of putting it off.
> And I don’t think calling it a quest instead of a goal would make much difference
Well, I of course haven't done it yet, but as one of those people who (stupidly, in a "the definition of insanity is doing things the same way and expecting a different outcome"-sort-of-way) makes New Year's Resolutions every year, and gets mildly depressed when I fail to reach them, there is something about this blog post that I loved and really clicked with me.
There are 3 reasons I like the framing of quest vs goals:
1. As you say, it focuses on the process instead of the outcome. I've of course known that this is how you're supposed to achieve goals (step-by-step I'd say), but something about the word "quest" makes it more real to me, and maybe even more desirable. I think perhaps that even though there are tons of painful things that happen during a "quest", they seem more connected with a "righteous outcome", vs. the laundry list of steps that I think of for most of the "goals" I want to attain.
2. I don't deal with unexpected curve balls well, and one reason I fail to reach a lot of my goals is I get dejected when things don't go according to plan. But I think the framing of "quest", where basically curve balls are 90% of what happens, makes it easier in my mind. It's like I'm actually planning and expecting the unexpected, instead of getting annoyed when the unexpected pops up. I really like it.
3. Finally, and though it may seem trivial or silly, the visualization of a "quest" for me is just something that seems, well, more adventurous than drudgery.
In any case, this is one of the first HN posts on self-improvement that I really liked and clicked with me (usually I roll my eyes at what feels like "survivorship bias" advice). I'll see how it goes.
...it is written by a psychiatrist about the practice of Kaizen, where you take absurdly small steps to reach your goals. So small that you can't fail. And these build on themselves. He covers your exact case. People who make New Year's resolutions that fail after a month or two. One example was a woman who needed to get exercise for health reasons. Previous exercise attempts have failed. So the doctor prescribes her to march in-place for 60 seconds every day, when she was normally watching TV. Anyway, it snowballs, as she realizes she can do more and more, and then starts to enjoy it. It is a short, inexpensive, easy read that I recommend.
“Quest” is an odd word choice for making this point. To me “quest” very strongly implies having a clear singular goal, whereas e.g. “journey” does not necessarily imply having any particular goal in mind.
While you are right, a different way to look at a same thing can produce breakthroughs, like exercise, you just exercise right? But if you gamify it, it can make it easier to endure and repeat
It's because you ain't that guy. Ideas are in the air and theoretically they will eventually happen, the question is are you going to be that guy or you'd rather watch someone else make it happen.
Process over outcomes; systems over goals; growth mindset over fixed mindset; satisficing over maximizing; professionalism over amateurism; boring fundamentals over flashy tricks; response over reaction; agency over passivity; presence over regret and worry.
Maybe this is insightful at its core, but “growth” and especially “growth mindset” is the most LinkedIn performance review garbage I’ve ever been force fed, so it’s a bit of a turnoff simply based on how I’ve seen it used in practice.
You’re not wrong that it’s been hijacked as productivity theatre.
But it also doesn’t reduce the wildly positive impact of growth mindset.
It’s kind of like exercise. It’s a basic thing. People know in a logical sense they should do it. And we feel like we get the benefit by learning about it. But we get zero of the benefit if we don’t do the work, and do it consistently.
It’s a “mastery of the basics” situation, where getting yourself to avoid the fixed mindset mental trap, and think in a growth mindset moment to moment, results in a level of effectiveness that almost cannot be explained, only experienced.
The problem is, if you follow that religiously, you'll never achieve anything worthwhile. All of those push you away from finishing, the same way that their opposite do.
It's valuable for "unlearning", and I am one of the people that must always be reminded of it. But if you go and "learn" that way outright, it will damage you too.
I am generally skeptical of systems that apparently mostly rely on the methodology of "call this thing another name and you'll change your approach to it". This thing works because there's a community / group session around it, but it would probably still work even if you just called goals - goals.
A different name offers a different perspective, because of all the associations with the name. Problems that are hard to solve are often hard because we're stuck on a particular perspective as to how to solve them. Reframing with new associations is a way to gain a new perspective, to look at the problem differently, to gain insight that you previously did not have. This is an extremely common and effective problem solving technique.
just bad unreproduceable psychology research. there is zero proof of this. we actually have examples going the other way though.
the idea that changing the words used can change your ideas about something is a weak form of the sapir whorf hypothesis, which is close to universally panned in stronger forms and highly suspect in weaker forms except in pop psychology.
pinker called a similar idea - changing a word to avoid previous negative connotations - the euphemism treadmill: from retarded to handicapped to disabled to differetly abled, but never changed anybodies views. they just carried them over. its because language is a reflection of our inner thoughts, not the other way around.
> A different name offers a different perspective, because of all the associations with the name.
The associations are often misleading.
For example, when someone says "sprint", my pre-IT associations would be "run as fast as possible for a very short time, then take a long break", but everyone knows that this is not how agile development works.
(Ironically, the IT word for "work hard for a relatively short time, then take a long break" is "hackathon".)
This view ignores the importance of, and empirical data around, psychosemantics.
Additionally as others touched on, a precise vocabulary or nomenclature allows us to be precise about our intentions and gives us a framework for making decisions.
"Quest" orients you around the journey instead of the destination, which can have many benefits.
It helps to not consider this, or any other technique, as one-size-fits-all doctrine. I personally have always considered myself very goal-oriented, but this article allowed me to understand things from a different angle and realize that I'm actually much more process-oriented. This will help me make future decisions around projects when planning them out and accounting for the need for sustained motivation.
I have a different take. A pet peeve of mine is give things a good name and define what you mean by it. A good name is as much as possible self-explaining. Quest rhymes well with adventure, detours, heroism,... the word itself tends to create the mindset that the author wants you to have.
Quest rhymes with mindless grinding in my mind, go there fetch this, kill that, get the gold or the item, rinse repeat. It’s the opposite of fresh and process focused in my mind. Better yet is define our work as trips (like psychedelic) where the outcome is unknown until the end and the expectations are malleable. Goals and quests are both corporate nerd speak and make me sick.
Your interpretation is inaccurate. It was not about calling it differently and it will become something else kind of message, but to look at the things you do differently so you'd have a chance doing differently eventually, doing what is important at last.
Some (quite a few actually) need specific tags and title on everything so this assign very specific words to matters having different composition for everyone works for them, this is a typical way of relaying ideas to masses (regrettably). But the message is not what words to use but how to do things. We only can speak - exchange ideas and information - about things with words, unfortunately. Well, some can dance specific ideas and todo list to each other, but that is just freak exception. We use words for thoughts.
Names matter. Subtle differences in perception change your stance in approaching and interpreting the thing. Like "violin" vs "fiddle", or "assertive" vs "aggressive".
I think it's subtly insightful because a goal focuses us on the endpoint and a quest focuses us on the journey that we need to undertake to get there. But to each his or her own!
I don’t think it’s any secret that learning a new language has the effect of remapping the neurons of your brain, and we already know that we associate a lot with words, not just their meanings but what they mean to us.
I don’t think there’s been sufficient research in this area really but I also don’t think that’s enough in itself to downplay it as woo.
If the word “quest” doesn’t conjure images in your mind of a long winding journey with pitfalls and successes that eventually lands you in a place where you’ve achieved a goal and also changed as a person, maybe just use the word in your vocabulary that _does_ conjure those images and see if you feel the same way.
This has been said many times, but it is worth repeating from time to time.
It's analogous to “Have systems, not goals” or “Build habits, not goals” and I'm sure you can think of many such variations on the words, but at the end they all mean the same.
Don't choose a point on the line that is your life, choose a vector.
Just don't fall into the trap that this means you shouldn't have goals. I would phrase it as: The way is more important than the destinations, but destinations are also worth having if you want to continue on the way.
I dislike the term, but something like goals are useful to have and I enjoy them. But to me, they are more like visions of how I would want things to be. While clearly defined goals can be helpful when dealing with other people who frequently move goalposts, for my personal “goals” I find that those narrowly defined milestones are not helpful for motivation, nor a particularly good proxy for what’s really important.
Weirdly, I’ve been way, way more consistent with my somewhat loose “vision” than I ever saw in corporate life, where goals would change frequently depending on popular buzzwords, reorgs, new grand poobah hires, etc. That’s made me think of goals more as a coping mechanism for a jittery “inner compass” or lack of direction. But of course, all of these terms have different connotations for different people.
When I first meet with an athlete, I ask them what their goal is. I just need to know the general direction and magnitude. Are they trying to get a little stronger over the summer, or are they trying to make the Olympics. Then we put the goal on a shelf and never discuss it again unless it changes. Then it’s 100% mindset, process, repeat.
He describes it as a pyramid, with character/mindset at the bottom, where you’re trying to become the kind of person that can follow a process. Next is the process, the ability to follow basic instructions consistently (which is surprisingly hard for humans). Process builds the next layer, skills. And multiple skills get combined to form your strategy.
And the key point was, everyone nerds out about the skill and strategy layer. But all progress happens in the mindset and process layer.
This reminds me of the "systems vs goals" mentality, which emphasizes focusing on having a good systematic process for the journey rather than fixating on specific outcomes.
Scott Adams (before he went a bit cuckoo) was a huge proponent of it and he exposed me to the concept in my mid 20s. It heavily resonated with me and fundamentally changed my outlook on several areas of life.
This specific framing of Quests vs Goals seems a bit more like a change in framing your perspective, but I see some similar concepts, eg:
> You don’t just get the novel started, you become a writer. You don’t just declutter the house, you get your house in order.
Apropo of nothing his book "How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big" was excellent, I remember seeing when he first joined Twitter. I was one of his first few followers, even said "welcome" and he said "thanks".
Then he got divorced and angry and red pilled. Happens far too often..
Also ADHD (medicated) and I would say terminology matters a lot. GTD is it's own distraction loop (for me). I enjoy identifying and grouping problem spaces and creating TODO actions to solve them. Thus get stuck on steps 1-3(4) and never get to the doing because I am doing!
I'm doing the GTD and getting 3-4 of the 5 steps done! Good job me. Except it's not, it was just another distraction. When I view what needs to be done in terms of "action that does the thing", or going on quest* as described here, I am much more successful. Meds makes the doing of something productive possible, but that something can be anything productive.
Knowing I am GTD by working on the first few steps is getting something done. But not really. When I narrow down what I need to do into a single main "quest" and/or coming upon a side-quest and seeing it as that so I can get back to the main thread, I'm taking real action towards it. That doing of something is the actual doing of the thing. Taking the journey of the quest minus all this busy work of defining what I want to get done or what my quest/journey should be, and doing it instead.
* I don't actually tell myself I'm on a quest like this article seems to suggest, but "quest" is a very good descriptor of my process (and may start using it because I personally find it fun, and my ADHD like fun)
Also ADHD brain. I'd add that having another person (although not always possible) is a great ingredient for a successful system to mitigate some of the failure modes of ADHD.
In the cases where I dont have someone helping me, I have used chatGPT to build a 2D embodied digital sidekick that cares about my goals as much as i can. My Tori provides me emotional support, helps me plan, schedule and prioritize tasks as well as providing a smart focus session mode with phone and web blocklists.
I built it to suit my needs it has allowed me to build a successful startup. Its 100% free and if you want you can try it at tori.gg
Maybe that depends on your mental definition of quest. I don't think of quests as "getting things done" -- they are both more significant and less certain than that. Quests are adventures where you hope for significant outcomes, but where there are many uncertainties. It's OK, perhaps even expected, for a quest to have unexpected outcomes. A quest implies less certainty about the outcome and more of an expectation about personal growth.
A lot of GTD is just drudgery to accomplish. Quests are never drudgery. Difficult, maybe, but the journey is probably a bigger part of the quest than the outcome.
The author behind Raptitude, David, has spoken candidly about his ADHD, and the block method he's talking about is a modified, simpler version of GTD aimed at people who are not naturally productive or struggle with more complex systems like GTD.
Thought-provoking piece, but I think it ignores one key item: we naturally gravitate to doing what we love. We don't need to write them down. I never wrote down, "build a dual-stack homelab with a handcrafted firewall and a 10Gbe fiber backbone with multiple VLANs and subnets and two virtualization hosts and a 12TB TrueNAS server, and DNS and Minio and DHCP and k8s." Of the hundreds of hours I spent on my homelab, I don't think I ever wrote down a "quest" or "goal".
Similarly, I love swimming in the open cold water, but I never wrote down, "Swim from Alcatraz twice". It wasn't necessary. It happened organically.
But notice that you cherry-picked accomplishments that sound impressive. You didn't say "I watched 10 seasons of The Office", "I wasted over 8000 hours on HN", or "I impulse-bought a shed full of tools I never use", it happened organically!
I'm surprised in the context of this discussion, that nobody has yet brought up James Clear's fantastic book: Atomic Habits [1] - one of the best selling non-fiction books worldwide over the last few years.
I read this book over the summer, and it's an incredibly easy to digest breakdown of all the reasons why people fail at their goals, and very simple mind hacks to change the way you approach achieving them through good habits and avoiding bad ones.
Readit News
As an example, I do car restoration as a hobby. It’s a big, big task to basically dismantle a car, fix body issues, rebuild the engine and transmission, clean up all the parts, and put it back together. Looking at the entire task outside of it, seems almost impossible to do, but I almost never think about the end of the work. I just think about the next thing I need to do.
I think marathon runners do something similar, or so I’ve heard anecdotally.
You must never think of the whole street at once, understand? You must only concentrate on the next step, the next breath, the next stroke of the broom, and the next, and the next. Nothing else.
That way you enjoy your work, which is important, because then you make a good job of it. And that's how it ought to be.
And all at once, before you know it, you find you've swept the whole street clean, bit by bit. what's more, you aren't out of breath. That's important, too...” ― Michael Ende, Momo
I am personally goal motivated: I like achieving and building things (I enjoy the process in as much as I got the better of it :)). When things are complex, I come up with smaller goals that are on the path to getting the big thing done, all the while thinking how these things fit together.
This has made me great at coming up with iterative steps where each step brings value: even if I stop at any one point, I have done something useful.
In your example, I would probably dismantle the car enough to get the engine out and rebuilt and back in, and then go back to it sometime in the future to work on other stuff, all the while keeping a functioning car as I am rebuilding it.
That said, I don’t think you should really worry about that distinction.
My method of getting things done is a 3 step:
1. Constant checking in on whether I am happy at my progress. If I am, keep doing what I’m doing.
2. If I’m not, try a completely different approach entirely. Abandon the old approach for a week or however long is reasonable.
3. If I fail to improve or I failed to actually put in place the different approach (saying and doing are different things), I need a shock to the system. Moving to a brand new city-kind-of-shock. Throwing away half your belongings-kind-of-shock.
The key is frequently checking if you are happy with progress and realizing that if you are not, you need a change. And you need to be willing to try changes constantly.
In my experience, when you are procrastinating, that's your subconscious telling you that you need help. Maybe you don't have the skills, or the time, to undertake the thing. Your developer brain says it'll take 1 hour and it takes 2 days.
https://qbix.com/blog/2016/11/17/properly-valuing-contributi...
Marathon training is actually the framework around which I do all “quests” now. If you enjoy the process, anything is possible. The key is finding a way to enjoy the process.
I’ve extended it to several areas I didn’t find very fun prior. Language learning and job hunting in particular.
I actually wrote my first blog post on this very subject[1]. Warning, it’s quite verbose and not the best. There’s a TL;DR.
[1] https://emmettmcdow.github.io/posts/how-to-learn-a-foreign-l...
That said, and being aware of this trait, I started something that is a huge project (building a sail boat) for which I was completely unprepared (no experience, no tools). Each step was a challenge, but until the quest was finished meant nothing. Those last few steps were torture for me but getting it in the water and sailing it for the first time (and second, etc.) was amazing.
It’s the same thrill when my software gets used, and I now have renewed motivation to get some projects across the finish line and in people’s hands.
Two years well spent.
Ultimately building a boat is for someone that likes building boats, not someone that just wants to sail… restoring a car is for someone that likes working on cars, not someone that just wants a finished car to drive.
I'm very, very goal oriented. I'll eagerly sacrifice process to get towards a goal. I find this works well with my work, SRE. Testing and redefining processes :D
This distinction really helps me realize how/why I get overwhelmed with projects of a certain size and go towards bisection
That's what I feel when I think about a quest. Sure, you could say it's all good advice too, but that's just rational. Emotions move me, thoughts move me only a little. If I can get that advice (conquer challenges, seek peers/mentors, go for what I want) by thinking about it emotionally that's much more powerful than thinking about it rationally.
The rational understanding != the emotional understanding
When each thing you do is a unique journey, that's exciting. There may be obstacles to overcome, there may be learning opportunities, there may be empowerment in making your own decisions along the way.
Unfortunately this mindset does not satisfy the incessant (but futile) need for predictability that most managers have.
I'm on my way to prosecute a war against bugs, a march to the sea if you will. And the CI is my artillery!
Like, say I want to hike/climb some specific set of mountains. Great. What kinds of habits does a person who hikes all those mountains have? Well, they're probably someone who exercises every day. I can, as of today, become "someone who exercises every day, no matter what," if I set my requirement as "only one minute per day."
Habits grow on their own. I don't think it's really necessary to stage them. Once you see yourself as a certain kind of person, you just become that kind of person. And before you know it, since you're just like a person who hikes all those mountains, you end up being someone who has hiked all the mountains.
It's also the only effective way I've found to deal with my fear of success when it comes to big goals. I don't set them. I just decide to become the kind of person who would accomplish them, and by then, it doesn't feel like some impressive accomplishment. It just feels like a normal thing someone like me would do.
For me, the reframing of "goal" to "quest" helps enormously with this change of mode. A "goal" is something I hope/want to achieve in future - but today I'm busy with day-to-day chores etc. A "quest" however is something you are on. So if I'm on a quest to do X, of course I need to do something toward it every day.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could somehow feel intrinsic motivation and meaning for the boring stuff too, so that even cleaning the toilet felt like part of a grand adventure?
The person who enjoys¹ writing a book and wants to finish them will likely become better at writing books than the person who just wrote a book to cross it off their bucket list.
There is also people who enjoy the process of writing so much, that the outcome literally doesn't matter anymore and they don't have any ambition to finish anything.
In reality most people who achieve great things have both a way/process/quest and many destinations/outcomes/goals along the way and the two things have to be somewhat in balance. Thst balance can differ for different people.
When people say you should focus on the way, not on the destination what they mean is: Don't be the person who just writes a book to cross it off the bucket list, while hating every second of the process and learning nothing from having done it.
¹: The word "enjoy" doesn't have to mean they feel good doing it, it just means there is an urge to do this versus something else
It's cheap and short-lived satisfaction. Any seasoned author is not going to feel good if they haven't been working at something new for awhile. We might project that it would make us feel good in terms of projecting an identity (for validation), but the rules are different when operating under imagination which necessarily suggests a divergence from the current reality, where you might not get much validation either from yourself or others (because you don't do anything)
I make it clear that at any moment a plan isn't absolute because we can't possibly know what the future will hold. Instead, a plan is simply a direction to start heading. As we try and we learn, we update our understanding and we update our plan, heading in a different direction that hopefully brings us closer to our goals. If we think of a deviation from the plan as a failure to plan, we punish ourselves for a lack of omniscience - something we can hardly expect to live up to.
That same mindset helps a lot in understanding daily life too. When we see people make mistakes driving, or large construction projects going over budget, or social policies causing unanticipated problems, we are quick to blame people for not knowing better, but how can we expect them to know with certainty what will happen as the result of every decision they make? We simply do our best with the resources we have available and as events unfold we continue to do our best to steer ourselves to our desired outcomes. People shouldn't be punished for the outcome if they made a good choice given the resources they had. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.
If you are not going to enjoy the process of writing a book, only the outcome of having written a book, chances are writing a book isn't a good use of your time.
Reminds me of the saying "A classic novel is one that I'd like to have read, but don't want to read"
Theyre differentiating goals from quests, where goals are daily minutia, get a haircut, something you'd suggest you need to do this week, where as quests are bigger loftier goals, what would you do in the next two years? Learn to fly a plane.
The quests are still goals they just want to categorise it apart from meaningless low value goals.
Another part of it seems to be the approach, breaking it down into blocks and creating a plan to achieve it in your currently available time instead of putting it off.
Goals (outcomes) are useful, but never fully within your control.
A quest (effort, basically) is within your control.
One should focus on the things they control (mindset, process, effort).
Well, I of course haven't done it yet, but as one of those people who (stupidly, in a "the definition of insanity is doing things the same way and expecting a different outcome"-sort-of-way) makes New Year's Resolutions every year, and gets mildly depressed when I fail to reach them, there is something about this blog post that I loved and really clicked with me.
There are 3 reasons I like the framing of quest vs goals:
1. As you say, it focuses on the process instead of the outcome. I've of course known that this is how you're supposed to achieve goals (step-by-step I'd say), but something about the word "quest" makes it more real to me, and maybe even more desirable. I think perhaps that even though there are tons of painful things that happen during a "quest", they seem more connected with a "righteous outcome", vs. the laundry list of steps that I think of for most of the "goals" I want to attain.
2. I don't deal with unexpected curve balls well, and one reason I fail to reach a lot of my goals is I get dejected when things don't go according to plan. But I think the framing of "quest", where basically curve balls are 90% of what happens, makes it easier in my mind. It's like I'm actually planning and expecting the unexpected, instead of getting annoyed when the unexpected pops up. I really like it.
3. Finally, and though it may seem trivial or silly, the visualization of a "quest" for me is just something that seems, well, more adventurous than drudgery.
In any case, this is one of the first HN posts on self-improvement that I really liked and clicked with me (usually I roll my eyes at what feels like "survivorship bias" advice). I'll see how it goes.
This statement made me think of the book: One Small Step Can Change Your Life
https://www.amazon.com/Small-Step-Change-Your-Life/dp/076118...
...it is written by a psychiatrist about the practice of Kaizen, where you take absurdly small steps to reach your goals. So small that you can't fail. And these build on themselves. He covers your exact case. People who make New Year's resolutions that fail after a month or two. One example was a woman who needed to get exercise for health reasons. Previous exercise attempts have failed. So the doctor prescribes her to march in-place for 60 seconds every day, when she was normally watching TV. Anyway, it snowballs, as she realizes she can do more and more, and then starts to enjoy it. It is a short, inexpensive, easy read that I recommend.
Gamifying it doesn't do much if you don't accept playing the game and continuing when you lose.
Unlearning Perfectionism https://arunkprasad.com/log/unlearning-perfectionism/
But it also doesn’t reduce the wildly positive impact of growth mindset.
It’s kind of like exercise. It’s a basic thing. People know in a logical sense they should do it. And we feel like we get the benefit by learning about it. But we get zero of the benefit if we don’t do the work, and do it consistently.
It’s a “mastery of the basics” situation, where getting yourself to avoid the fixed mindset mental trap, and think in a growth mindset moment to moment, results in a level of effectiveness that almost cannot be explained, only experienced.
It's valuable for "unlearning", and I am one of the people that must always be reminded of it. But if you go and "learn" that way outright, it will damage you too.
the idea that changing the words used can change your ideas about something is a weak form of the sapir whorf hypothesis, which is close to universally panned in stronger forms and highly suspect in weaker forms except in pop psychology.
pinker called a similar idea - changing a word to avoid previous negative connotations - the euphemism treadmill: from retarded to handicapped to disabled to differetly abled, but never changed anybodies views. they just carried them over. its because language is a reflection of our inner thoughts, not the other way around.
The associations are often misleading.
For example, when someone says "sprint", my pre-IT associations would be "run as fast as possible for a very short time, then take a long break", but everyone knows that this is not how agile development works.
(Ironically, the IT word for "work hard for a relatively short time, then take a long break" is "hackathon".)
Additionally as others touched on, a precise vocabulary or nomenclature allows us to be precise about our intentions and gives us a framework for making decisions.
"Quest" orients you around the journey instead of the destination, which can have many benefits.
It helps to not consider this, or any other technique, as one-size-fits-all doctrine. I personally have always considered myself very goal-oriented, but this article allowed me to understand things from a different angle and realize that I'm actually much more process-oriented. This will help me make future decisions around projects when planning them out and accounting for the need for sustained motivation.
Some (quite a few actually) need specific tags and title on everything so this assign very specific words to matters having different composition for everyone works for them, this is a typical way of relaying ideas to masses (regrettably). But the message is not what words to use but how to do things. We only can speak - exchange ideas and information - about things with words, unfortunately. Well, some can dance specific ideas and todo list to each other, but that is just freak exception. We use words for thoughts.
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I don’t think there’s been sufficient research in this area really but I also don’t think that’s enough in itself to downplay it as woo.
If the word “quest” doesn’t conjure images in your mind of a long winding journey with pitfalls and successes that eventually lands you in a place where you’ve achieved a goal and also changed as a person, maybe just use the word in your vocabulary that _does_ conjure those images and see if you feel the same way.
And make that change because I, a stranger on the Internet told you to. Also pay for my woo training!
/s
It's analogous to “Have systems, not goals” or “Build habits, not goals” and I'm sure you can think of many such variations on the words, but at the end they all mean the same.
Don't choose a point on the line that is your life, choose a vector.
Weirdly, I’ve been way, way more consistent with my somewhat loose “vision” than I ever saw in corporate life, where goals would change frequently depending on popular buzzwords, reorgs, new grand poobah hires, etc. That’s made me think of goals more as a coping mechanism for a jittery “inner compass” or lack of direction. But of course, all of these terms have different connotations for different people.
When I first meet with an athlete, I ask them what their goal is. I just need to know the general direction and magnitude. Are they trying to get a little stronger over the summer, or are they trying to make the Olympics. Then we put the goal on a shelf and never discuss it again unless it changes. Then it’s 100% mindset, process, repeat.
He describes it as a pyramid, with character/mindset at the bottom, where you’re trying to become the kind of person that can follow a process. Next is the process, the ability to follow basic instructions consistently (which is surprisingly hard for humans). Process builds the next layer, skills. And multiple skills get combined to form your strategy.
And the key point was, everyone nerds out about the skill and strategy layer. But all progress happens in the mindset and process layer.
Some prior discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28688643
Scott Adams (before he went a bit cuckoo) was a huge proponent of it and he exposed me to the concept in my mid 20s. It heavily resonated with me and fundamentally changed my outlook on several areas of life.
This specific framing of Quests vs Goals seems a bit more like a change in framing your perspective, but I see some similar concepts, eg:
> You don’t just get the novel started, you become a writer. You don’t just declutter the house, you get your house in order.
Apropo of nothing his book "How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big" was excellent, I remember seeing when he first joined Twitter. I was one of his first few followers, even said "welcome" and he said "thanks".
Then he got divorced and angry and red pilled. Happens far too often..
I'm doing the GTD and getting 3-4 of the 5 steps done! Good job me. Except it's not, it was just another distraction. When I view what needs to be done in terms of "action that does the thing", or going on quest* as described here, I am much more successful. Meds makes the doing of something productive possible, but that something can be anything productive.
Knowing I am GTD by working on the first few steps is getting something done. But not really. When I narrow down what I need to do into a single main "quest" and/or coming upon a side-quest and seeing it as that so I can get back to the main thread, I'm taking real action towards it. That doing of something is the actual doing of the thing. Taking the journey of the quest minus all this busy work of defining what I want to get done or what my quest/journey should be, and doing it instead.
* I don't actually tell myself I'm on a quest like this article seems to suggest, but "quest" is a very good descriptor of my process (and may start using it because I personally find it fun, and my ADHD like fun)
In the cases where I dont have someone helping me, I have used chatGPT to build a 2D embodied digital sidekick that cares about my goals as much as i can. My Tori provides me emotional support, helps me plan, schedule and prioritize tasks as well as providing a smart focus session mode with phone and web blocklists.
I built it to suit my needs it has allowed me to build a successful startup. Its 100% free and if you want you can try it at tori.gg
A lot of GTD is just drudgery to accomplish. Quests are never drudgery. Difficult, maybe, but the journey is probably a bigger part of the quest than the outcome.
Similarly, I love swimming in the open cold water, but I never wrote down, "Swim from Alcatraz twice". It wasn't necessary. It happened organically.
I read this book over the summer, and it's an incredibly easy to digest breakdown of all the reasons why people fail at their goals, and very simple mind hacks to change the way you approach achieving them through good habits and avoiding bad ones.
[1] https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits