Define Your Expectations
“The number one thing you have to do before you set out on any other goal or any other course is to define your expectations.”
During the past months (or rather years) I experienced that being constantly motivated is more difficult than I ever expected. In the world-wide-web you see so many cool designers with even more stunning side projects. I’m talking about successful blogs, cool code- snippets or a new framework, generally speaking: things other people benefit of.
Personally, I really like to share the things I’ve created, receive feedback and get in touch with other people. Consequently, under the influence of all the cool people and projects out there, I began creating my own side projects and putting them out there. As soon as I hit the publish button in Wordpress or upload in my FTP client I sat down and started thinking: “Oh yes people, I see you coming, I hope my site doesn’t crash” and as you may expect, nearly zero traffic - nobody cares. Such experiences are anything but motivating.
Recently I remembered a little video series by John Mayer at the Berklee College of Music I watched on youtube. He talks about all stuff creative and art related (he also plays some of his songs which are really awesome, old stuff as well as some unfinished tracks). He said the following sentence which really changed my approach to stay motivated:
“The number one thing you have to do before you set out on any other goal or any other course is to define your expectations.”
Just think about it. I published my stuff with no concrete expectation other than “being the next super viral hit”. With a chance of 99% my post won’t live up to that. And that’s a heavy motivation killer!
Not living up to your expectations kills motivation. Adjust your expectations and start getting better!
Regarding the things John said in the whole session I developed the following routine to stay constantly motivated:
1. Define when (at which point) you ‘made it’! (How do you know, if you don’t?)
2. Define what your expectations are, so you can easily judge whether you were successful or not!
3. Start with goals you’re able to achieve, be (at least a bit) realistic (the one hit wonder viral is possible but not realistic)
(Maybe your goals have to be very, very small e.g. - thats true for me - 1 to 10 people love it and care about it. It really helped me a lot to change my mindset that way. Taking small steps but being sophisticated is a stunning motivation booster)
I do that before I release something, show something to peers or hold a talk. And guess what? I’m releasing more and more small projects I’m passionate about whilst achieving the small goals I defined beforehand.
To wrap this up I’ve got a little example for you: This is my first article at medium and I already defined what my expectations are: I’m more than happy if some of my friends read it and we may talk about it afterwards. If someone else reads this article and benefits of doing so (and if it’s just a tiny bit) that would be more than awesome. With this in mind I hope you enjoyed my little observation! Happy creating!
If you would like to get in touch: @thsbrk
