Ali Abdaal is a Junior Doctor at Cambridge, and is a well known and successful YouTuber. I came across his work a couple of year sago, when I was interested in learning about learning. Among Ali's many achievements is the fact that he was a topper at Cambridge, and he has a lot of content on his YouTube Channel on prepping for medical entrance exams, but also for learning in general.
A video of his that I recently watched talks about 15 Lessons that improved his life. Among the lessons he mentioned were 3 that resonated with me, and I think are important for anyone embarking on a project or endeavour that has a long runway - that is, it is something that takes lots of time to show results. This spoke to me because I am currently finding it a bit difficult to give my all to starting a new YouTube Channel where I am essentially starting with zero content, zero views and zero subscribers. I can see that it will be a very long and testing period before I get to see any traction here, so these ideas give me some succour.
The first idea that really resonated to me was concept of The Flywheel. This is from Jim Collin's book Good to Great, which I first read when I was studying for my MBA at NUS (~2003/4). The idea here is that getting anything important started is difficult - there is a lot of friction (or more accurately inertia) to overcome. However, once the flywheel is in motion, the same inertia actually makes it easy to keep going. In practical, or business terms, which was Collin's intent, it is easy for organisations that are doing all the right things and getting the results to keep getting good results - so good companies will find it easier to get better. However to get to that point, one has to invest significant effort and exercise discipline and patience.
The second idea is the idea of mastering the boring fundamentals. This idea comes from James Stuber, whose work I am only slightly familiar with. What this says is that the most important principles that are essential for success in life and in any professional domain are difficult to follow - not because they are conceptually difficult to grasp, but because they are fairly straight forward and obvious and repetitive and hence boring! People know what needs to be done, but fail to do it because it is not glamorous or exciting enough.
The third idea, also from Stuber is of the two types of fun - Type 1 and Type 2. Type 1 fun is pure fun, almost hedonistic pleasure, providing instant gratification. Type 2 fun on the other hand is anything but fun in the short term, and only provides a sense of satisfaction looking back. Given this choice, it is natural for us as pleasure seeking animals, to value Type 1 fun, more than Type 2 fun. However, the pleasure from Type 1 fun is mostly fleeting, while the satisfaction we get from Type 2 fun is more sustained.
In my context this means, I should proceed with the mindset that while success will eventually come, I should not expect anything for a really long time. I should be prepared to invest significant time in mastering the fundamentals, knowing well that I will have to fight my fascination for shiny new objects. And I should not let the absence of immediate feedback (and validation) prevent me from persisting with something that I know will give me great satisfaction, probably after several months or even years, of having created an asset that I am really proud of.
How do you manage your motivation when embarking on a long term project?