Keep up the good work!!
Catherine
Words of Wisdom 4 U!

If you want more specifics on shareware marketing, check out my articles section at Dexterity.com. There’s an article on market research there, among other topics covered.

Well, I learned very hard in college. I learned so hard, that I didn’t have time to look around me and see what the job prospects are.

I graduated with honors… and then discovered that in my chosen field (which I discussed with my father before going to college) very few jobs are available, and most of them are very low pay, lots of work jobs, and with little chance of advancement.

Please note that I’m not in the USA - in USA the economy works better. In my country the economy is so and so.. and in my chosen field, things absolutely suck, I can’t get at a decent job.

So I had a HUGE disappointment. I busted my butt for 4 years in college, and it was all for nothing. For years after that I couldn’t work hard or set goals for myself because of the HUGE disappointment.

I’m writing you this because I know that some people around me have had similar experiences - maybe not with college, but with a job, with a spouse, with starting a business, etc.

Now, avoiding hard work and not setting goals is NOT normal. At least, it’s not normal for the kind of person I tried to be.

So, I struggled for years to wash off my disappointment, and to be able to work hard and set goals again. I am happy to report that I have succeeded.

How did I succeed?

1. One of the main factors is the fact that I read the “First Things First” book by Covey. I have read the book over a 6 months period. I used to read a little, and then think a lot about what I read. Now, in my opinion it is a BAD book, but is does have a very useful point: it keeps hammering in your head the fact that you must think and find out what is important to you personally.

After this 6 month of hard thinking experience I was changed. Finding out what was important to me was NOT easy, but it helped to improve my motivation a lot.

2. I started enjoying myself more, going to movies, parties, walks, etc. This washed away some of the stress.

3. Also, I started setting small and easy goals - goals for a week, etc. Achieving these easy goals helped me feel good about myself. So after a few months of this I had a general feeling of power.

4. I started being realistic about what I can accomplish and what I can’t accomplish. When writing my goals, I started to estimate how long each TO DO item would take, and discovered that what I thought could be accomplished in a week, in fact could take 1 month. After practicing this for about 1 month, I learned to set myself realistic goals which I could accomplish in the allocated time. This also changed my opinion on myself - instead of failing to accomplish my goals every week, I started succeeding.

So, my point is that if you want to cure disappointment states, you can, but it’s not instant – it took me about 2 years to get back to my former self. I think that because of this experience I’m a lot wiser than I was before it.

I have a few questions:

1- I know a lot of people who run successful businesses on the internet. but a time came when they were getting a LOT of emails all the time from potential customers, etc. But instead of working hard, staying at the computer 24/7 answering emails, they installed an autoresponder. Now they go out, have fun, and yet make more money than they used to when they were answering all email personally.

2- A friend of mine has been working as a consultant. One day he realized that all of his clients wanted the same thing, with a few small changes. To be specific, they all wanted an Internet Explorer toolbar. So what he did was to build one main internet explorer toolbar, and whenever he met a client who wanted a toolbar of that kind, he would offer him a copy the toolbar he already had. if the client wanted any changes, he would make them in less than an hour and sell it to the client, while his competitors were writing the same toolbar again and again for each client (working hard). Now he only works a few hours a day, and makes a lot more money than the competitors who work all day long.

Whats your opinion about those things? or am I missing something?

P.S you need to give me some specific examples of how you did the market surveying for DWEEP. I’m a consultant planning to get into shareware development, but i just don’t have a clue about how to do things like market research, doing SWOT analyses, etc. If you can give me some specific examples of how you did it for your product, i’m sure i can get the idea

cheers.
Ali.

Go find your right foot and you’ll improve your effectiveness.

Here is my current understanding regarding self-discipline. And I’m open to any thoughts and critiques anyone may have.

I’m now realizing, with the help of Steve of course, that self-discipline is really just a tool. It isn’t good or bad, in and of itself, but just a way of getting things done and making things happen in your life. And like any tool, it can be used masterfully or foolishly.

Used correctly, self-discipline helps you to feel like you are flying through your day, riding on rails so-to-speak, like like a well-oiled, goal-seeking machine. But used incorrectly or unintelligently, you feel like a mindless drone running on a treadmill, working hard for someone elses goals or goals that you think you should want, but don’t really care about. So in order to go from novice to mastery, self-discipline takes practice. A person should try out and see which applications of self-discipline feel empowering and which feels disabling.

In addition, if self-discipline is a tool, then it can also be over-used.

“If the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail.”
–paraphrased from Gerald Weinberg

So to balance out your use of self-discipline, I think intuition can be seen as a tool as well. It isn’t just an excuse for laziness, but it isn’t the holy grail I once thought it was either.

I mean, a lot of times “going with the flow” (personally, I think “working with the flow” is a better way to say it) is the optimal method to reach your goals. Sometimes following your hunches and gut feelings can save you a lot of time and effort and can reveal solutions to problems you never even considered before.

But of course, like self-discipline, you can foolishly use your intuition as well, by wasting precious time and effort trying to find the meaning in the smallest of coincedences. And intuition can be over-used too, by sitting around waiting for “the flow” to take you where you want to go, rather than doing the necessary leg-work yourself. It’s like waiting around for hours and hours for the right bus to arrive, when you could simply get off your butt and walk the half-mile yourself to your destination.

If you are unhealthy and have a low energy level, then everything will seem 10x harder, and you will just give up.

People with low energy can gain self-discipline too. There was an entrepreneur who worked on his next company while being able to stay awake only 3-4 hours because of hepatitis C and while awaiting a liver transplant. He started the company while having extremely low energy because of the disease, and developed it after his liver transplant. So, it’s possible.

But if a person with low energy manages to solve his or her health and energy problems and become energetic, then everything will seem A LOT easier.

For me, activities which make me more energetic in the long term are sports and meditation (a non-religious form of meditation since I am an atheist).

@Crimson: I agree that some companies don’t appreciate hard work. That’s a management mistake because intelligent hard workers will flee those companies and go where their talents are appreciated, or they’ll go to work for themselves. As a general rule, undisciplined people prefer work under a socialistic-type work environment, so their laziness isn’t punished. But disciplined people prefer to work in a capitalistic environment, so their rewards will be based on their efforts.

@David: People who cannot rest are not disciplined enough. They don’t know when to stop and become addicted to activity. Self-discipline leads to intelligent balance, not type-A behavior. That’s why the first pillar of self-discipline is acceptance of reality, which you could also call “intelligence.” Type-As live in denial of reality — they fail to accept the consequences of overworking themselves, and they’re often unhappy about it. Don’t confuse personal discipline with hard-nosed, obsessive inflexibility. If a truly disciplined person found him/herself in a prolonged state of frustration or anger, s/he would know it’s time to take a break and sharpen the saw. Taking time to slow down often requires great discipline, especially in the face of external pressure.

Just a few thoughts. Hard work does not necessarily mean you are going to die early. It might if you never rest or if you bring anxiety and stress to the hard work. But it is not necessary to do so. Also, being disciplined about what you eat does not mean you are automatically going to be snarly towards other people that don’t eat like you. Just be discplined and don’t do that. Not that its easy.

How about the people who are so self-disciplined that they cannot rest? I know a few people like this, and their lives don’t seem happy at all. Instead, they spend their time being angry and upset at the less disciplined people around them. The way they lash out against employees and partners is a truly horrifying thing to see, even when you’re not its object.

I like to think I’m somewhere in the middle - I will balance my day, working and taking frequent breaks to read the news and my favorite blogs. I’m not as efficient as someone who’s as self-disciplined as some of those around me, but I’m not going to have a heart attack at 45, either.

It would be a good idea for me to lose weight, but at the same time, I don’t want to become a snarling automaton, slave to my task lists. I know my girlfriend would love it if I lost weight, and since I love her I want to do it. At the same time, I don’t think she’d love me if I became one of the ultra-disciplined, obsessively counting calories and snarling at her if she as much as looked at food that actually tasted good. There has to be a balance somewhere.

I’d appreciate your thoughts.

D

Sometimes working hard even fosters resentment in those around you. Coworkers get jealous. Wife/girlfriend/friends feel neglected. Other people work so hard that they stress themselves into an early grave (others around them see this and so avoid hard work to avoid the same fate). And sometimes you don’t achieve your goal the first time around.

Anyway, I promise that the point of this comment is not to rain on anyone’s parade. The point is to flesh out the area a little more to show that other things come into play and to show that working hard towards a goal not only means hardwork in that area, but also hard work in the ramifications that may result. I don’t think a lot of people just aren’t prepared to deal with these.

Many people play games, especially logic games like your own Dweep, because they want a challenge.

By your definition hard work is something that challenges you. So playing games is now work?

I think that one of the things (that you brought up in earlier articles) is that you mentally cast a negative light on things that you feel you have to do because they are “work”. Where as something that is equally challenging, but optional you consider fun.

Perhaps trying to change your perspective on what exactly is work and what is fun will make you believe that some things that you originally thought as of ‘hard work’ are now more enjoyable tasks?