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Have you known people to have successfully gone down path 2? Any stories or tips to share?

I'm in a similar situation. Despite having been moderately successful, I lacked passion. Now I'm a 30 year old graduate student, working three times as hard and making a third the money that I used to, but I couldn't be happier.

My most difficult project remains mastering myself. I'm doing okay now, but I know I can be much better. I'm worried I won't be able to master myself and will be stuck with mediocrity because I'm my own worst enemy after decades of terrible work habits.

I often spend too much time on "self-hacks", and not actually doing stuff that needs to get done. It feels like paralysis by analysis, so that's why I'm questioning this advice.




I don't know, I think the answer is to figure out what motivates you.

It took until the point that I was so irritated at my station in life that I finally had to just stir myself into action. I couldn't handle the crap pay I was receiving, and watch people who were clearly not at my level (or so I believed) surpassing me in basic life accomplishments without major effort, like making enough money to pay for the gas I used commuting to/from work. So for me, anger and frustration worked pretty well.

I also got heavily involved in some very physically demanding martial arts and really learned what my limits were, mentally and physically. I think it helped me both work off the anger and get some perspective in a constructive way while I started planning how I was going to get out of my rut. I also was incredibly physically fit during that time too, which wasn't bad. One thing I learned, I really need a coach barking at me to do my crunches, or get back in the ring or run another lap or whatever. So one solution I learned is to optimize my life so I have a motivating person keeping me moving forward.

In my case, I found a wife who's been incredible. I'm more afraid of her than I am of failing. So having an ever present challenger has helped push me along.

But ultimately, you have to use your smarts to figure it out yourself.




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