When you're struggling with a task and unsure if you can even make it, what inspires you to keep going?

Salt, butter and garlic.
Combined with Parmesan cheese, they are the Staff of Life.

Figure out exactly what you can do right now. Make sure it is small. Commit to doing just this, even if you don’t think you can. When you have completed it, acknowledge that you did so despite not knowing how you would and take another small piece to do. Each tiny step will work to both bring you closer to your goal, while convincing you along the way that you are more capable than you had realized.

What @hominid said. And also, nothing says you can’t ask for help. Life is not a test.

Failing to meet goals you set for yourself? Are the goals realistic or are they dreams? Perhaps you need to resize your goals to what you can achieve in the near term.

The value in the existence of the things I create keeps me going.

Recently I decided the novels I’ve written are crap as they stand, but the story they tell is still valuable. I’ve decided to rewrite them even though it’s an immense amount of work.

The stories deserve to be told well. I have to rewrite them for that to happen. So I’ll do it.

I’m not really asking for advice about how to achieve my goals. I’m more interested in what you all do when you have moments of doubt. I tend to do as Steinbeck suggests, I get up in the morning and I write. I keep going and editing until what I have is good enough. I put things in my calendar and don’t over face myself and I try to be really conscious of when I’m procrastinating. It’s okay that I do, but only to a point. Then I have to get back to work. However, I do find reading things such as the piece including extracts from Steinbeck’s diary, or acknowledging the challenge Hawkings faced and conquered, help me to realise such struggles are fairly normal. I’m just interested in little tactics you might employ or self-talk you give yourself. How do you manage your own self-doubts in order to get to where you want to be?

Thanks @Mariah. Did you read the extracts from Steinbeck. I can see synergy between his feelings and yours.

I often think my writing is crap and it quite often is until I’ve polished it and polished it and polished it again. I don’t think I ever feel its fabulous, but it gets to where it needs to be.

@hominid and @zenvelo, thank you. Is this what you do? I do set goals. It’s probably one of my strong points. Setting goals and achieving them and that’s in part because I am realistic. Doesn’t stop the occasional twinges of ‘I can’t do this!’ or ‘it’s all too much’ occurring.

I’m in the midst of this right now. Despite my “training,” which informs me basically that life is taking care of itself, I stress and eat a bit over it when I’m not cognizant of the fact that things will work out how they are meant to.

I wait for the energy to show up and then I do what I can.

I use @hominid method all the time when I feel over whelmed on a task.

With the manuscripts I’ve written, it was fairly easy. I put on a special playlist for each “book”, and condition myself to be entirely in the story with those specific songs. I take care to mix them up, some slow, some up-beat.

In general, success stories are great. When I wonder whether we will ever convince my sister’s dog that human hands are not exactly scary, I read stories about people curing hand-shy dogs. When I wonder whether I will ever know what I want to do with my life, I read CVs of other people.

:-) I hope the dog will become more trusting. It might not. Some dogs are nervy and scared (I have one like that) and no matter what you try, they never really get beyond that. Some people are the same.

^ She’s improved a lot already. We’ll get there…someday :)

@Earthbound_Misfit: “Is this what you do?”

Absolutely. I’m a software developer/engineer/programmer. As soon as you are comfortable with a technology, your skill set is obsolete. There is much opportunity to become overwhelmed and be nagged with self-doubt when faced with learning a new technology and the pressures associated with having to produce results immediately. For example, I am currently moving into mobile development for the first time. Due to promises sales and marketing made regarding the delivery of a product, I have to immediately learn Xamarin, Android, Azure cloud notification services, and MVVM Light and build a complex app in a very aggressive schedule. The only way I can accomplish this is to take a very small piece (what will I do today) and do this. Then do the same the next day.

But more importantly, since I have stopped sleeping and I have started living with chronic pain, I apply this to the task of just living. Every morning for a long time, I would put my shoes on and wonder how I was going to get through the next minute, never mind the whole day…or the rest of my life. But rather than do any positive self-talk, I would just put my shoes on. Then I would drive to work. Then I would work on something small. Then…etc. Suddenly, the day way over, and I would say to myself, “I f*cking did it!”. Enough of these days have passed, with enough “I f*cking did it!” moments to become the fuel I need and my motivation.

The bigger the challenge the more defiant I become to rise to it.