Anyone else struggling with not being able to stick to things long enough to fully enjoy them?
Anyone else struggling with not being able to stick to things long enough to fully enjoy them?
This is something that's been frustrating me to no end recently as I've had a ton of time over the holidays to do whatever I want. I have a dozen half beaten games and half watched tv shows that I really should just finish but idk why I just can't stick to one thing until it's done and then move on to the next like a normal person.
Yes, and it's an absolute TORTURE. I can't say I have any good advice other than maybe trying to structure things so you are forced to get around to it. Or just embrace the fact that you're flighty and jump from one thing to another. Anyways, I should stop scrolling lemmy and finish that book I started last month.
Well that's peak ADHD for you right there. New thing=dopamin. No dopamine any more = abandoned projektets. My best advice is to pick something that you can keep itterating on infinitely and keep interesting. For instance i like making smoothies and its something you can vary for ever and never run out of recipes to try. Basically food is a good hobby because there's so much to learn from the entire world
For gaming something like Minecraft can be fun because infinitely projects, but maybe harder to stay motivated.
3d printing is also good because there's something new constantly.
Now I think that may have been the reason why I finished uni and got a degree.
What I was studying was percussion performance and it's solely iterative work. You learn something every day, you practice, it's constantly interesting cause there are so many excercises, so many sheets to read and learn by playing, so many music pieces to learn playing. You add small things to the recipe every practice session, may be every day. You make it interesting all the time. Plus this kind of stress when you're on a stage, it's also motivating. And you basically work with kind of a stimulant, which I consider music is. Also you move when you play, another stimulant, you look like a monkey hitting instruments, but it's actually a performance and people even might enjoy it :D
Someone said a beautiful thing on the internet: think of playing a game like visiting a friend. You casually pop by as often as you feel like it. Some friends are really once-a-year material.
I recently picked up Derail Valley after an 8-month hiatus, and almost doubled my hours in that game over the course of two weeks (it was a lot of playing). I just felt like it.
that I really should finish
That word "should" is a tricky little fella, he implies a judgement, the question is what's the source of that judgement?
Wayne Dyer discusses the issues and challenges of words like "should" in his book "Your Erroneous Zones" by using a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy approach: examining and rewriting how we think about things.
When I find myself using that particular word, I ask myself "should, according to who?". Almost always I find I have an old "script" in my head about priorities, values, etc, that upon re-examining I find it's no longer useful. Like "I bought this game, therefore I must get maximum value from it".
Sometimes things run their course, and that's that.
Yeah my dude. I am surrounded by stimulus and I can't get interested in anything.
Trying Cyberpunk again but I doubt it'll last.Funny, I just started it again a week ago. For the third time. I'm enjoying it a lot, like the last two times, but I have a lingering feeling this won't last lol
What helps me with those kinds of things is to focus on enjoying the thing, whatever it is. Especially digital stuff that occupies no space in my home, I accept that it's ok to do something as long as I enjoy it, and when it becomes repetitive or boring I can just stop.
Of course sometimes you need to push against this a bit when you know there is a slightly unpleasant section blocking more enjoyable content. The big takeaway is that it's ok to stop if you're not enjoying yourself anymore. No one is gonna check or care.
I just keep 5-10 projects and rotate between them.
Same! Books, games, new skill/hobby, new exercise. I will always have a minimum of 3 of those and rotate between them. It's like an infinite dopamine hack.
Exactly! And eventually it gets the job done too. As a bonus.
It's because:
start of thing == dopamine
finish of thing != dopamine
We yearn for the brain juice and hop from hit to hit
Neurotypical people do not have this issue, I'm told
I think they're all lying, just to mess with us. Not sure why we're specifically left out of the joke, but it goes back generations.
I am this way until I come across something that really draws my attention because if it’s endless potential. That has come to be East Asian languages, then Buddhist studies, and most recently Linux and selfhosting ie maintaining my own servers. All allow me to obsess with endless depth and learning.
Plenty of failed interests as well
I find when I get like this I have to give it a bit of a rest for a bit. I figure either I've blown out my dopamine receptors to the point of non functionality, or I just need to rest. I find that only doing a small handful of things at a time helps not get in this state, easier said than done though.
I recently realized that many of the things I end up sticking with are those I didn't pick up on a whim, but that I planned to take a look at for a while and pushed back on. For example, I've owned Elite Dangerous for more than a year, I was barely touching it for the first six months, and played extremely occasionally otherwise. This lasted until last November, when something just... clicked, to the point my wife got together with my mother to buy me a HOTAS this Christmas.
Rest assured that your experience does sound extremely familiar. It's very difficult to stick to something. The dopamine rush I get from the very act of figuring out something new just doesn't last past the novelty phase.
Yeah actually now that you mention it I do that alot too; I'll start something but not be able to fully get into it the first time around only for it to click sometime later. Maybe I just need to wait for my brain to "click"
I struggle with this and it's definitely because of my ADHD. I get round it with games by using WeMod. It's not that I want to cheat but that I just get bored of repetitive fights and time wasting bs. I've just sunk 130 hours into Assassin's Creed Odyssey and it's been awesome. I just set it to infinite health, adrenaline, unlimited oxygen, instant cooldown and one hit kills and just have fun. People who say what about the challenge? Yeah I love a challenge, I just don't like the same challenge a thousand times. Also I've learnt that we ADHD people hate being told we "have to" do anything so WeMod is like a giant FU to anyone trying to tell me how to play the game hehe.