[Dylan16807]

I honestly don't know what you're suggesting. A data point isn't motivation, and there is no real way to convert it. This isn't something that can be resolved by making a decision.

It's not that I worked on the wrong project, it's that most months I worked on no project.

I feel like that's pretty normal but it's still bad. I could be just as happy and make more nice things.

[ysavir]

What I'm saying, or more appropriately asking, is whether your impression with the OP's project is inspiring you to change your actions in the future towards being impressed with yourself in similar ways.

> It's not that I worked on the wrong project, it's that most months I worked on no project.

Will you start working on projects in future months?

[Dylan16807]

> What I'm saying, or more appropriately asking, is whether your impression with the OP's project is inspiring you to change your actions in the future towards being impressed with yourself in similar ways.

It doesn't seem to be.

So if I take your advice and imagine what I could accomplish... that just makes the feelings of discouragement worse.

You listed two things to keep in mind. For me the first one actively makes the negative feelings worse and the second one doesn't really apply.

[ysavir]

> So if I take your advice and imagine what I could accomplish... that just makes the feelings of discouragement worse.

That's a good point, and I didn't take a healthy perspective on it. Imagining what we can accomplish in a long span of time can be distressing. The road ahead always appears longer than the road behind; that's why it's so easy to look at the accomplishments of others with awe and then look towards our own intentions and feel anxiety.

A better approach is to not imagine what we could accomplish in three and a half years, and instead just dedicate the next three and a half years to doing the things that make us happy and pleased with what we're building. Projecting our intentions can be daunting, but taking one day to do a bit of code or design is not a big step. And doing it again the next day is no bigger a step. Taking it each day at a time, and taking care to enjoy each of those days at a time, is key to keeping our motivations high. And then some day we look back and realize just how long we've been crafting our craft, and how far it's come. But it all starts with one day's work.