Saved by Ajinkya Wadhwa and
Early Work
Perhaps if you study enough such cases, you can teach yourself to be a better judge of early work. Then you'll be immune both to other people's skepticism and your own fear of making something lame. You'll see early work for what it is.
Paul Graham • Early Work
Another common trick is to start by considering new work to be of a different, less exacting type. To start a painting saying that it's just a sketch, or a new piece of software saying that it's just a quick hack. Then you judge your initial results by a lower standard. Once the project is rolling you can sneakily convert it to something more.
Paul Graham • Early Work
This is a difficult problem, because you don't want to completely eliminate your horror of making something lame. That's what steers you toward doing good work. You just want to turn it off temporarily, the way a painkiller temporarily turns off pain.
Paul Graham • Early Work
One motivation that works particularly well for me is curiosity. I like to try new things just to see how they'll turn out.
Paul Graham • Early Work
But there is another more sinister reason people dismiss new ideas. If you try something ambitious, many of those around you will hope, consciously or unconsciously, that you'll fail. They worry that if you try something ambitious and succeed, it will put you above them. In some countries this is not just an individual failing but part of the... See more
Paul Graham • Early Work
I've noticed in many fields that the most successful people are slightly overconfident. On the face of it this seems implausible. Surely it would be optimal to have exactly the right estimate of one's abilities. How could it be an advantage to be mistaken? Because this error compensates for other sources of error in the opposite direction: being
... See morePaul Graham • Early Work
If you overestimate the importance of what you're working on, that will compensate for your mistakenly harsh judgment of your initial results.
Paul Graham • Early Work
One motivation that works particularly well for me is curiosity. I like to try new things just to see how they'll turn out.
Paul Graham • Early Work
It also helps, as Hardy suggests, to be slightly overconfident. Because this error compensates for other sources of error in the opposite direction: being slightly overconfident armors you against both other people's skepticism and your own.