Hi everyone,
Lately I have stumbled upon a variety of posts in our and other communities, of people close to giving up on their journey to development, which made me think (after some research on previous posts in GameDevTV Community), that there should be a place where someone can find a collection of opinions and experiences from all kinds of members, from beginners to more advanced users so someone can try something new, or just come back here if they need to.
I see motivation as some kind of a fuel, that frequently needs a refill so we can keep moving towards our goals. Without it, we cannot move at all, we feel like doing nothing and just give up and go back to square one. One pattern I have noticed during my 3 years of visiting here, is that I see countless of posts where people happily show their creations in the first sections of a course and then disappear completely (myself included for a short period of time).
There are countless of reasons this could happen, like someone changed their mind, saw that this path is not for them and they thought it would be different, or just got bored of it and many more. But I have seen some people that actually produced great results (not just in game development), differentiating from the others and put some great work in what they were doing, only to put a hold because they lost their passion, or just never felt this warmth, this nice feeling we have when we are so focused and so happy on what we are doing, that we lose track of all time.
My initial thought writing all of this down, was to help anyone who experienced this, knows that they love it, but just cannot find the mental strength to sit in front of the computer and work, refill their motivation tank, so here are my suggestions and experiences that I would like to share with others when it comes to sustaining your momentum:
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NEVER take someone’s advice as a solution: Just because it worked for them, it doesn’t mean it will work for you. You can of course try it, but do not take its effectiveness as granted. Every human being is different.
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Know when to slow down: No one is chasing you (I hope) and no one will judge you if you take a few extra minutes trying to fully understand what you just learned. You do not have to finish a course within 2-3 weeks and you are risking at burning yourself out. Take your time, take some notes, check some extra resources (thankfully our instructors provide a lot of them), have fun with it.
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Try to teach/help others: I personally try to engage in as many questions in Udemy’s Q&A as possible (sorry Nina). You do something right if you can successfully pass your knowledge to others, plus you constantly refresh what you already know.
About finding motivation, I read a very interesting article a few months ago that really put me on the right track, maybe it can help you too in some way: Article
What are your experiences and sources of motivation? What keeps your engine going? It would be very interesting to know!