What started as a fast-paced, frenzied, exciting project hit what Seth Godin calls " <a href="https://www.nateliason.com/lessons/the-dip-seth-godin/">The Dip </a>": "The Dip is the long stretch between beginner's luck and real accomplishment. The Dip is the set of artificial screens set up to keep people like you out... Extraordinary benefits accrue to the tiny minority of people who are able to push just a tiny bit longer than most." The Dip is not a new idea. Startup founders have known about it for ages, as what <a href="http://avc.com/">Fred Wilson </a>and <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/">Paul Graham </a>call the "Trough of Sorrow":

Tim Ferriss wrote about a similar curve in <a href="https://www.nateliason.com/lessons/4-hour-chef-tim-ferriss/">The 4-Hour Chef </a>to describe his progress learning languages: There's a pattern here. Across language learning, company building, and any kind of creative project, there is a dip. A long period of low motivation, little excitement, and unrewarding challenges. Most people quit during the dip. But if you can manage to not quit, you can make it to the end and reap the rewards.

What the book highlights is that the biggest problem we face with completing our projects isn't productivity or time management , but motivation management . When you're sufficiently motivated to accomplish something, you'll move heaven and earth and start a war with Troy to do it.

When you're not motivated, no amount of SMART goals or Pomodoros or screaming affirmations in the shower will help you. In The Motivation Hacker, Winter designed a system to ensure that he would accomplish his goals over the three months. I don't want to spoil the ending, but he was mostly successful, and his book outlined effective motivation techniques any of can employ. There were a couple areas he didn't cover as much, though. First, Nick is a self-starter, so there wasn't as much focus put on The Start as there was on surviving The Dip. Further, it was a system built for those three months, not an ongoing motivation system, though I'm sure he incorporated many of the lessons into the future.

"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about." - Einstein Stop me if you've heard this one before. Ryan has decided to learn Spanish.

The Motivation Machine: How to Get & Stay Motivated for Any Goal - Nat Eliason

Swanand Badhe