I am a 50 year old dude. Used Java in 1998-2002, but more as a JSP writer than anything serious. Then none till 2016. Then job changed and now I was expected to know Java. Tried to learn in 2017. Did not work out. Tried to learn in 2018. Did not work out. Then I enrolled in a community college. My job changed again and now I was not expected to know java. But I spent the 6-9 months to complete the courses and came out with much better understanding.

Why did it not work in 2017 and 2018 despite motivation? Distractions. Some external, but mostly internal.

Why did it work in 2019 without motivation? Committed to put in that effort in a non-distracting environment. Well phones are everywhere to alert us, but the constant deadlines and exams keep you grounded.

I think we all have the same issues.And if you/we have a wandering personality (In 2020, we all do thanks to our devices and subscriptions), we need some external tools to keep keep us focussed.

Do find something similar. For myself, I am thinking of 3 months on, 3 months off kind of learning in a formal setting (need not be college) so as not to be overwhelmed.

“I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don’t set goals in our life and learn how to master the techniques of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential. When one learns to master the principles of setting a goal, he will then be able to make a great difference in the results he attains in this life.”

- M. Russell Ballard

How do you see this quote relative to your real life observation ?

I always wonder why people post out of context quotes without commentary, when arguably their interpretation is the most interesting part. I care a lot more about what you think than what that religious leader says.

That's fair. My Dad always taught me that life is a series of distractions. A few years ago when I was single and college age I would always approach him with opportunities to change my major or accept some cool job. He'd never tell me what to do, but instead would have me write down (or review) my goals in life. And then ask myself, "does this fit within my goals?"

In following this philosophy I turned down many opportunities that seemed too good to be true because they didn't fit my life goals.

This is the main benefit I see in the quote, goals help with stretching yourself, sure. But I think it's far more valuable to stick to something instead of chasing every distraction that comes your way.

That’s great of your dad, and it seems it was well fitting with your personality. Did you ever want to change your goals based on opportunities, once you got out of school and your dad had less influence ?

I rarely met people that had actually viable goals while in school (not that their goal was unrealistic, just missinformed and ill fited for them), and we all took our first years out of school as a discovery period to find something that was working for us.

What are/were your life goals? How did you come to discovering/defining them? I find that to be quite difficult.

I personally suspect it's an attempt to "sell" the religion. Someone can google Ballard and find out all about Joseph Smith!

But the quote is sort of bland and not that insightful anyway.

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> I personally suspect it's an attempt to "sell" the religion

You can think whatever you want. It's a quote that I enjoy that came to mind while reading the parent comment. I was going to leave the name out because inevitably anything Mormon on the internet gets bombarded with comments like yours, although yours is fairly benign compared to most. I decided it was odd to quote someone and leave out the citation.

Proselytizing is annoying. If this wasn't that then apologies.

> So many people, me especially, go through spurts of wanting to learn something new or complete a project, reach a goal, and yet I always seem to fizzle out because in the end, why bother?

For this reason, I'm relatively reluctant to start new things unless I feel that I can actually commit to getting to the level of competency that I want.

> yet I always seem to fizzle out because in the end, why bother?

This has frequently been my problem. I think maybe I'll learn enough to know it's not relevant or helpful outside some curiosity.

Languages are really hard. As an American speaking English I really get no use from knowing another language. Over my life I've learned, Spanish, Hebrew, French and Japanese. Enough to make sentences, and I forgot them all and never used them except for a trip. Everyone in foreign countries speaks English anyway.

> Everyone in foreign countries speaks English anyway.

Maybe you'll find an interesting travel destination where that's not the case by sorting this list by percent English speakers, ascending: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-s...

Its an interesting idea, ive actually been to two in that top 20, morocco and costa rica. I did know a little bit of spanish for the costa rica trip, my high school spanish came back slightly and google translate was helpful enough. Moroccan arabic is really a niche language and found english took me pretty far, i actually didn't bother to learn any arabic for that trip.

Not everyone speaks English, far from it, but I totally understand the sentiment. In any case, even if you're visiting a place and you're awful at a language, it still means a LOT to the native speakers.

Yeah that's true it might be appreciated, though i'll add on and say i think its unreasonable to expect Americans to learn the local language when they travel. If i wanted to visit europe and go to 3 countries in 10 days, (i dont think thats an unreasonable trip) It would be crazy to do dedicated months of learning for that. Anything beyond, hello, good bye, excuse me and thank you is really too much and not a real good use of time.

There is a the real problem. There are too many languages in the world. All are nice in their own way, but nobody knows even 1% of all languages that are currently spoken. When I was in Germany nobody tried to talk to me in Spanish, if I met somebody who didn't speak English I just assumed communication was impossible even though Spain was only a couple hours drive away. I probably came off as a mono-lingual American even though I knew some Spanish.

Every classical musician who has learned to play his instrument well has done exactly this. Even more, he/she must continue exerting effort and dedication to maintain those hard-earned skills.

(I say classical here not to exclude others, but because this is the area I know first hand.)

He never touches on the why

Author here. I considered including this but didn't want to ramble on longer than I already had. Plus, the story isn't really that interesting. Unlike what some commenters below suggested might be possible, I don't have a French-speaking significant other.

I started learning very casually sometime in November using the Duolingo mobile app. After a while I switched to the desktop version of Duolingo and felt myself making pretty good progress. I enjoyed learning French enough to keep at it, and after a couple months I got the idea to move to France after finishing up my master's program. That probably won't be the case anymore, but for most of 2019 I had the motivation to become fluent enough to do pretty well in case I ended up moving to France.

I don't have any French speakers among my non-acquaintance friends, and absolutely 0 French-speaking family. So, there has never been anyone in "real-life" for which I was motivated to learn French. However, wanting to move to a foreign country was definitely enough to motivate me for the better part of a year.

I feel like the number one motivating reason is having a significant other who has a different native language. This also makes it a lot easier to make progress because you basically have your own tutor who is also motivated to patiently listen to your struggles.

There's a Spanish saying that goes something like: the best way to learn a language is in the bed or the crib.

Nothing is quite as motivating to learn a language than dating someone (or, more likely, trying to) who doesn't speak English very well or is willing to refuse to speak it.

Learning a second language is a goal for many people.

It’s pretty cool to learn a second language and travel. I learned Spanish and backpacked from Guatemala to Buenos Aires over 9 months. I spent the first 3 months learning Spanish in Guatemala.