Ask HN: How to be ambitious/hungry again?
2 Poomba 4 9/18/2025, 3:19:32 AM
When I was a college grad and in my 20s, I would constantly work on side projects, building a startup and consuming as much knowledge as I could find about new tech. I remembered when the iPhone came out, I would spend every minute of my commute learning about how to build an app.
Now that I have a family and am a bit older, I feel much less ambitious. I no longer feel the desire to build a business, or hack on side projects. Granted, a lot of this is because I have less time, but even at work, i feel absolutely no desire to learn new things, or get a promotion.
Is there any way I can revive that ambition again?
What helped me is that treat “finding your vision” less like a high-pressure quest, more like playing a game—keep asking yourself honest questions (no pressure), make a bucket list, and use first principles to understand what really matters to you. For me, it took 18 months... This process is a lot like starting a company from scratch.
Keep exploring, stay curious, and don’t be hard on yourself if you don’t have big desires right now. That’s okay too.
Sounds like your job is boring, maybe take a risk?
You won’t be hungry unless you’re hungry which you likely can’t do without putting your family at risk. So maybe focus on the ambition aspect and find something that lights your fire. What’s a challenge or stretch goal you would have fun working towards? Maybe start small and then scale up as you rebuild the muscle.