I think I’m extremely weird for this, and I try to explain it as good as possible.
See, whenever I do something I enjoy, be it designing something in CAD for fun, working out at home, watching a new show I enjoy, playing video games… it goes well as long as I’m completely alone. But as soon as someone even as little as encourages me, I loose all interest in this and stop doing it for some time until I am alone some weeks, months or even years later and I do it again, have fun for some days, and then someone finds out what I’m doing and I just stop it.
Is this normal? What is this called? Is there help?
Makes total sense!
Research has been done on how our minds process “gratification” and studies have shown that merely telling others about about what we’re planning to accomplish feels almost exactly the same as actually accomplishing it.
As soon as you get that pat on the back from someone else about the progress you’ve made, your mind feels like it’s received your external reward already, so it doesn’t see a reason why it should continue doing the hard work of creating.
Next time, try intentionally NOT talking with others about a project you’re working on until it’s 100% complete. See if that helps keep you motivated.