Picture the goal as the top of a mountain. Picture yourself already walking.
Five minutes up the path, a squirrel.
Where are you going? You tell it. The squirrel has heard there's a hurricane. Tomorrow it's going to rain. It's too slippery out there. It's going to be too hot, and somehow it's also going to be too cold. Why would you even do that?
So you stop. And you explain to a squirrel why the climb is worth it, what it'll mean for your family, how carefully you've thought it through.
Fifteen minutes gone. Then you walk another ten minutes.
Then a donkey shows up. The donkey is a geologist now. The donkey has views about the rock face.
Then it's a monkey. Then it's a gorilla. Then it's something else.
People spend an entire climb this way, so let me settle it.
You have twenty four hours a day and you have certain energies. If you're trying to convince everyone why you want to be successful, you don't have time to achieve success. Spend it justifying and explaining, and you won't have the time or the energy left for the success itself.
So stop. Somebody says the economy is bad. You're right. Somebody says the machines are taking the jobs. You're right, it's taking over. Somebody says there are too many people doing this already. You're right, absolutely, I agree with you one hundred percent.
Then say nothing else.
Now, some of those people are going to be right, and that's fine. Agreeing costs you nothing when they're wrong, and it costs you nothing when they're right either, because you can go and check the thing later, on your own time, with nobody watching. What you can't afford is checking it in front of them, at the bottom of the mountain, in an argument.
An argument needs two people. The second you agree, there's nothing to push against. It ends in four seconds instead of forty minutes.
Be psychopathically focused on your goal. Sometimes you got to be psychopath. This life rewards people who are obsessive on one thing until they reach it. They don't quit.
What would you actually say tomorrow if somebody you genuinely respect told you this was a bad time to be learning this?
If your answer ran past five words it's still an argument, and it'll cost you the afternoon. The answer is that they're right. Nothing after it. The urge to add one clarifying sentence is the whole trap, because that sentence is the door and they'll walk straight through it.