A Good Way to Get Motivated - Just Do It

In addition to being an engineer, I'm also a musician. I've been writing songs for a few years now, but I've never played for anyone except immediate family and friends. I've been posturing myself and refining my tunes for a while to get them to a point where I'd be comfortable doing a show. I can't say that I'm quite to the "comfortable spot" yet, and playing the guitar doesn't really get top priority, always competing with work, martial arts, other side projects, blogging... etc.

A friend of mine is a professional theatrical performer and he recently offered for me to open up for his new show in 6 weeks! Despite my apprehension and unpreparedness, I finally decided that I had to heed my father's advice, "Grab for all the Gusto" and just commit to the show.

Grab for all the Gusto in life.

By committing myself to doing this and basically backing myself into a corner, I'll be forcing my priorities. Playing a show is something I have wanted to do for a long time, and despite my uncertainty, now that I have a deadline to meet I will be focusing on this new task.

I've used this technique before, I'll call it "over-commitment", with good success. When I was first getting into website development, in speaking with new clients I would commit myself to preparing things that were not part of my skill set. By committing this to clients, I was in fact committing to myself to learn whatever necessary skills were required.

What is your experience with forcing yourself to learn something? Have you intentionally over-committed in order to expedite the natural learning curve?