The title is really vague, so I'll try to clarify my intentions here:
I am an ardent supporter of FOSS. It will be greatly beneficial for my life and especially my privacy to self-host such software. Yet, I cannot find much motivation to do so.
However, when it comes to hosting software for public use, I can usually give my utmost concentration and dedication.
This is not how I want my life to be. I want to be motivated for myself as well as for the community. And if that's not possible, I need to trick my brain into bringing me into that kind of zone for myself.
What do I do? What would you do in this situation?
Hosting FOSS on infrastructure is what I want to dedicate my life towards outside of work. I just need to find motivation to actually do things for myself (which will greatly help me) instead of looking for the dopamine hit when I think I'm doing something that will help the community
Write a little bash script that fixes something that causes you grief. Put it up on GitHub with a README.md file that explains what it does, why and how.
Try hosting a guide on exactly how you did it. There's never enough documentation, and it's interesting to see what kind of workarounds / fixes you might find for any problems you'll have.
Im not sure I would want to change this. Im not sure if its a type of person but im generally more motivated when it comes to others than myself and more willing to sacrifice if it only effects me. I would sorta like the world to work on this principle.
One of these is likely to be true for you. Maybe more than one.
You don't know what to do, at least some part of it.
You know what to do, but you don't know what will happen if you do it.
You know what to do and you know what will happen, but you don't want that to happen.
If any of these resonate with you, then that might give a clue about what to try next.
In addition, you can act without feeling motivated. Some people like starting with 10 minutes of effort or a single step, because sometimes doing anything is enough to sustain energy and focus. It's a way of using inertia to work for you, rather than against you.
To clarify, I'm talking about being motivated enough to host public facing services like Invidious and SearXNG, maybe a Monero node. But I'm lacking motivation when doing things strictly for personal use like a project tracker for my personal projects, a personal media server. Basically, since I'm accountable to no one, I don't feel the light nudge I need to get to work on something.
In terms of hosting software, sure I can read about configuration. I tend to have the overall process planned out in terms of what to expect.
The main problem is, let's say I give an hour a day on hosting a FOSS project. I could easily give it 4 hours if I were motivated, but I'm not. Because I procrastinate and waste time. It's only during the later hours at night when I realise I have a deadline (need to go to bed) and my mind kicks into overdrive and I accomplish whatever I can in that hour.
But do you even need to do these things? Or is it just for your personal enjoyment? If it's just for your personal enjoyment then the question your asking is very different.
It's always nice to have some motivation from doing things for others. Depending on the service, you can always host for others AND for yourself. It's 10x as much work but you do get positive feedback (sometimes..)
Yeah but some things are best consumed privately, and a media server is probably one of them (because I'm not going to do any requesting pipelines like sonarr/radarr etc)
It will be greatly beneficial for my life and especially my privacy to self-host such software
You should go the Docker route. If you selfhost for yourself you can even use a Raspberry Pi or any common "mini computer" available. Just make sure to install a large enough SSD. 1 terabyte should be fine if you don't want to use OwnCloud or something like this.
I use Kubernetes, and TBH the problem isn't the know-how (I can just learn what I don't know). The problem is a lack of motivation for doing it solely for myself; I know I should do it but why on earth can't I muster enough motivation to actually sit down and configure??
Maybe find a middle ground, like sharing the hosted service with just one or two persons, like a close friend, family member, etc. Could be someone you live with or that you can give VPN access to your network.
That way is more private and mainly for your self, but also has some sense of doing it for others to motivate you.