I don't know enough about the OP to talk directly to your problem, so I can only share a few interesting frames of mind that I have picked up along the way that help push me along.

There is a phenomenon from child psychiatry that has shown that parents that say to a successful child, "Wow, you're so smart" undermine that child's ability to muscle through tougher challenges later on in life. These kids believe they are intrinsically better than their peers, so they don't keep putting effort into themselves. Eventually they encounter a challenge that exceeds their initial abilities and they give up since they don't understand their performance is in their control, not baked into their God-given make-up.

Parents who instead say, "Wow, you put in a lot of effort," teach their children that the success is based on factors that you can control, like how much effort you put in and how prepared you are and what you do. These kids do a lot better in life.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-...

Your problem description (high IQ, creative asset, character flaw) is in the wrong frame. Since we're talking about action, it's not about who you are, but what you do.

Anyway, getting things done is surprisingly simple (not easy). You look at the goal, work backwards thinking of all the things that have to get done to get to that goal, and then start doing them.

Another key part of being successful is to delay gratification. People who need constant positive feedback to keep moving forward don't get very far in real situations since most of life is a slog on the way to a better destination.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_...

The final thing that helps motivate action is to know where you want your life to lead. It helps give each smaller project a sense of purpose: does this move my life forward or not? If it does, it's easy to step through things.

Once you have a vision, it's important to continuously repeat in your head all the positive aspects of success. A lot of people focus on the failure or ever the fear of success. As I mentioned above, most real life projects are a grind on your energy and your emotional state. You have to be your own emotional support system.

I liked Steve Jobs commencement speech at Stanford where he acknowledged how death is a motivator. Life is short. It takes a long time to accomplish anything (5 years or more). So, you only get so many chances (maybe 10) to do something meaningful. You have to always ask yourself, "Am I living this day as if it's my last?"

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

I will say none of these approaches to life are intrinsic to a person. I suspect all successful people have to teach themselves these strategies along the way and they struggle with them the whole way along.

IMO, there is only one solution: Pick one "small" project and will yourself to take it to "completion". Define completion as something you know you can attain. In this context, complete can't be "I flip the project for $3mm" as this is outside your control. You must set yourself up for success. Do one project this way and then repeat.

EDIT: Your IQ is not relevant to your ability to complete projects. It is possible your feelings about your high intelligence is a problem in that it keeps you from being willing to experience failure. These fears should dissipate as you incrementally do complete projects.

"Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure."

Diligence > Intelligence.

A lot of people are going to have trouble admitting this, but a diligent person of average intellect is about a hundred times more likely to become successful than a lazy person with a titanic intellect.

I can provide examples if necessary.

Yes. Taking on projects that are too big creates a situation like an airplane stalling because the angle of attack is too steep. Better only to take on projects so small that you know you can finish them, however humiliatingly small that may be initially. Then, with always finishing as a given, start to gradually crank up the ambition. But never so sharply that you stall.

Your account is new so I'm going to give you some advice: generally people on Hacker News have a reasonably high technical baseline and it would do you well to assume so. For example, a number of FFmpeg and x264 developers frequent the site and we have a pretty good idea of how video decoding works.