9 ms·

Create a positive feedback loop to become motivated

173 points by vitabenes 4y ago

yakytaky 4y ago
This is not related to the article, but the comments. In all my years on the internet and on internet based communities, this community never ceases to impress me on how supportive members are of each other. I too have experienced some severe bouts of depression in my lifetime, and to a lesser degree still am experiencing one. While this community is pretty diverse, I find some solace in reading comment threads like this one, as I sort of assume that most of the people who gravitate towards HN are in a similar mindset as myself. Maybe we’re a group of people who have lived through the evolution of internet and social media, maybe we are all to some degree attempting to practice some sort of limiting our media inputs to those which provide a more meaningful experience in this world, or maybe there are just more realists in this community than the others I’ve been exposed to. I’m not really sure what it is, but I find these comment threads incredibly helpful to my situation. I’ve limited my “social media” intake to only HN for the past few years, and while I find myself on some days wishing there was something more magical to spend my time on, this community is the only place where I am reminded regularly to go out and do “Something” not because it will make me richer or more attractive or more popular, but simply because I will live a more fulfilling life. Thus being a “magical” community in and of itself. Thank you HN community for being the way you are.
allendoerfer 4y ago
I am a victim of the religion of self-optimization and productivity for the sake of productivity myself, but in the end you do not have to optimize yourself at all. If you and your family have enough to eat, you are fine. If you are procrastinating something, you can also just decide to not do it. Just live, you are fine.
- ideamotor 4y ago
  I read your comment and then skimmed the article. This is how it reads: “ALERT! YOU HAVE PROBLEMS! STEPS 123455789 ARE NEEDED!” And so on. Talk about piling it on. Thanks for your perspective.
- rdbell 4y ago
  Thanks. This is a good reminder for some of us.
- space_rock 4y ago
  I find once I remove addiction (YouTube, twitter) I will naturally get things done
  - thuganalyst 4y ago
    For me it’s twitter and… porn
  - thelittleone 4y ago
    I find myself with an idea "oh that's right, I need to do X" and go to find the tab X in my browser with 100+ tabs open, and quite often forget what I was searching for before I find it. I really ought to remember to write a list. Oh wait I have one, where is that tab again?
    - kevmo314 4y ago
      I installed an extension to close idle tabs older than 30 minutes. Keeps my tabs tidy because turns out searching for the page is faster than finding the tab among the hundreds.
- speedylight 4y ago
  Not everyone can or should embrace this mindset, not because it’s a bad one per se…. But some people are driven by ambition—ambition to make money, make art, explore, create, etc. We have a lot to be thankful for in todays world and it’s partly due to people who challenged themselves to do more than simply sit back and chill. I look at it this way… some people want to star in the show, not just watch it.
  - ideamotor 4y ago
    Those are all great motivators. While the article mentions "working on something exciting" it doesn't suggest, well, finding something that motivates you at a fundamental level.
    - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
      I think we can assume that the author of this post sees these things as equivalents.
  - lovemenot 4y ago
    Everybody always was the star in their show. That's almost certainly true for non-human creatures too. To a degree, mass media undermined that foundation.
- jasode 4y ago
  >and productivity for the sake of productivity For some reason, the word "productive" causes some readers to get the wrong message. (I.e. some readers see a blog text mentioning "productivity" and thus it must be some veiled guilt-shaming article.) People don't try to be productive just for the sake of being productive. People want to improve their lives and productivity is a natural focus of optimization to bring about a quality-of-life improvement. Your pushback is similar to previous commenters that rejected the idea of "productivity" and I replied in previous comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19592404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19592404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22255557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22255557 To recap one of my comments, even the prehistoric hunter "having enough to eat" is not fine because the hunter still wants to improve the productivity of hunting. Over the last 10000 years, people have continuously improved the productivity of hunting (and farming) so much that today's people like you and I have enough free time to type HN comments -- instead of spending all day chasing after animals to eat. People naturally want to improve their lives. Some people also want to share ideas on how to improve their lives. It seems the word "productivity" has tainted that discussion. However, it doesn't change the fact that people still want to reduce the ratio of effort-to-benefit.
  - hutzlibu 4y ago
    I agree to your general point, but "instead of spending all day chasing after animals to eat." Actual working hours in small hunter gatherer tribes like the Lakota were more likely around 3-4 hours. Medieval peasants had to work all day long. But both experienced starving in winter and spring, in a bad year.
    - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
      Those tribes have been optimizing their hunter-gatherer lifestyle for thousands of years. Like the rest of modernity, they have innovated (increased their productivity) on their practices and their culture and society has evolved. So I see this point as being evidence to GPs perspective, rather than your own, respectfully.
  - allendoerfer 4y ago
- bittercynic 4y ago
  If you're able to just decide not to do the thing, then you're in a much better place. Some of us can get stuck in a loop where we can't decide not to do the thing, but also can't get started on it.
- dazc 4y ago
  > If you are procrastinating something, you can also just decide to not do it. Just live, you are fine. Procrastination can be the thin end of the wedge though and, in extreme cases, deciding not to do things develops into doing nothing, like not going to work, not paying paying bills, not opening letters or answering the phone, and so on...
kaetemi 4y ago
Ah. But I don't enjoy finishing certain tasks, I enjoy doing them. So the most potential enjoyment is gained by never finishing. I don't feel any sense of accomplishment when finishing those tasks.
- PartiallyTyped 4y ago
  I feel an existential dread when I finish them.
  - kaetemi 4y ago
    Yes. Even though I have literally a hundred notes on my wall for next projects to build. What if I finish the current one, and then finish all of those? Nothing left to do!
    - hutzlibu 4y ago
      Is this a real fear, or hyperbole? If it is real, I can endlessly supply you with project ideas. You know, how about solving hunger or climate change, if you are too bored ..
      - kaetemi 4y ago
        It's real. Now that I think of it, I vaguely remember in early primary school frequently finishing tasks* early, and then having nothing to do, or being put on some time wasting activity. Not very enjoyable. Might be a learned behaviour from that. *In one instance that I recall, we had these children books for learning to read. While other kids were whispering while reading, I was silent reading them, and much faster than them. (I particularly remember the other kids commenting that I was just pretending to read.) So, I went through the available books. *Another time we were supposed to underline all the words we didn't understand in a story. Since there were none, I just went through it again a few times and underlined words that looked more difficult just to finish the task. (When the teacher checked it, they just said they knew I already understood those words.) (I suppose "frog" doesn't qualify as a difficult word.) (That was during first and second grade.)
throwaway22032 4y ago
The thing about this sort of advice is that to a person in a subclinically depressed mindset it's not using the same language that they understand. It's preaching to the choir. If you feel good about yourself and you are otherwise healthy then going to the gym, eating well, studying etc are not things that feel bad. They are intrinsically motivating because they make you a better you. But if you feel bad or you are unwell then you don't give a toss, it's just dopamine fix after dopamine fix to get through today. But then even if you feel good, not everyone cares about self actualization along the same axes. And then we have limited time, money, energy, ... Life is complicated, innit.
- WilTimSon 4y ago
  I've had experience with this and while it's incredibly difficult to find motivation to go the gym or eat well, I found that achieving even one of these things for even a week - so two-three visits to the gym or four-five salads and veggies instead of snacks - were enough to really boost my morale. Granted, it's no "solution" for depressive mindsets, but it's a step on the right track. We just tend to have this obsession with finding an easy packaged solution, whereas any real problem requires steps upon steps.
- thenerdhead 4y ago
  Although I get what you're saying, I challenge that it "won't get through to certain people". I think the advice is pretty common for people in that mindset. It's littered in every best selling self-help books read by millions worldwide (Tony Robbins, Mel Robbins, lots of Robbins for some reason). It is definitely "life changing" going from a depressive state to a neutral or even positive one. But it seems most people start their self-improvement journey from depressive states they aren't aware of. Break-ups, financial ruin, tragic loss, shitty job, family issues, etc. While self-actualization is indeed different for us all, there is a common sentiment to it which is being able to realize your full potential. The only way to do that is to constantly work on improving yourself as a person. That gives you much of the newfound sense of "security" and "growth" we all strive for in life.
  - sverona 4y ago
jasonlfunk 4y ago
Personally, I have found using a visual scoreboard as a really helpful tool to make/break habits. Being able to see streaks clearly and a more concrete representation of the habit (as well as a reminder to keep it up!) is really useful. And I think a paper version trumps an app here quite a bit. It's for more tactile, which makes it feel more real and meaningful.
k__ 4y ago
I think, positive feedback is crucial for motivation, but grit gets you through the slow days. I probably just continued my blogging career, because one of my first articles got over 20k views. I wrote many of such successful articles in my first year of blogging. But there were much more that nobody cared about. Most of the stuff I wrote was simply ignored and it felt like I lost my luck. But I kept going on and eventually things got better again.
krnlpnc 4y ago
I’d be happy to never see another one of these procrastination fix articles. There is no one size fits all solution, it’s a complex issue and is specific to the individual.
- is_true 4y ago
  Isn't a good thing that a lot of these articles exist? As the number of articles available grows the chance that you share the "issue" with the author is bigger.
  - Jaruzel 4y ago
    With the added bonus that you can now procrastinate by spending your time reading all these articles about avoiding procrastination.
  - dazc 4y ago
    I agree, there is always something to take away from these discussions that I hadn't previously appreciated. It is indeed a complex issue but hearing other people's views/experiences helps it become less so.
thenerdhead 4y ago
I generally agree with the advice. It’s common that any feeling and noticing said feeling begets the same feeling. But do know there is a duality to these feelings. You can make positives out of negatives and vice-versa. This teaches you that one simply cannot exist without the other. Although I’m a positive person in general, the negative balances us as human. I would argue that “cheerfulness” is the more ideal state of mind being this middle path between the two. It’s the idea of euthymia in which you live regularly without large shifts in mood. This is often referred to as the professional mindset where you get what you need to get done because you are largely unaffected by how you feel on a given day. This is where many of the cliche “Master your thoughts, master your life” quotes come from because it’s largely true once you experience it. At least my experience with it.
xyzzy4747 4y ago
The only way to fix procrastination is when the end justifies the work involved. Chances are the thing you are procrastinating is inconsequential and maybe isn’t important in the first place, or you haven’t made up your mind yet. If someone paid you $10 million to do something, you probably would just do it. If on the other hand someone or society has brainwashed you into doing a low reward task then of course you will procrastinate.
- xyzzy4747 4y ago
  To add onto this, first start with the premise that you don’t have to do anything at all in life. You can be a bum. Sure it would bother some people but it’s true. Then spend a few years thinking about things that are truly worth doing. Long term goals that truly excite you which you can build towards. Don’t do anything just because. Only do things that give you joy or are towards a goal you find exciting. Life is short and don’t waste it on pointless tasks. This is how I personally found more motivation.
jackallis 4y ago
I am sorry, not to be a debbie-downer but this kind of "solutinos" seem to only "solve" surface level issues i.e they don't look at emotional reasons why we procrastinate. I belive if you truly want to improve yourself, atleast not procrastinate, you have to look at your emotioanal state. It's effective when you do this at the point of procrastination. Why am i procrastinating? what/how am i feeling? Am i running away from this problem? if i am , why? Anything that probes your emotional state will help you uncover why is it that you're procrastina/ting/te. And, this method might not be the only way, but all paths to deprocrastinate go through your state of emotions.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- lioeters 4y ago
  > "solutinos" Not sure you meant the neologism or if it's a typo - but I like the picture it creates. Also agree with your point about productivity and emotinos.
- PebblesRox 4y ago
  Agreed, procrastination is a feelings problem and it requires feelings solutions. Often when I finally start doing the thing I was putting off, the realization will hit me: "this is really hard," or "this feels really bad." I hadn't consciously expected those feelings but they were there under the surface, contributing to the urge to procrastinate. I remember this article really changing my mindset when I first read it. “Procrastination is an emotion regulation problem, not a time management problem....” https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/smarter-living/why-you-procrastinate-it-has-nothing-to-do-with-self-control.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/smar...
maivais0eil 4y ago
1. Share a thought 2. How does that thought make you feel? 3. Why does it make you feel that way? 4. Think about your thought in a way that makes you feel differently. 5. How does thinking about it differently change your original feelings? 6. What new opportunities are possible by thinking differently? Not really trying to create something positive as much as showing the possibility for opportunities. Write down your answers as you complete the exercise.
qiskit 4y ago
If you need to resort to such silly gimmicks, maybe there is something else that's wrong? Maybe you are depressed and you should seek help? Maybe you are not motivated because you are not in a career you enjoy or you don't like the major you've chosen in school or a family member is sick? If you take a step back and assess the situation rationally, something must be terribly wrong in your life if you need to "create a positive feedback loop to become motivated".
- z5h 4y ago
  > silly gimmicks You haven't proved this claim. > Maybe you are depressed, not in a career you enjoy, ... So, as you point out, there are many factors here (some out of our control). And the post offers some strategies. Why is quitting a career better than reframing it more positively?
staunch 4y ago
1. BECOME RELAXED: Take care of the fundamental issues in your life, health, finances, burnout, or whatever else might be preventing you from being relaxed enough to focus your mind. Eat, sleep, and exercise well. Consider this an absolute prerequisite and don't feel guilty about it. 2. FIND MOTIVATION: Get excited about why you started in the first place. Go over the plan from scratch with a co-founder, talk to users, visualize the end goal, use the product, or do whatever it takes to get back some of the initial excitement. 3. BUILD MOMENTUM: Be as self-indulgent as necessary at first. Don't worry about doing the highest priority tasks, just get going. Do whatever part of the project seems most fun/easy/interesting, however trivial. Do whatever it takes to start building back your speed. Once you're at speed, the hard stuff won't be so hard. Now you're relaxed, motivated, and have momentum so it's full steam ahead! Fall off the wagon for some reason? Don't waste time feeling bad, just accept it. Then repeat steps 1-3.
FollowingTheDao 4y ago
No one here is even questioning why we need motivation.
michaericalribo 4y ago
Despite the way this is presented as a productivity / life hack, the broad principles are backed by good science. Specifically, the process of positive reinforcement and challenging assumptions is a cornerstone of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy movement in psychology and counseling. CBT has been shown to be as effective as medications at treating a wide range of mental health issues — depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive, substance abuse, and so on. Anecdotally, this type of reinforcement is hard, but worth it. By definition you are trying to retrain your brain to be wired to better habits than it’s trained to now. You’re violating your comfortable response with a decidedly different one. But after you’ve practiced enough, these methods can provide real relief for mental health.
narrator 4y ago
This works for one offs like cleaning up, or filing taxes, but how does one stick to a multi-month or even multi-year project? For that, it requires faith that everything will work out. It's painfully easy to be skeptical and cynical. In the really old how to succeed books like Think and Grow Rich faith is emphasized as an important attribute to success. These days with endless scoffing at everything, this principle has been forgotten and ridiculed.
true_religion 4y ago
> Imagine how you feel after successfully completing an assignment ahead of time… You feel good, don’t you? Nope. Whenever I complete an assignment, I feel a great sense of ... nothing. Before work, there's a crippling tension that leads to procrastination. During work, I am focused and not thinking about anything else. Afterwards though, I don't feel relieved or anything, but rather worry about the next thing on the list.

173 points by vitabenes 4y ago

This is not related to the article, but the comments. In all my years on the internet and on internet based communities, this community never ceases to impress me on how supportive members are of each other. I too have experienced some severe bouts of depression in my lifetime, and to a lesser degree still am experiencing one. While this community is pretty diverse, I find some solace in reading comment threads like this one, as I sort of assume that most of the people who gravitate towards HN are in a similar mindset as myself. Maybe we’re a group of people who have lived through the evolution of internet and social media, maybe we are all to some degree attempting to practice some sort of limiting our media inputs to those which provide a more meaningful experience in this world, or maybe there are just more realists in this community than the others I’ve been exposed to. I’m not really sure what it is, but I find these comment threads incredibly helpful to my situation. I’ve limited my “social media” intake to only HN for the past few years, and while I find myself on some days wishing there was something more magical to spend my time on, this community is the only place where I am reminded regularly to go out and do “Something” not because it will make me richer or more attractive or more popular, but simply because I will live a more fulfilling life. Thus being a “magical” community in and of itself. Thank you HN community for being the way you are.

allendoerfer 4y ago

I am a victim of the religion of self-optimization and productivity for the sake of productivity myself, but in the end you do not have to optimize yourself at all. If you and your family have enough to eat, you are fine. If you are procrastinating something, you can also just decide to not do it. Just live, you are fine.

ideamotor 4y ago
I read your comment and then skimmed the article. This is how it reads: “ALERT! YOU HAVE PROBLEMS! STEPS 123455789 ARE NEEDED!” And so on. Talk about piling it on. Thanks for your perspective.
rdbell 4y ago
Thanks. This is a good reminder for some of us.
space_rock 4y ago
I find once I remove addiction (YouTube, twitter) I will naturally get things done
- thuganalyst 4y ago
  For me it’s twitter and… porn
- thelittleone 4y ago
  I find myself with an idea "oh that's right, I need to do X" and go to find the tab X in my browser with 100+ tabs open, and quite often forget what I was searching for before I find it. I really ought to remember to write a list. Oh wait I have one, where is that tab again?
  - kevmo314 4y ago
    I installed an extension to close idle tabs older than 30 minutes. Keeps my tabs tidy because turns out searching for the page is faster than finding the tab among the hundreds.
speedylight 4y ago
Not everyone can or should embrace this mindset, not because it’s a bad one per se…. But some people are driven by ambition—ambition to make money, make art, explore, create, etc. We have a lot to be thankful for in todays world and it’s partly due to people who challenged themselves to do more than simply sit back and chill. I look at it this way… some people want to star in the show, not just watch it.
- ideamotor 4y ago
  Those are all great motivators. While the article mentions "working on something exciting" it doesn't suggest, well, finding something that motivates you at a fundamental level.
  - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
    I think we can assume that the author of this post sees these things as equivalents.
- lovemenot 4y ago
  Everybody always was the star in their show. That's almost certainly true for non-human creatures too. To a degree, mass media undermined that foundation.
jasode 4y ago
>and productivity for the sake of productivity For some reason, the word "productive" causes some readers to get the wrong message. (I.e. some readers see a blog text mentioning "productivity" and thus it must be some veiled guilt-shaming article.) People don't try to be productive just for the sake of being productive. People want to improve their lives and productivity is a natural focus of optimization to bring about a quality-of-life improvement. Your pushback is similar to previous commenters that rejected the idea of "productivity" and I replied in previous comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19592404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19592404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22255557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22255557 To recap one of my comments, even the prehistoric hunter "having enough to eat" is not fine because the hunter still wants to improve the productivity of hunting. Over the last 10000 years, people have continuously improved the productivity of hunting (and farming) so much that today's people like you and I have enough free time to type HN comments -- instead of spending all day chasing after animals to eat. People naturally want to improve their lives. Some people also want to share ideas on how to improve their lives. It seems the word "productivity" has tainted that discussion. However, it doesn't change the fact that people still want to reduce the ratio of effort-to-benefit.
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  I agree to your general point, but "instead of spending all day chasing after animals to eat." Actual working hours in small hunter gatherer tribes like the Lakota were more likely around 3-4 hours. Medieval peasants had to work all day long. But both experienced starving in winter and spring, in a bad year.
  - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
    Those tribes have been optimizing their hunter-gatherer lifestyle for thousands of years. Like the rest of modernity, they have innovated (increased their productivity) on their practices and their culture and society has evolved. So I see this point as being evidence to GPs perspective, rather than your own, respectfully.
- allendoerfer 4y ago
bittercynic 4y ago
If you're able to just decide not to do the thing, then you're in a much better place. Some of us can get stuck in a loop where we can't decide not to do the thing, but also can't get started on it.
dazc 4y ago
> If you are procrastinating something, you can also just decide to not do it. Just live, you are fine. Procrastination can be the thin end of the wedge though and, in extreme cases, deciding not to do things develops into doing nothing, like not going to work, not paying paying bills, not opening letters or answering the phone, and so on...

kaetemi 4y ago

Ah. But I don't enjoy finishing certain tasks, I enjoy doing them. So the most potential enjoyment is gained by never finishing. I don't feel any sense of accomplishment when finishing those tasks.

PartiallyTyped 4y ago
I feel an existential dread when I finish them.
- kaetemi 4y ago
  Yes. Even though I have literally a hundred notes on my wall for next projects to build. What if I finish the current one, and then finish all of those? Nothing left to do!
  - hutzlibu 4y ago
    Is this a real fear, or hyperbole? If it is real, I can endlessly supply you with project ideas. You know, how about solving hunger or climate change, if you are too bored ..
    - kaetemi 4y ago
      It's real. Now that I think of it, I vaguely remember in early primary school frequently finishing tasks* early, and then having nothing to do, or being put on some time wasting activity. Not very enjoyable. Might be a learned behaviour from that. *In one instance that I recall, we had these children books for learning to read. While other kids were whispering while reading, I was silent reading them, and much faster than them. (I particularly remember the other kids commenting that I was just pretending to read.) So, I went through the available books. *Another time we were supposed to underline all the words we didn't understand in a story. Since there were none, I just went through it again a few times and underlined words that looked more difficult just to finish the task. (When the teacher checked it, they just said they knew I already understood those words.) (I suppose "frog" doesn't qualify as a difficult word.) (That was during first and second grade.)

throwaway22032 4y ago

The thing about this sort of advice is that to a person in a subclinically depressed mindset it's not using the same language that they understand. It's preaching to the choir. If you feel good about yourself and you are otherwise healthy then going to the gym, eating well, studying etc are not things that feel bad. They are intrinsically motivating because they make you a better you. But if you feel bad or you are unwell then you don't give a toss, it's just dopamine fix after dopamine fix to get through today. But then even if you feel good, not everyone cares about self actualization along the same axes. And then we have limited time, money, energy, ... Life is complicated, innit.

WilTimSon 4y ago
I've had experience with this and while it's incredibly difficult to find motivation to go the gym or eat well, I found that achieving even one of these things for even a week - so two-three visits to the gym or four-five salads and veggies instead of snacks - were enough to really boost my morale. Granted, it's no "solution" for depressive mindsets, but it's a step on the right track. We just tend to have this obsession with finding an easy packaged solution, whereas any real problem requires steps upon steps.
thenerdhead 4y ago
Although I get what you're saying, I challenge that it "won't get through to certain people". I think the advice is pretty common for people in that mindset. It's littered in every best selling self-help books read by millions worldwide (Tony Robbins, Mel Robbins, lots of Robbins for some reason). It is definitely "life changing" going from a depressive state to a neutral or even positive one. But it seems most people start their self-improvement journey from depressive states they aren't aware of. Break-ups, financial ruin, tragic loss, shitty job, family issues, etc. While self-actualization is indeed different for us all, there is a common sentiment to it which is being able to realize your full potential. The only way to do that is to constantly work on improving yourself as a person. That gives you much of the newfound sense of "security" and "growth" we all strive for in life.
- sverona 4y ago

jasonlfunk 4y ago

Personally, I have found using a visual scoreboard as a really helpful tool to make/break habits. Being able to see streaks clearly and a more concrete representation of the habit (as well as a reminder to keep it up!) is really useful. And I think a paper version trumps an app here quite a bit. It's for more tactile, which makes it feel more real and meaningful.

k__ 4y ago

I think, positive feedback is crucial for motivation, but grit gets you through the slow days. I probably just continued my blogging career, because one of my first articles got over 20k views. I wrote many of such successful articles in my first year of blogging. But there were much more that nobody cared about. Most of the stuff I wrote was simply ignored and it felt like I lost my luck. But I kept going on and eventually things got better again.

krnlpnc 4y ago

I’d be happy to never see another one of these procrastination fix articles. There is no one size fits all solution, it’s a complex issue and is specific to the individual.

is_true 4y ago
Isn't a good thing that a lot of these articles exist? As the number of articles available grows the chance that you share the "issue" with the author is bigger.
- Jaruzel 4y ago
  With the added bonus that you can now procrastinate by spending your time reading all these articles about avoiding procrastination.
- dazc 4y ago
  I agree, there is always something to take away from these discussions that I hadn't previously appreciated. It is indeed a complex issue but hearing other people's views/experiences helps it become less so.

thenerdhead 4y ago

I generally agree with the advice. It’s common that any feeling and noticing said feeling begets the same feeling. But do know there is a duality to these feelings. You can make positives out of negatives and vice-versa. This teaches you that one simply cannot exist without the other. Although I’m a positive person in general, the negative balances us as human. I would argue that “cheerfulness” is the more ideal state of mind being this middle path between the two. It’s the idea of euthymia in which you live regularly without large shifts in mood. This is often referred to as the professional mindset where you get what you need to get done because you are largely unaffected by how you feel on a given day. This is where many of the cliche “Master your thoughts, master your life” quotes come from because it’s largely true once you experience it. At least my experience with it.

xyzzy4747 4y ago

The only way to fix procrastination is when the end justifies the work involved. Chances are the thing you are procrastinating is inconsequential and maybe isn’t important in the first place, or you haven’t made up your mind yet. If someone paid you $10 million to do something, you probably would just do it. If on the other hand someone or society has brainwashed you into doing a low reward task then of course you will procrastinate.

xyzzy4747 4y ago
To add onto this, first start with the premise that you don’t have to do anything at all in life. You can be a bum. Sure it would bother some people but it’s true. Then spend a few years thinking about things that are truly worth doing. Long term goals that truly excite you which you can build towards. Don’t do anything just because. Only do things that give you joy or are towards a goal you find exciting. Life is short and don’t waste it on pointless tasks. This is how I personally found more motivation.

jackallis 4y ago

I am sorry, not to be a debbie-downer but this kind of "solutinos" seem to only "solve" surface level issues i.e they don't look at emotional reasons why we procrastinate. I belive if you truly want to improve yourself, atleast not procrastinate, you have to look at your emotioanal state. It's effective when you do this at the point of procrastination. Why am i procrastinating? what/how am i feeling? Am i running away from this problem? if i am , why? Anything that probes your emotional state will help you uncover why is it that you're procrastina/ting/te. And, this method might not be the only way, but all paths to deprocrastinate go through your state of emotions.

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lioeters 4y ago
> "solutinos" Not sure you meant the neologism or if it's a typo - but I like the picture it creates. Also agree with your point about productivity and emotinos.
PebblesRox 4y ago
Agreed, procrastination is a feelings problem and it requires feelings solutions. Often when I finally start doing the thing I was putting off, the realization will hit me: "this is really hard," or "this feels really bad." I hadn't consciously expected those feelings but they were there under the surface, contributing to the urge to procrastinate. I remember this article really changing my mindset when I first read it. “Procrastination is an emotion regulation problem, not a time management problem....” https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/smarter-living/why-you-procrastinate-it-has-nothing-to-do-with-self-control.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/smar...

maivais0eil 4y ago

1. Share a thought 2. How does that thought make you feel? 3. Why does it make you feel that way? 4. Think about your thought in a way that makes you feel differently. 5. How does thinking about it differently change your original feelings? 6. What new opportunities are possible by thinking differently? Not really trying to create something positive as much as showing the possibility for opportunities. Write down your answers as you complete the exercise.

qiskit 4y ago

If you need to resort to such silly gimmicks, maybe there is something else that's wrong? Maybe you are depressed and you should seek help? Maybe you are not motivated because you are not in a career you enjoy or you don't like the major you've chosen in school or a family member is sick? If you take a step back and assess the situation rationally, something must be terribly wrong in your life if you need to "create a positive feedback loop to become motivated".

z5h 4y ago
> silly gimmicks You haven't proved this claim. > Maybe you are depressed, not in a career you enjoy, ... So, as you point out, there are many factors here (some out of our control). And the post offers some strategies. Why is quitting a career better than reframing it more positively?

staunch 4y ago

1. BECOME RELAXED: Take care of the fundamental issues in your life, health, finances, burnout, or whatever else might be preventing you from being relaxed enough to focus your mind. Eat, sleep, and exercise well. Consider this an absolute prerequisite and don't feel guilty about it. 2. FIND MOTIVATION: Get excited about why you started in the first place. Go over the plan from scratch with a co-founder, talk to users, visualize the end goal, use the product, or do whatever it takes to get back some of the initial excitement. 3. BUILD MOMENTUM: Be as self-indulgent as necessary at first. Don't worry about doing the highest priority tasks, just get going. Do whatever part of the project seems most fun/easy/interesting, however trivial. Do whatever it takes to start building back your speed. Once you're at speed, the hard stuff won't be so hard. Now you're relaxed, motivated, and have momentum so it's full steam ahead! Fall off the wagon for some reason? Don't waste time feeling bad, just accept it. Then repeat steps 1-3.

FollowingTheDao 4y ago

No one here is even questioning why we need motivation.

michaericalribo 4y ago

Despite the way this is presented as a productivity / life hack, the broad principles are backed by good science. Specifically, the process of positive reinforcement and challenging assumptions is a cornerstone of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy movement in psychology and counseling. CBT has been shown to be as effective as medications at treating a wide range of mental health issues — depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive, substance abuse, and so on. Anecdotally, this type of reinforcement is hard, but worth it. By definition you are trying to retrain your brain to be wired to better habits than it’s trained to now. You’re violating your comfortable response with a decidedly different one. But after you’ve practiced enough, these methods can provide real relief for mental health.

narrator 4y ago

This works for one offs like cleaning up, or filing taxes, but how does one stick to a multi-month or even multi-year project? For that, it requires faith that everything will work out. It's painfully easy to be skeptical and cynical. In the really old how to succeed books like Think and Grow Rich faith is emphasized as an important attribute to success. These days with endless scoffing at everything, this principle has been forgotten and ridiculed.

true_religion 4y ago

> Imagine how you feel after successfully completing an assignment ahead of time… You feel good, don’t you? Nope. Whenever I complete an assignment, I feel a great sense of ... nothing. Before work, there's a crippling tension that leads to procrastination. During work, I am focused and not thinking about anything else. Afterwards though, I don't feel relieved or anything, but rather worry about the next thing on the list.