4 ms·

Motivation is a made up word. You can't hold it, put it in a jar, sell it or give to someone. It's an abstract that usually only creeps up if you "lack" it. But

Motivation is a made up word. You can't hold it, put it in a jar, sell it or give to someone. It's an abstract that usually only creeps up if you "lack" it. But there is no such thing as lacking something that doesn't exist in the real world. I found it's best to completely abandon it. Instead one should thrive to find and do the work they truly enjoy. Then anything just gets in the way of doing the real work, if it's necessary you push through it, if it's unnecessary, drop it.

sph 4y ago
> Motivation is a made up word. You can't hold it, put it in a jar, sell it or give to someone. You actually can, with any chemical that increases dopamine (focus and task saliency) and norepinephrine (need to do something) in the pre-frontal cortex. Stimulants of the amphetamine family are notoriously good at this. Anything we do or feel is mediated by chemical or electrical signals. There are a lot of reasons why we expect to synthesize the perfect cocktail for motivation, but we can't, and among those is that the thing that makes you say "I should be doing this" is a high-level system with little to no control over the why your brain isn't entering a motivated state. You might be hungry, sad, depressed, have ADHD, haven't slept enough, be mentally exhausted or very often you think you want to do something, but the rest of your brain really doesn't for whatever reason. Your high level consciousness just doesn't know what's going on, but something is going on. This is why pinning down motivation is tricky.