I think this is terrible advice. I got much better at motivation over the last year by thinking in exactly the opposite way from what this article recommends. I accepted that I had virtually no willpower, and that I wasn't just going to just magically develop some, and that I didn't need it anyway. Instead I needed to get more skilled at 'coaxing' myself into doing things – at steering my feelings into more constructive areas, and then letting my desires drive my actions. I applied my tiny amount of willpower to this 'steering', rather than trying to use it to drag myself kicking and screaming into doing things, which it clearly is not powerful enough to do. It worked, and I'm much happier. You can't "just" do stuff if you don't feel like it, as this article suggests. That's completely unsustainable. Any approach amounting to "just fucking do it" is going to last only as along as that little glimmer of resolve lasts, which is obviously short term. Instead you need to break down the wall between your gut desires and your cerebral strategies, and make those two parts of yourself acknowledge each other and collaborate.
You can't "just" do stuff if you don't feel like it, as this article suggests.
And yet every morning, millions of people get up and go to work to do a job they really don't feel like doing. People still do back-breaking work just so they can put food on the table. I'm not saying it's a recipe for happiness but people have been doing stuff they don't enjoy for millennia. And even in present day, only some of us can afford to choose when, where and what to work on.
It takes far less motivation or willpower to do manual labor than mental labor. I had multiple manual labor jobs before becoming a developer and I could do my work on the factory line even if I was tired, unhappy, apathetic, distracted or preoccupied. I find it far harder to code under those conditions.
This. Sometimes, I feel really guilty when I 'don't feel like working', although I know that hour worked is hour paid (working from home), and my hourly rate is the same as my dad's daily rate in a sweat shop in Lithuania.
We have such a luxury and we fail to understand that.
Because you don't need focus and creativity to carry shit around. Anyone can dig a ditch while not feeling like it, but very few can actually do intellectual work in the same state.
Just because you can't, doesn't mean other people can't. I had actually realized basically everything they were talking about a few months ago, and since then I have improved my decision making significantly. Depending on your feelings to power you through things is very unreliable.
This is really interesting and I'd like to hear more about your approach. What is your inner monologue like when you're integrating the two opposing forces?
The advice was to actively drain your emotional response. Rather than fight your feeling, work to quiet all of your feelings - be like Spock.
You won't reduce them to nothing, but you will get them under control enough that you can then steer them just as you are saying. Otherwise your aversion feelings are overwhelming and it's impossible to steer as you say.
