Frequently people grumble about needing to really hit the gym or finish work but not having the option to escape their comfort zone. Even in the wake of having sufficient motivation, it's difficult to get up from bed and finish work. So we will dive deep into this concept of motivation and action and understand how to fix it.
You are motivated put in the wrong direction
I often hear people say “I want to hit the gym but I am just not motivated enough to do it” , I am pretty sure most of the people know how it feels. But the problem is in that you are not motivated enough and the problem is that you are two motivated in the wrong direction. For example you are chilling at home in your bed and watching Netflix all day but you want to study. You really have to try hard to extract yourself from the phone in order to get your work done. It's an extra effort you put in. You might feel you are not motivated. But the truth is you are highly motivated to continue doing what you are doing. There is a part of your brain that is telling you to continue watching Netflix and chill.
Fear of Negative Outcomes: A Barrier to Action
Motivation comes from the nucleus accumbens of our brain. Whenever you try something new depending on how pleasurable it is, you get a spurt of dopamine in your nucleus accumbens. Therefore you want to reinforce the behavior. Behavioral reinforcement means doing the activity again and again. One thing you need to know about nucleus accompance is that it is also very sensitive to pain. Not only it wants us to seek pleasure but also it wants us to avoid pain.
This is why we are highly motivated to do nothing.
For example you need to email your professor for extension. And you are concerned that your professor might get pissed off. So in the avoidance of the pain your nucleus accumbens suggests you to queue up the task for another day rather than engaging in a conversation that could end badly. That is exactly why you keep procrastinating.
How extreme motivation backfires
The more motivated you are, the harder it is to make a choice. When we get motivated we lose all control. Just think of back in the time when you just woke up in the morning and you weren't particularly motivated, but truly contentful. If you look closely you see how you could do whatever you want to do if you were free, or if you have something important to do you could do that too without much internal struggle. Motivation and choice are antagonists.
What to do:
- Abstain from pleasure:
So one thing that you can do right now is abstain from pleasure. Now the goal of this isn't to Boost your willpower, though that can happen, but for you to pay attention to what happens to your sense of contentment. Is your life absolutely miserable without social media or any of your favorite pleasures? Pay attention to how your brain react when you deprive yourself from all of this pleasures.
- Dissect pleasure:
I understand it sucks and we don't want to embrace pain. If you can't give up your favorite pleasure then you can detach from the positive. Here I don't mean abstaining from the positive but to detach. What this means is to dissect your pleasure. Attention to where the pleasure comes from understand what about this is fun. What you will discover is that the less aware you are the more lost you are in the stuff and the more hedonic reinforcement you will get. so as you observe pleasurable things instead of getting lost in them the pleasure you will receive from them will start to decrease.
conclusion
I know it sounds bizarre to have motivation but not getting any work done. But the problem is that you have too much motivation and sometimes in the wrong direction so free yourself from that extreme motivation stage, calm yourself down and make the right choices.