Why Can’t I Motivate Myself To Work?

00:00:00.000 | All right, Jesse, what do we got next?

00:00:02.080 | All right, next question is from M. "What advice would you give somebody who is currently

00:00:06.560 | in a role that meets every job satisfaction criteria but is struggling with motivation?

00:00:11.440 | I consistently lack motivation to do deep work and have to force myself to focus.

00:00:16.240 | This at times feels almost physically impossible, especially when working from home and leads

00:00:20.760 | me to cycling between burnout, stress, boredom, and guilt."

00:00:24.200 | Well, M, this is common, especially right now, especially post-pandemic.

00:00:30.560 | There's two potential forces that might be at play here that is causing this amotivation

00:00:37.320 | issue.

00:00:38.320 | I don't know which of these at play.

00:00:39.920 | It's likely that both are maybe at play and they're mixed together, but let's talk about

00:00:43.000 | both separately.

00:00:44.400 | The first is what I call deep procrastination, which is an issue I wrote about originally

00:00:49.960 | back when I focused my blog just on students because it was in the student population that

00:00:55.080 | I first observed this issue.

00:00:57.660 | Deep procrastination is where you find yourself unable to work up the motivation to do work

00:01:02.440 | that needs to be done.

00:01:04.560 | And for students, it'll be a paper that has to be submitted or a take-home exam that has

00:01:08.120 | to go back, and they just can't do it.

00:01:10.880 | They cannot muster the internal motivation to even get started.

00:01:15.840 | Deadlines will be passed.

00:01:17.400 | Professors will give them extensions.

00:01:18.840 | Oftentimes they maybe end up even having to withdraw from that semester.

00:01:22.080 | They just can't push themselves to work.

00:01:24.640 | So I observed this when I was, especially at MIT where I was at the time among high

00:01:28.200 | achieving students, it was different than depression because in other aspects of their

00:01:34.480 | life they were not a hedonic.

00:01:36.460 | So it wasn't an overall flattening of their ability to have sort of excitement or hope

00:01:42.080 | or positive feelings.

00:01:43.360 | There's other things are still very exciting to them, but they couldn't do schoolwork.

00:01:47.440 | So deep procrastination could be at play here.

00:01:50.680 | I'll talk in a second about how to service that, but let me mention the other possible

00:01:54.840 | force at play here, which would be the idea that your mind might be dopamine sick.

00:02:01.520 | So dopamine sick is where you have so frazzled your brain with constant targeted distraction

00:02:12.160 | at the slightest hint of boredom delivered through your phone, delivered through your

00:02:14.920 | computer screen that is now unable to work up the proper motivation to do something that's

00:02:21.360 | longer form, deeper and more complicated.

00:02:24.000 | That is so frazzled from just being stimuli bombarded with all of these algorithmically

00:02:29.480 | expertly aimed sources of stimuli, these digital darts right to the base of your brainstem

00:02:37.080 | that give you that metaphorical electrical charge that when it comes time to do something

00:02:41.640 | that is comparably more stayed, that's comparably more boring, like let's start gathering sources

00:02:46.680 | and writing this memo, your brain just can't do it.

00:02:50.400 | And there's been an uptick anecdotally, an uptick in dopamine sickness, especially post

00:02:56.200 | pandemic because of how much and how many people fell into a pattern of much more hyperactive

00:03:04.720 | exposure to distraction that they would have before.

00:03:07.920 | Because maybe they're now at home and they're working remotely so they can have the phone

00:03:11.200 | out and things feel more haphazard.

00:03:14.260 | Maybe also there is an escape what's happening.

00:03:17.040 | You're anxious about things that are happening in the world and you can't confront them.

00:03:21.600 | And so let me just look at the phone, let me just look at these distractions and get

00:03:24.880 | that numbing in the moment.

00:03:27.120 | So I think we have a lot more dopamine sickness than we had before.

00:03:29.960 | Students are getting this very strongly because they got so embedded with their devices that

00:03:35.400 | now their brains are struggling.

00:03:37.920 | You say, here's a senior thesis you have to write as a high school student and their brain

00:03:41.680 | is tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.

00:03:44.760 | How can I go from seven seconds before I swipe to spending hours trying to research Charles

00:03:52.120 | DeGrete or something like this?

00:03:54.120 | So both of these things might be a play.

00:03:55.600 | Deep procrastination, dopamine sickness.

00:03:58.720 | Let's talk about solutions to both and you can mix and match these solutions as they

00:04:03.060 | seem to fit.

00:04:04.760 | So what I learned about deep procrastination is that its source tends to be a combination

00:04:10.520 | of the locus of control and motivation being away from the internal and more towards the

00:04:16.600 | external.

00:04:17.600 | So extrinsic motivation, you're like, I don't really, this feels arbitrary to me or it's

00:04:21.800 | not something I really want to do.

00:04:24.480 | But it's being for a student, it might be, I don't know, my parents wanted me to be a

00:04:27.680 | pre-med major and this chemistry class is really hard.

00:04:30.680 | I never even wanted to be a doctor and this class is not something I went after because

00:04:34.880 | I was excited about it.

00:04:35.880 | And in work it could be, I don't even understand why I'm writing this self-assessment report.

00:04:40.520 | So I just put it on my plate.

00:04:41.520 | No one's even going to read this thing.

00:04:42.960 | So you have this lack of intrinsic motivation for the work coupled with the work being hard.

00:04:49.080 | So the chem class is really hard and I never wanted to be a doctor in the first place.

00:04:52.680 | This report is going to be a real pain.

00:04:54.160 | I don't even really know.

00:04:55.160 | There's a lot of ambiguities around how do I even do this?

00:04:58.280 | And it wasn't my idea to do this in the first place.

00:05:00.240 | No one's really going to read it.

00:05:01.640 | That combination can trigger deep procrastination.

00:05:06.320 | So a couple of things you can do here.

00:05:08.600 | One you have to reduce the hardness.

00:05:10.240 | That does help.

00:05:11.880 | Lock it in your organizational system.

00:05:14.840 | Here is how I keep track of what's on my plate.

00:05:16.480 | Here's how I plan my time during the day.

00:05:18.680 | Maybe I'm doing capture, configure, control style system of professional workplace management.

00:05:24.080 | I have processes in place for common collaborations.

00:05:28.040 | There's a sense your brain gets of I am in control of how I approach my work that gives

00:05:33.920 | it more confidence and reduces the sense of this is some ambiguous, hard, impossible task.

00:05:39.000 | So when the hard thing gets reduced to time blocks that show up in time block plans for

00:05:43.760 | the days and you sort of execute your time blocks for the days, it's not as hard to execute.

00:05:48.640 | So that can help.

00:05:51.480 | Simplifying obligations also helps.

00:05:53.240 | So there's a sense of hardness that sometimes come here from just you're overwhelmed, you're

00:05:56.680 | overloaded, and your brain says this is enough.

00:05:59.440 | Like, I don't even know what all this stuff is.

00:06:01.240 | This is impossible.

00:06:02.240 | Uncle, I'm going to do deep procrastination.

00:06:04.960 | So it's a good time because it's a serious problem.

00:06:07.320 | You're not able to just get normal work done.

00:06:10.760 | It's causing you real subjective distress.

00:06:12.760 | You have to be ready to make some actual big changes here and a real simplification on

00:06:16.280 | what's on your plate, even if it ruffles some feathers, may be what you need here.

00:06:21.520 | Makes your workload seem manageable or possible to your mind.

00:06:27.200 | And then finally, I think you need some sort of target that your professional life is serving.

00:06:33.000 | This goes back to something like lifestyle centric career planning, right?

00:06:35.840 | So here's the chain of influence I want here.

00:06:38.920 | I want you to have this vision you're excited about for your life that you're not there

00:06:43.160 | yet, but a lifestyle that's different, that resonates.

00:06:45.720 | Okay, there's some things I need to change.

00:06:47.360 | You need to figure out how your work fits into there.

00:06:50.840 | This may require some changes.

00:06:51.960 | I need to shift over from this work to that work or change my focus within the organization

00:06:56.360 | because that's going to open up these options, which lets me get closer to my lifestyle.

00:06:59.640 | But what you're trying to get here is a chain of influence from a motivating image of a

00:07:02.960 | desired lifestyle and have that chain of influence come all the way back to the work you're doing

00:07:07.120 | right now.

00:07:08.560 | And it seems like that's arbitrary, but for the motivational sensors in our brain, that

00:07:11.720 | makes a big difference.

00:07:12.920 | Now you get intrinsic motivation.

00:07:14.860 | This self-assessment report is going to be a pain to write, but it's part of my plan

00:07:20.740 | to get this next promotion, which I'll then negotiate the shift over to this type of work,

00:07:25.180 | which I'll negotiate to do remotely.

00:07:26.780 | And then I'm going to move to the upper peninsula of Michigan as my plan all specifies I should

00:07:33.860 | do.

00:07:34.860 | Now the hard, hard effort deployed towards a goal you believe in is not, not hard.

00:07:39.300 | It's not going to cause deep procrastination.

00:07:41.700 | We appreciate hard things if we know why we're doing them.

00:07:43.820 | You have to, you have to fit a why in there.

00:07:45.580 | If you're just going through your job, this should be a good job.

00:07:47.820 | I'm paid well, it's satisfying.

00:07:48.940 | I like the people, but it's just a job.

00:07:53.140 | Then doing the effort could fall into this deep procrastination trap.

00:07:55.540 | So you have to connect it to a bigger positive vision.

00:07:57.820 | All right.

00:07:58.820 | So what about dopamine sickness?

00:08:00.140 | If that is the issue here?

00:08:01.340 | Well, you need boredom therapy.

00:08:02.820 | I talk about this in my book, Deep Work.

00:08:05.780 | This means a regular periods throughout your day where your mind craves distractions and

00:08:09.060 | you do not give those distractions to your mind.

00:08:11.740 | This includes, for example, going on at least one walk or errand a day without your phone.

00:08:18.280 | So you have no option of looking at your phone or listening to something.

00:08:21.460 | I would also suggest the phone foyer method.

00:08:25.060 | My phone gets plugged in by the front door in the kitchen.

00:08:27.500 | When I get home, if I need to look something up or check text messages, I have to walk

00:08:31.140 | over there and read it there.

00:08:32.700 | It is not with me on the couch.

00:08:34.020 | It is not with me at the dinner table.

00:08:37.020 | God forbid it's not with me in the bathroom.

00:08:39.220 | So you still have the phone in your apartment, in your house.

00:08:43.100 | You still have the conveniences of, oh, I need to look up what time this thing is tomorrow

00:08:46.660 | or text someone on meeting later, but it's not on your person.

00:08:50.900 | And that makes all the difference.

00:08:51.900 | So now your brain is getting used to this idea.

00:08:54.700 | Sometimes we get distraction when we're bored.

00:08:56.820 | Sometimes we don't.

00:08:57.820 | And this is a withdrawal period.

00:09:00.560 | Give that a couple of weeks and your brain will get much more comfortable with it.

00:09:04.140 | You can also do interval training with your ability to concentrate on hard things.

00:09:07.380 | Let me just do 20 minutes, 20 minutes with a timer.

00:09:12.220 | And if I break and check email or my phone, I have to reset the timer.

00:09:15.020 | Your brain says that I can do.

00:09:16.660 | I might freeze when you say, right, this thing is going to take five hours, but 20 minutes

00:09:21.140 | I can do.

00:09:22.140 | And you start with that 20 minutes with a timer, intensely working on things until you

00:09:26.820 | can do that pretty regularly without it being too horrifying.

00:09:29.660 | 20 minutes doesn't seem too bad.

00:09:30.980 | And then you add 10 more minutes.

00:09:32.780 | And then once 30 minutes becomes comfortable, you add 10 more minutes.

00:09:34.980 | So you might literally need to retrain your brain for longer and longer intervals of focus

00:09:41.140 | as you escape dopamine sickness.

00:09:43.460 | Finally, I think you need to care about location.

00:09:45.900 | You need to care about rituals for your work.

00:09:49.060 | So you mentioned that working from home is a big part of work seeming very hard for you

00:09:55.260 | to get started with.

00:09:57.380 | This is a tricky thing.

00:09:58.980 | When your home environment, your work environment is the same.

00:10:02.420 | You're trying to wrench your mind from a domestic context into professional context.

00:10:06.100 | It's hard to do.

00:10:07.520 | Your mind is still largely ensnared in the domestic context.

00:10:10.540 | It's hard.

00:10:11.540 | Therefore, you don't have as much resources to actually focus on the thing ahead.

00:10:16.080 | It messes with your motivational senses.

00:10:18.700 | So Em, I would say go radical here.

00:10:20.760 | You need a really different location.

00:10:22.300 | You do your work, renovate the garden shed, rent some office space in a small town, spend

00:10:28.980 | money on this.

00:10:29.980 | You have a big problem.

00:10:30.980 | You're unable to get work started.

00:10:32.620 | So you have to see this as an issue that might require big solutions and build much more

00:10:36.580 | elaborate rituals around your work.

00:10:38.320 | This is my work day.

00:10:39.320 | I have a big walk I do to get coffee where I think I plan my day at the coffee shop.

00:10:43.140 | And when I get back to my desk and my exotic location near my house, I immediately start

00:10:47.080 | working at the end of the day.

00:10:49.060 | I go to that same coffee shop and do a shutdown routine and then do another walk to switch

00:10:54.120 | my mindset.

00:10:55.120 | You need radical rituals.

00:10:56.120 | You need radical locations to help your mind separate work from non-work, to help your

00:11:01.300 | mind more automatically generate the motivation it needs to get going.

00:11:04.500 | You're not just forcing it, white knuckling it.

00:11:06.900 | Hey, let me just put this laundry basket down, walk past my kid over here who's homesick

00:11:11.820 | and just say, "Concentrate now."

00:11:14.160 | And you're staring at the computer amidst all of that chaos.

00:11:17.560 | So I don't know if you have deep procrastination.

00:11:19.020 | I don't know if you have dopamine sickness.

00:11:20.780 | I don't know if it's some mix of those two things.

00:11:23.800 | But think about those solutions and the types of solutions that seem to resonate with you.

00:11:28.580 | Go with those.

00:11:29.580 | That'll probably point you towards what the real problem actually is.

00:11:32.880 | Did you come up with a term, dopamine sickness?

00:11:36.460 | I think so.

00:11:37.460 | Yeah, I think you did too.

00:11:38.460 | Yeah.

00:11:39.460 | I mean, it might be around.

00:11:40.460 | I just made it up, but-

00:11:41.460 | I like it.

00:11:42.460 | You come up with a lot of terms.

00:11:43.800 | I like terms.

00:11:44.800 | Well, there's a show about the opioid crisis called Dope Sick.

00:11:48.860 | Oh, there is?

00:11:49.860 | Yes.

00:11:50.860 | That's probably what I'm implicitly playing off of.

00:11:53.780 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:11:57.140 | (upbeat music)

Why Can’t I Motivate Myself To Work?

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