This actually made my cry. My friend is a classic eudainomic dominant. He doesn’t have any big dreams or motivations he is the most chill person ever, super resilient and content and you can put him in almost any situation and he will roll with it. He has achieved so much more than me in life compared to me despite me being a perfectionist, extremely motivated because of the extreme anxiety, paralysis and inevitable burnout and depression that comes with it.
@@НикитаВеликодный-в5е exactly this. He is quietly content most of the time with appreciation peaks and disappointment troughs. When someone is eagerly ecstatic about something and can barely contain themselves, he is calmly looking forward to that thing He thinks achievements are nice bonuses but he could live without them because he didn’t need them to be happy with himself in the first place
I'm a psychology student too and I want to work as a counselor/curator when I'm done as work before I do my masters, and I'm gonna take so much of Dr. K's views and apply them in my job.
I learned this recently. I always was seen as "motivated" or "disciplined", and it got me a lot of good things in life. But this came at the cost of regular burn out and a constant state of anxiety and stress. Once I developed more mindfullness and contentment, I could choose what I spent my time on, without resorting to anxiety, stress, guilt or shame.
As a student that went through most of my degree before my treatment and diagnosis. Using anxiety and stress to structure your day works for sure but my god it takes away from being able to relax at all outside of getting stuff done.
Haven’t watched the vid yet, but I am a manager. I’ve noticed that the people who care the most tend to struggle. They get in their own head, hold themselves to impossible standards, and feel constant anxiety about their job so they struggle. I have been very successful in my career in part because I don’t take it too seriously. I care immensely about delivering good results, but I don’t get bothered when things don’t go my way. Not sure if that is related to this vid, but the title made me think that
You are bang on the money. I am the person that you describe - too anxious, idealistic, caring too much, setting impossible standards for myself and others. It has caused me nothing but misery. My friend is just like you are, good intentions but doesn’t take things too seriously, rolls with whatever happens and doesn’t dwell too much on negative stuff. He is much more successful than me and has had no mental health issues in his life.
The attitude of "care immensely about delivering good results, but dont get bothered when things don't go my way" you developed after you're experienced in work or you had that attitude from the start? Since I think that you should be confident to handle any problems happen, so that you're not afraid of them happening
Yup you got it right, the vid also contains direction for how to move from being too motivated to being more generally content. So check it out, maybe some of your colleagues could need it 😊
I never thought about it like this before. When I was in the Marine Corps everything you do is all about motivation. Now, these motivations tend to be healthy, team oriented, and beneficial but you lose sight of what you were trying to accomplish in the first place. I got really bad depression and anxiety when I was in but a lot of it was not understanding why I felt the way I did. I was at the pinacle of health but I couldn't keep going. I lost what I thought was motivation but really I lost purpose and fulfillment. When you're at the top of your game and people keep pushing you to achieve bigger and greater things you get lost in an embodiement of confusion. Why should we continue to exceed expectations when we have already reached our pinacle? You continue to hone your craft naturally if you don't focus on it.
You're also more productive now than someone was 50 years ago. Productivity is at an all time high with people really only being productive for 3-4 hours a day. Nothing in nature runs at 100% for any extended period of time.
@@ArdorstormI think they mean that technological advancements afford people more relaxed work. So what would take people in the old days maybe a full day to get done, a modern day person can get done in a couple hours, hence they're more "productive"
I think you perfectly described burnout. We become 'motivated' towards external accomplishment, and because that motivation is not aligned with our core values we become fatigued, depressed, and burnt out. If action is aligned with our core values, acting on those core values leads to contentment as external factors don't influence our behavior. You can tie this into feeling resolved, which is when your actions in the moment align with your core values. When you are resolved towards a purpose, you don't become burnt out as there is no discontent within you.
I won't lie. This is, imo, the best 'life-changer' channels. It won't tell you how to do stuff. It just goes "kay we suck, but you can do this to change" and this is represented not only with experience backing it up, but with science too
I started “dissecting” my pleasure around 4th - 5th grade and it became common practice for me. I’m fairly sure it is a big reason that caused me to see life through a fairly grey lens. Over analyzing things that make me happy and sad to the point of meaninglessness. The issue is I was content with never progressing and now my lack of progression at my age has caused me confidence issues at times and bouts of depression and anxiety.
This, at least the first bit, is exactly what I was thinking when watching the video. I actively wish I COULDN'T dissect my pleasures. I can't EVER fucking let loose and just enjoy shit for what it is.
@@psy-fi64 the point of dissecting pleasure is not that you shouldn't enjoy anything, it's the opposite. It is supposed to make you enjoy everything. But with eudaimonic pleasure instead of hedonic.
Too much of one thing is bad. I'm largely content in life, but still curious. That curiosity is what keeps me sane to this day, and dissecting many things including emotions only fuel that. No clue if it's tied to motivation, but it has kept me levelheaded over negative things like "Why do toxic people act the way they are? I might need some more context. I'm genuinely curious"
@@psy-fi64 I feel like you're probably young and thats fine but it gets better cuz I was analyzing everything from 15-21 and I stopped (after weed) and I'm like huh, its finally clear. I'm not advocating for drugs but I learned what a quiet mind felt like and I started another journey to stop thinking and shut off my mind when I feel its getting cluttered but i haven't used any substances in a year. a) over analyzing anything is a headache and not fun but its addictive (wrong motivation) b) do more think less. don't allow anytime for thoughts to ruminate and get too loud. Once you start doing hard shit, your mind finds ways to enjoy it. I found when doing something hard, its only painful for about 15-20 minutes, then it feels good. And when I have fun, I'm completely have fun and in the present. c) analyze where pleasure comes from, don't analyze everything about it. All I know is watching youtube, music, listening to something while doing any work and women are things I think about as an addictive thing. I've known this for a long time, but I don't ask myself why. I mean I used to, but its no point. If its taking away cogntive energy towards important things, it needs to either be blocked or needs added friction. Like I deleted social media off my phone and I only respond to messages on my computer once a week. Nonetheless its important to know where the hedonic pleasure comes from so you can do something about it.
The greatest realization I've had from Dr. K, meditation and studying yogic traditions and Buddhism, is that the natural state of being human, is to be energized, and clear minded. We don't even realize how much bandwidth we're constantly using until we free some up. I always thought I struggled with motivation, and then I found love, and I found a positive source of motivation, and that in of itself is not enough. My positive sources of motivation haven't changed me overnight on their own, instead they made me realize the motivations that I have that are blocking my progress by being resource hogs. I have realized that my brain is like my browser: Full of so many tabs that I can't count them all, even though only a handful at most are actually useful, and the rest are just lingering, sapping away resources.
Your analogy of browser tabs is intirguing. I too have an extreme "tab-hoarding" problem (had phases where I literally had 2000 tabs simultaneously open) and I wonder if this behavior is also analogus to my brain's behavior. I'm left stranded after Dr. K's video. He has a habit of presenting counter-intuitive findings to us (and apparently backing them up ("apparently" because I have no relevant expertise to attempt to debunk his findings but I trust him enough to let him do the heavy-lifting (Oh god, nested parentheses))). While the contrarian in me enjoys these videos, this one left me at an impasse. I've always thought that I lacked motivation because I always did things spontaneously and, almost always, when I do deep-work it's due to the intense anxiety and terror I get from imagining me failing or disappointing whoever is expecting progress. Without deadlines and fear, I'm like a leaf blowing in the wind, with the occassional drifts to places that give me momentary pleasure (even if I view these drifts as productive and useful, which do abound). What's worse is that I absolutely detest deadlines the most out of everything. The worst periods of my life coincide with my most productive. I do want to be productive because I enjoy my area of work, but for me, choosing productivity is tantamount to willingly showering in fire. I have extreme GAD and even with medication I'm struggling. I wonder if I'm a lost cause. What should I do here? I see my potential and where I could be with my crafts (however numerous) and as I age, I find myself betraying that expectant potential. I don't have to meet my potential head-on, but I'm so far away it hurts. Do I simply give up trying to be motivated even for the good things? Wouldn't that place me where I'm already at? Is Dr. K. saying that this freedom due to maximizing my eudaimonics will land me where I want to be anyway? Or is Dr. K. saying to simply give up only the bad motivations by way of dissecting the pleasures they bring out?
@@RainnFTWj You really remind me of myself, even down to how I type when I'm thinking about a lot, down to the nested parenthesis...although I will admit I never reached the thousands before, I think even my computer would melt if I tried that- I believe, ultimately, it boils down to this- How do you subconsciously prioritize things when you're not TRYING to do something specific? The brain is always active even when we're not directing it in a certain direction. So that means that motivation isn't something you lack, it's something that you already have. Whether it's motivations and drives that push you to avoid the things that make you anxious or afraid, or towards things that are entertaining, pleasurable or stimulating- I believe what Dr. K is trying to get at here is this. Many of our own inner conflicts do not come from a LACK of motivation, they come from CONFLICTING motivations. Be it addictions, fears, physiological impulses, physical needs, procrastination, rumination, mixed feelings, battles between the logical but underpowered higher functions of the brain that exist in the pre-frontal cortex, and the messy, primal, illogical, emotional and impulsive but POWERFUL urges, instincts, and emotions from the baser parts of the brain. In other words, when you, whether consciously or unconsciously have a conflict of interest, whichever interest is stronger is the one that dominates, although it can be a tiring process to get to that point, as your brain essentially is spending it's time and resources trying to calculate the subjective risks, rewards, and preferences to get to the result. Then you may be sitting there thinking what you are now. "If I'm stuck in conflict between my drives and motivations, then which one wins and what can I do about it?" And that's what this video is about, the motivation that drives you is the one that you choose to FEED. In effect, you can overcome this in two ways- One is to develop the behavior or drive that you want to develop to such a high degree that it becomes like instinct, as the motivation that you cultivate within yourself will naturally grow deeper and deeper roots until doing actions tied to that motive become automatic, this is what most people commonly think of when they talk about building consistency and good habits. When you have a strong, persistent positive motivation, it becomes a core value, which then makes it easier to build positive habits and take positive actions. But this topic is the other side to that, you see many of the good habits, skills, and so on that people talk about building don't start off as particularly deeply ingrained in us, they start as ideas, or concepts, thoughts, and logical conclusions, all things that are mainly formed from the cortexes of our brains, which deal in logic, problem solving and so on, the issue is that these positive ideas start from top of the brain, and work their way down into the deeper parts of the brain which are generally more powerful and more responsible for emotion, motivation, habits, and so on. Good habits need to be planted and tended to, and take consistency to take root, not just through repetition, but through reinforcement, nurture, leaning into the joy and peace that comes from that like a warm hug, until it becomes part of you. While many negative habits or unproductive patterns actually have counter origins, when we indulge ourselves, it brings pleasure, adrenaline, excitement, euphoria, fear, etc. the ACTION sparks EMOTION or some other deep-brain signals innately. It's why, in the example of something like addicts, one tiny dose of a strong enough substance can spark a near instantaneous addictive response in the brain. It is IMMENSELY stimulating to the motivation and instinctual connections in the brain. So generally speaking, what this breaks down to is, for the things you want more of in your life, and the traits you want to form in yourself, focus on building POSITIVE connections to the things you want to do, but do so in a way that you genuinely feel it towards the thing you're aiming for. And for the things that you want less of in life, practice abstinence, but ALSO, learn to slow down your physiology so that when you DO feel the urge to do the things that a part of you wants to stop doing, practice meditation and mindfulness, in such a way that when you feel yourself getting anxious or excited, you can calm yourself physically and mentally enough that your impulses don't overpower your intellect. YOU are in control of you. The key is to not fight with yourself. If you can reach a point of absolute equilibrium, where you're not overly excited, or overly stressed, which is scientifically proven to be possible with consistent meditation practice- You will enter a eudaimonic state like Dr K. talks about. The difference between a raging river and a flowing stream is pressure. The key is not in hitting the brakes, it's in taking pressure off the gas pedal. Running at full speed with the pedal to the floor is not fuel efficient for a car, and will often raise your risk of crashing even for the most experienced of drivers. Does any of that make sense or help?
@@RainnFTWj The other part I see this as, to sum everything up in a few lines- Hedonics (pleasure seeking and pain avoidant systems) thrive in fast paced, overwhelming minds and situations. Eudaimonics (fulfillment and contentment systems) thrive in more relaxed, peaceful and slowed down minds and situations. Learn to be the growing oak, not the speeding car. Meditation, meta cognition and mindfulness are all practical things you can engage in to make this shift. Remember, you are the one in control of your body, so long as you move and breathe according to your own will, you have the power to be the person you wanna be.
I discovered something relating to this recently. I found that my lack of motivation actually came from lack of self worth. I knew I could do the things i need to do, but my self worth issues made me feel like if i can do it, then it must not be worth while because i myself am not worthwhile. So i only ever felt motivated by things that were totally out of my reach to achieve, but as soon as i was able to actually perform the task effectively, id lose interest and lose motivation... because after all, I am worthless so anything i am capable of accomplishing is also worthless so why bother?
@@Hanz264 Its kinda hard to explain. When that sluggish or reluctant feeling comes up, you have to be willing to sit with it and examine it and let the emotion sort of digest as you observe it. Just gotta let yourself feel all those nasty feels without pushing them away or trying to rationalize them. just feel your feels without talking about them in your mind.
Empathy helps me most in dealing with this. There is always someone currently doing or aspiring to do whatever I am pursuing, so are those people also doing something worthless? If I say yes, then I am content making sweeping value judgements on both the task/job/field of study and the capabilities of the individual people doing those things regardless of circumstance (which is a dangerous thougut process to indulge in), and if I say no, then my unique situation can also be one that justifies the pursuit. In a way, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy: once you deem the endeavor worthless, you doubt your desire to pursue it. Then, you decide to cut it off after the honeymoon phase. But only through this action have you actually made the pursuit worthless, and you now can retroactively justify that you were correct all along and it was the right thing to do. Once the honeymoon phase full of curiosity, wonder, excitement, and discovery wear off, all we have between us and continuing the pursuit is our own desire to pursue it regardless of being curious or excited about it. To pursue it to fulfill or fully realize something that led us to that exact point where it wore off. And finishing what we started is often in itself worth it, but it is difficult to see the value in this when there's tons of other things for you to experience another honeymoon phase. You have to sacrifice the honeymoon phase of many other potential pursuits to pursue this one endeavor. The goal is to remind yourself that this is something worth pursuing by returning to the honeymoon phase mindset every step of the way. I'm sure you've heard or seen or even experienced this idea in some aspect of your life. This is just my perspective and what helps me clear the brain fog that comes from the same thought space you talked about. I don't know your thought process in much detail, but maybe hearing another perspective can be helpful.
People I see at the gym who always see me there tell me “you are so strong, you’re so motivated…” “how do you go 5 days a week?” but I tell them no I am not… going to the gym is just “something that I do.” It’s been 8 years now, so not going to the gym during the week feels weird. I always tell them that it didn’t start this way. It started with me going 2-3x a week and I often just had to drive there after work and tell myself “okay I’m just going to do a slow walk on the treadmill for 5 minutes.” But after the 5 minutes, I was ready to keep going at least 9 out of 10 times. And if I wasn’t, I would honor it and go home.
Yes I’ve heard that going to the gym should be like brushing your teeth. You don’t need motivation to brush your teeth every morning but it’s just something that you do.
Very helpful comment, that's a great, simple mindset shift. Start with 5 minutes and when you really don't feel like going longer, then honour your feelings. 😁👍🏾
Short-term enjoyment being antagonistic to long-term happiyness equals my mind blown. Dr. K did it again :D. I mean I knew that in order to achieve long-term goals we need to work on them instead of only finding pleasure in short-term enjoyment, but them being connected in such a way is mad.
So basically the years at school made me very good at avoiding (potential) pain. Plus I've been told I'm bad at stuff, so my brain defaults to "you're probably bad at it, don't do it"
@@ann18o96 That is probably true - a habit that can be easily triggered. I have had similar but not with what I cannot do, but can do but ain’t given psych traumas during childhood.
You're good at being bad at stuff, gotta give you that... But really, how much weight should other persons' opinion weight for you? Let alone completely random strangers' Dunno, I'm just going by the 'if something is worth doing, it's worth doing badly over not doing at all'
That's exactly the right thing to hear for me right now. Recently, telling myself that I don't have to do anything actually was my best tool to become productive. I really didn't lack motivation to work towards my goals, but was too invested into useless things.
This video actually hit me fairly hard on a personal level, as a few times in my life, I had periods of social anxiety and social withdrawal and what happened was my "motivation" for things became more inflated. So I was trying to hold myself to this high standard and set myself to these high goals I couldn't achieve and I also noticed that I statred eating more to satisfy that hedonistic part of my brain. Which also brings my conclusion that insecurites is a fuel to addictive behaviours. After 6 months of intense social anxiety, I stopped trying to push myself to achieve these external standards and accepted myself for who I was and try to find my own strengths and weaknesses, "let" myself be, then I found the social anxiety went away. And I found that I was generally more content overall about life and even coped with a couple of slip ups that my younger self couldn't. Thanks for this video Dr K, it helped explain things that happened in my life!
You've got to give Dr. K some credit; these intros for the past videos have been getting crazier. It makes me so excited to watch the rest of the video.
@pineapplethief4418 it's what people call things that they want to immediately dismiss and discredit when they can't be bothered to think about them critically
Wow I’ve discovered this by accident when i noticed that if i didnt care about the job i was interviewing for, i would ace the interview as opposed to being super anxious and nervous.
I didn't really see it that way. What is happening to me these days, since I failed my physics exam and now I have to make it up I am getting this deep motivation that is making me study in a highly efficient way. Taking into account what you are telling me is that, not that I should stop studying because it is giving me an enormous pleasure, but that I should control it and understand that it is not all I have to do. Eating, talking to people, relaxing, that's what I've been doing these days along with those highly efficient study sessions I've been having, plus, it helped me to understand certain aspects of how I approached physics practice as compared to math. Thank you, you opened a new perspective on motivation.
I had a highly motivated medical student in my college English class. All he cared about was his grades. He wrote well enough, but he couldn’t or wouldn’t listen to anything I tried to show him to improve his writing. He’d start arguing because he was afraid to get a lower grade. I finally promised him an A just to get him to relax and learn. I’m not sure it worked. I don’t think I’d want him as my doctor either. 😂
I'm trying to make music, a game, and pixel art. Let me tell you, having creative endeavors that rely on you sitting there makes wanting to do anything else harder
00:01 Being less motivated can lead to more results. 02:11 Nucleus accumbens controls motivation and pleasure. 04:14 UDICS leads to contentment and less motivation 06:05 Detaching from pleasure and pain leads to contentment and happiness. 08:08 Abstain from pleasurable things to observe contentment 10:00 Detach from the positive to increase mindfulness 12:17 Motivation can lead to loss of control and limited choices. 14:20 Excess motivation in the wrong direction limits freedom and contentment 16:26 Distills important learning into an Adventure format
I’ve watched this video 3x now, and I think it’s really struck a chord with me. I’m planning on adopting this eudaemonic mental state to dieting instead of always seeking motivation. I think it’ll really help me stay content and happy with the day to day of adopting good lifestyle habits, as opposed to always being so goal driven. Wish me luck!
At one point I started to dissect what I was getting from my League of Legends obsession. I liked the gameplay, the open ended possibility to mess up or do well. I also liked the cooperation aspect of it, to put effort into doing well, but specially into doing well in a coordinated fashion, where other people can appreciate the effort. This way, I found out that I didn't really need to spend 2 digit hours playing League every single day, chasing the good feelings in a desperate attempt to feel accomplished with my performance. I decided to start playing difficult singleplayer games, which not only consumed less hours of my day, but also played less of a role in my mood. I kind of had to give up on the cooperative appreciation of competitive games, but thanks to that I was able to get out of the League loop. I still kind of get obsessed with one or two singleplayer games, finding myself in wild gaming marathons, but at least those games do end at some point and then I'm back into real life. Never again did I go to sleep at insane hours, fuming with frustration due to repeatedly failing to get a good gameplay session.
How about playing a real life game with a team, like football, basketball etc. You will have what you want and also +more movement and good for your health and social skills
@@j.p.4658 Thanks for the recommendation. I do go to the gym. Albeit everyone minds their own business there, but it's still okay. I used to play football, but grew up to not really care about sports in general. I just don't take them seriously nor care to improve/do well on them, but I do see the similarities with League. A good sport would be great for any enjoyer of cooperative competition. I kinda forgot to add that this was almost a decade ago, I'm doing fine now. Still, thanks!
@@thomasgamer4000 I don't think that's very uncommon with ppl who play games like these. I used t o play Paladins (moba shooter) and I could stay up for 12, 16 or even 24 hours
It's eery just how on time Dr K videos are, I was really struggling with pointing my motivation to productivity, but never once thought that I needed to decrease my motivation to make my daily life easier. Thank you so much Dr. K, please keep these kind of videos coming 🎉❤
I cant believe you always say the most ridiculous stuff, then somehow make it make so much sense i feel like i should have thought of it Thank you dr k
From a Catholic perspective, this makes so much sense. It is exactly the point of Lent & the yearly, repeating rhythms of feast-fast-“ordinary time”. It’s so interesting how different religious traditions generally arrive at the same fundamental conclusions about healthy human functioning. And how often we ignore them because they are simultaneously super simple and super hard.
No, lent is about creating emotional bond/dependence. Once you've "invested" in something you're naturally inclined to convince yourself it was worthwhile, and tell yourself that your religion makes you a better person (even though it doesn't.) It's all an emotional manipulation to increase your bond with catholicism and make you want to spread it to others. Religions that don't manipulate their followers into spreading it will not survive beyond the existing generation of hosts. It's not about healthy human functioning, it's about using human quirks to spread itself to new hosts.
It is a shame though because there are some practices and advice by the saints that could have helped many. For example, in 11:30 or so onwards Dr. K discusses about detachment from a pleasure to increase eudaimonia, and his advice is to "dissect" why the hedonic pleasure is pleasureable. St Thomas Aquinas has actually a better advice. He wrote, "Hence the most effective remedy against intemperance is not to dwell on the consideration of singulars." Singulars are qualities that makes things unique, and their opposites are universals or commonalities, what qualities they share with others. As an example, think of your favorite food. You'll realize that the reasons why you like that food is because of how good it is in comparison to other food you've tasted. Now, to detach yourself from the food, focus on its universals, what qualities it shares with other food. Well, it's made of protein, carbohydrates, fats, micronutrients, water, and others; it was cooked; it comes out the other end after some time; etc.
I was thinking the same thing! It's super interesting to see the scientific explanation of why these things are good for us. I believe it may help me have a better view of what is happening with my brain during these times
These videos in general have been so incredibly helpful for me. To the point where I'm writing a comment that feels really cheesy about how helpful they have been.
TAKE AWAYS : # A state bliss, joy, contentment.....something which i am considering to be the ultimate sucess in my life...the goal....this is how i want to live ....is being assured in this video # We should dissect the pleasure that is be conscious while being involved in the distraction/pleasurable activity....he says this will dec our pleasure to that activity ....which puts 2 and 2 together as he said in one of his video that what binging youtube for 4 hrs does is it dec our awareness....also it similar to playing the tape through end which he talked about in prev video ...that even after value re assessment we end up watching youtube ...we will be actively thinking about it being wrong while watching
Earlier this week, I finally gave up on a painting project I had been excited about after it was just clogging desk space for two months. I sat down to clear it off the desk, and immediately felt like painting, now that I had given myself permission not to do it.
It's like everytime I watch a Dr. K video I know exactly what he's going to say because I cognitively understand all of this and have for years and yet despite trying to improve all the time for years I have yet to be able to make progress in aligning my actions with my cognized preferences. Oh well, I'll just continue trying, that's all I can do :)
Definitely keep trying, but perhaps try more deliberately by listening even closer. Even if you feel like you're making no progress today, it's often a small, deliberate attempt one random day that creates the breakthrough you need. Each attempt helps create new connections, and you'll be surprised how all those years of cognitive understanding actually will come up when you deliberately try. Also, this is why coaching is useful.
- eudaimonic > hedonic pleasure - 6:20 "attachment to pleasure and avoidance of pain come hand in hand" = detach from all hedonic pleasure - deprivation, give up something that's mildly pleasurable for a longer time period: observe life in the absence of pleasurable things - this is still ok - dissect pleasure - observe it to detach from it (pleasure will decrease a little) - motivation drives you rather than you being in control, able to choose = more freedom with less motivation
So (too much) motivation is essentially bad, because it takes away our ability to control ourselves, which is why we want to 1) abstain from doing any activity that we're addicted to and see how it affects us and 2) observe our pleasure when engaging in pleasurable activities. This will make those experiences much less pleasurable, which will help in not reinforcing the behavior in an unhealthy way, giving us more choices. When I play video games, I always hyperfocus on it and can't do anything else. I abstained from it a while ago and I feel a lot better now. I didn't trust myself going back into it because I knew I would get addicted again, but now I feel like trying Dr. K's advice (2) and use awareness (dissect pleasure) when I play. I'll see what happens, thanks!
This is was a very interesting find. The most common motivation hack is to gamify your tasks in order to to use your dopamine receptors for self-development. I've never thought about giving up both the pleasure and pain in order to maintain a more consistent mental state. On one hand, you get no dopamine hits for success but also no dopamine deprivation for failure. Loved it. Keep up the good work
I have schizophrenia which creates a lack of hedonic energy. I often feel very content just sitting in the living room with the tv off and nothing going on. sometimes I really want to play a video game, but am unable to. it tends to create a struggle within me in which I feel upset because I'm not leveling up in my game. It's almost as if the nucleus accumbens is inactive sometimes. I believe it is negative symptoms.
That is very interesting. As an observer, one would probably see negative symptoms as the opposite of contentment. We would probably see it as something similar to depression from the outside. Never thought it could be experienced as such high levels of contentment that you aren't motivated to do anything
I actually before seeing this video already started observing my experience when I play video games to see what exactly I’m craving. I found out I get into this carefree relaxed state with no worries and anxiety. So now I’m seeing that it’s that state that I’m craving, not the video game. What I do now is to not take things in life so seriously, so maybe life turns into a game for me (don’t take it too literally obviously).
Thank you so much for this video. Lately I've been too conscious of my actions, and they've been less pleasurable. I thought this was a problem. I thought I was overthinking it to the point that things are slowly becoming less pleasurable. But I understand now. I was dissecting my pleasures which is true, because what I'm looking for right now is not an impulsive supply of dopamine. I want a stable life, and permanent things. Thank you for clarifying what nucleus Accumbeus, Hedonics and Eudamonics is. I am grateful for your vidoes. Thank you so much.
Another fantastic gain from dissecting any activity you do comes in the form of dissecting things that you would procrastinate doing. Those things generally have some mental resistance, but if you break down why you have resistance (for example, washing dishes, despite only taking 5-10 minutes max.), you find that the negative side isn't as large as initially perceived.
I am sitting at home feeling constantly unmotivated after starting clonidine for ADHD and examining my experience. My question was, do I need some of my extreme levels of motivation back? Then I searched for and listened to this talk. Mind blown! Thank you Dr. K! This could not have been more perfect.
In case I start my RUclips abstinence, I have to make an exception for this channel. Dr. K just pumps out those high value videos - I wouldn't want to miss out on those.
You have a ton of super helpful content in this channel but this video has opened my eyes to how much I've been dragging myself day-to-day working 20 hour days, worrying about my future and catastrophizing over scenarios that haven't happened. Thank you for this doc 🙏 I needed this.
I’ve always been a top student with very little motivation but I somehow always finished what I needed to get finish🤣🤣maybe this video will help me to understand myself a little more
I remember using meditation apps to aid me in my meditation journey, and they would often have streak counters to keep people engaged. So naturrally I started being motivated towards keeping my streak, which was fine and unproblematic at first. But then my interest in the meditation the app tought started to become less interesting, so on day 60 i was already not very engaged with the actual meditation anymore. I was still motivated to keep the streak up though, So I did that for a while, with many days only doing 1 minute meditations, or sometimes cheating it entirely just to keep the streak. At day 100 however I was so burnt out I just stopped and I didn't meditate for probably a month after that. What I discovered was that through the focus on the streak instead of the meditation itself, I had this sort of attached motivation as Dr. K. describes in the video. The streak started to control me, and it made my meditative practice worse. Now I realize that getting this attached motivation towards things like streaks or other endeavors, doesn't actually serve to further the progress of the activity. It becomes a new thing entirely, and pursuing this thing can often be unhelpful or even counterproductive at furthering the original goal.
This might explain why every streak of my sobriety has been broken. S Counting streak became more important than/replaced sobriety and its so much easier to pick intoxication back up when it's only a number to be lost. Dang.. Thanks for this gentle kick, it was needed
I hate streak counters too! It’s too much pressure and sometimes I just don’t have time or energy one day and I don’t want the guilt trip of it. Sometimes if an app has it I’ll purposefully break a long streak just so I don’t have the pressure.
I just realized i did this accidentaly when my laptop broke (which as a teeneager at that time, basically the thing i glued to everyday). It was missarable at first, but then i realize there is so much more i can do and actually feel the things that dr.K describe
Also yeah it helped to overcome my very strong motivation to avoid some tasks. I had a trauma/strong fear of burn out thanks to being chronically burned out since I was 8. Also fear of failure thanks to growing up as the "gifted kid".
This video has perfectly captured what people like me go through . I have always wondered about my work output , I feel se low alot of the times but now I know why .
There is a number of implausible things said in this video, for example, enjoyment as well as pain, according to my experience, does usually not decrease, but increase with heightened attentiveness. Also, I do not understand what you mean with "freedom" here; when there is no clear preference, i.e. motivation for a certain thing to do, choices become just random (what else could they be, at this point?), with me sometimes to the point where I will just use a coinflip to decide. "Freedom of choice" would mean that I chuse according to my preferences; when there is none, I am not really chusing, so I am effectively not exerting any kind of freedom. And even when I am in that "chilling vibe" you mention, while I may be more open to suggestions (or, in other words, motivations) than otherwise, I am still not really up to just anything, as obviously there are a lot of things I would never do, no matter what mood I am in.
Being more aware of how a "pleasure" was affecting me is exactly how I quit alcohol cold turkey. Not only did I not want to drink anymore after really observing how depressed I was after a single beer, I actively avoided it. That said I do drink a glass of mead with a steak dinner and arugula but I have a B12 supplement ready for the next morning to counter the alcohol effect which typically isn't bad, but with that I've only drink 3 times since last November whereas I we as drinking 3 cans of truly a night.
Amazing. I gave up social media for like 1-2 months. I felt a lot better. Some days I was down but in general I felt good and got a lot more done. Recently I started using social media again, Idk why but I couldn't stop myself, like I was feeling like crap one day and used it to fix the feeling and since then I've had no control. Anyway, I started using it again and immediatel started feeling way more depressed with no motivation. And almost immediately Dr K is there to explain what's going on in my brain.
I just did this with PMO. 92 days out now, and slowly the endorphin rush from workouts, meditation, and clarity of writing more have completely pushed porn out for the time being. My goal now is to catalogue one week at a time and watch as my motivation readjusts.
What you teach is priceless, I've struggled with this all my life. I found myself most contented when things were going badly which did not make sense now it does.
well this was probably the best video ive ever seen, and honestly i see a bit of both in me, on one hand im super motivated to play games during my exam session, but honestly ive lived a life where for about half a year now i havent been sad at all i just roll with whatever, before i used to complain to my parents when they wanted to go somewhere because i was planning to play games but now i just go because theres really not much difference. Incredible video i need to remember this forever
Yes, it's a kind of inertia. What I have tried to do, and encourage others to do, is to start by adding something new. Don't start by stopping all the bad habits, just add a new one. Mine was reading books about a topic that can help me with my work-goals. I buy the books 2nd hand, so it's not an expensive habit. Over time, you find that you get that dopamine hit you crave by finishing another book. Slowly but surely, the bad habits become less attractive.
It's pretty interesting seeing a more appropriate answer to how to get yourself to do something, I've always told some of the people I work with and others within a friend group; that motivation is really bad to rely on. And I've come to a moto, relatively, motivation can get you started with something but you're likely not to see it through where as determination and persistence prevails most the time. Although I wouldn't say I'm entirely right after this video, it's nice seeing how certain/unspecific niche pleasures coax you into feeling paralyzed in choice and not even abstaining can help you overcome or view your situation completely differently.
There was a kid I went to high school with. He was always highly motivated. He had all the acronyms by his name, MD, PHD, MBA, etc. His girlfriend broke up with him, and he unalived her and himself. Motivation kills 😢
Correlation does not indicate causation. You are merely looking superficially at his life and then drawing conclusions. Life is more nuanced and complicated than that buddy
@Cube_Box Yes, this is antidotal, but you didn't know the kid. He was trying to escape his demons by achieving and being better than everyone. He covered up his cracks superficially with achievements and was praised for it by everyone. I could see the red flags that it was not healthy, but the flags were ignored because the Western mindset says, achieving solves problems. The point is he had the wrong motivation in the wrong direction, but no one cared, and eventually, his world got rocked, and he didn't have the emotional fortitude to handle it and it ended tragically. Just my opinion 🤷
I'm a logic guy, i use discipline to do what's required. Lately i have a depression that keeps coming back, it's the lost of my dog😢 I've had many before but this one was extra special to me, even my logic of "life goes on" and "there's no coming back from death" isn't working anymore i use caffeine to suppress it every alternate days seems to be weakening.
I'm confused. I undertsand that less pleasure increases contentment, but I think I need clarification on how exactly should I treat the hedonistic pleasure. The pleasure and motivation is what life is about for me, to use and experience pleasure in the right way. I am glad for the pleasure in my life and I want motivation to move on and experience life. If I give everything up, sure I might be more satisfied, but it's not what I want, it sound so contraporductive. I can't imagine giving up motivation.
been trying lately to focus on how I spend my time instead of what i achieve with it. so far, it's had some good results for me as far as spending my time in better ways. Struggling rn though augh.
i will say that doing this has emphasized for me the difference between hedonistic pleasure and eudaimonic contentment, I didn't have words for it but I felt this immediate relief as I spent my time doing things I cared about and not worrying about which things got done when, but just that I was spending my time *taking care of* the things I care about. V caring headspace, simpler too.
When most people think of motivation they are thinking from a short-term results driven perspective. Real motivation is identifying negative habits and forming positive ones, so down the road they are just second nature to you. It's like building stats in an RPG before you tackle the big boss.
Ohhh that just made me realize something. That's where ADHD executive dysfunction comes from, isn't it? Cuz if I remember right, the big thing with ADHD is that dopamine is dysregulated. So I can't get work done cuz my nucleus accumbens is clinging to the doomscrolling dopamine pleasure so hard that I feel like I can't even force myself to abandon it. ...the thought of trying to dissect a hyperfixation just to make it less fun and life-consuming terrifies me but I will apply this tip to my life and hopefully get good results out of it! Thank you for the helpful and informative video 👍
I've recently quit of what I though was my life purpose, an academic research career, which I was highly motivated for (to the point of regular burn out), due to untenable working conditions. I've a decent industry job now that pays well, has regulated work hours, and is interesting enough that I feel at least neutral most days to go there and sell my time. I do my due diligence to become decent at the job but it doesn't feel like my life's purpose. I've meditated away many an evening and weekend to explore what I actually want to do with this new free time in the evenings and weekends that I have now, having escaped the 24/7 dreadmill (sic) of academia. Haven't really found anything yet. Being not highly motivated for my job anymore certainly helps with my health, a lot actually, but now I feel like I'm heading straight for a midlife crisis in that I can already smell the stagnation setting in (and my brain is SO HIGHLY CONDITIONED to always work towards the next goalpost, which now doesn't exist anymore). Posting this so that 1) maybe someone else who went through something similar can chime in with what helped them find purpose again (without setting yourself up for yet another burnout) and 2) warn people who are dropping off the motivation train that you wanna be prepared for the situation that you will suddenly experience things such as downtime and calmness that come with their own special brand of anxiety for those who conditioned themselves to think in terms of productivity and opportunity cost at each moment.
Absolutely love it and correct. Have experienced this plenty of times at the end of months when I'm down to just eggs and rice. It really sucks for the first week but then after a while it becomes the norm and you stop thinking about as much overtime.
Yea, I just applied to my dream job, and I feel like my chances are good. But I was dragging my feet and found it really hard to simply put in the application. It’s not exactly on topic, except it touches on what Alok said about attachment. It’s really scary, when you have so much desire.
I’m incredibly eudiamonic, except I struggle every year with hedonic impulses, “I should find a potential mate” or “I should workout more to build muscle” or “I should get out to do more things and find things I might enjoy”, I agree I’m really not that motivated to do those things, yet seeing as I’m consistently thinking of these things every month, it tricks me into thinking I’m not happy, so I begrudgingly ‘try’.
I recently learned something about this, my take about this is that if you are interested in it, you are on your way there. It is not necessary to actually have motivation, it's fine but once you are done or the goal is too far, you'll likely retaliate from what you are doing, hence not doing anything about it anymore. With regards to the wrong direction, there's no right or wrong direction, you'll get there in different ways or another, the thing is if you have a correct direction in mind, you will resist it, because you already have correct direction, there's nothing more interesting about it as oppose to not knowing anything about it or proving a point or answering your question. Any subject in the world, is infinitely deep, anything can be interesting, so it just depends on how deep you are willing to go, motives are temporary. So, what could you do? look for what interests you at the moment, do it, and if you feel like not doing it, don't. You'll find yourself interested in it again, because it is not repulsive. Also, difficult means 2 things either you understand less about it, or you are tired, you'll know you are tired if you try different things but everything doesn't click.
This hit the nail for me. There were months of my life where, looking back, I feel like I was in a coma. I was so unaware, and I did notice that, however I did not know what that was. Now I know that I was living a hedonic life:
Ive had too much motivation given to me, causing some sort of motivation/pressure paralysis. THIS INFO COULD BE CRITICAL ADHD has been cruel to me yet again
The one thing I struggle with is sweets. At one point I had a disdain for these things but they slipped back. Its okay they did because I can relearn that part, that giving up of this urge.
“As you observe your pleasure, more, it feels less pleasurable”… Just FYI, this isn’t necessarily true, for everyone. Being mindful of a pleasurable sensation doesn’t necessarily make it less pleasurable. But, you make very interesting points.
This actually made my cry. My friend is a classic eudainomic dominant. He doesn’t have any big dreams or motivations he is the most chill person ever, super resilient and content and you can put him in almost any situation and he will roll with it.
He has achieved so much more than me in life compared to me despite me being a perfectionist, extremely motivated because of the extreme anxiety, paralysis and inevitable burnout and depression that comes with it.
Become nonchalant
I relate to you so much...omg
I think the catch is he doesn't view his acomplishments as acomplishments. Just a nice thing he got along the way
@@НикитаВеликодный-в5е exactly this. He is quietly content most of the time with appreciation peaks and disappointment troughs. When someone is eagerly ecstatic about something and can barely contain themselves, he is calmly looking forward to that thing
He thinks achievements are nice bonuses but he could live without them because he didn’t need them to be happy with himself in the first place
Fuck, I deeply feel this
As a psychology student, I'm so surprised by how wrongly I've viewed these concepts. Thank you so much for this clip, I learned a lot from this.
I'm a psychology student too and I want to work as a counselor/curator when I'm done as work before I do my masters, and I'm gonna take so much of Dr. K's views and apply them in my job.
Have you applied that in counseling work
? If so, can you give some examples?@@D3xxon
I learned this recently. I always was seen as "motivated" or "disciplined", and it got me a lot of good things in life. But this came at the cost of regular burn out and a constant state of anxiety and stress. Once I developed more mindfullness and contentment, I could choose what I spent my time on, without resorting to anxiety, stress, guilt or shame.
As a student that went through most of my degree before my treatment and diagnosis. Using anxiety and stress to structure your day works for sure but my god it takes away from being able to relax at all outside of getting stuff done.
Why you got the maplestory slime next to your name?
May I ask, what do you do?
@@sp123 they are just built different
@@N.E.L.L I work in video games as an animator
Haven’t watched the vid yet, but I am a manager. I’ve noticed that the people who care the most tend to struggle. They get in their own head, hold themselves to impossible standards, and feel constant anxiety about their job so they struggle. I have been very successful in my career in part because I don’t take it too seriously. I care immensely about delivering good results, but I don’t get bothered when things don’t go my way.
Not sure if that is related to this vid, but the title made me think that
Actually it's head on related
You are bang on the money. I am the person that you describe - too anxious, idealistic, caring too much, setting impossible standards for myself and others. It has caused me nothing but misery.
My friend is just like you are, good intentions but doesn’t take things too seriously, rolls with whatever happens and doesn’t dwell too much on negative stuff. He is much more successful than me and has had no mental health issues in his life.
The attitude of "care immensely about delivering good results, but dont get bothered when things don't go my way" you developed after you're experienced in work or you had that attitude from the start? Since I think that you should be confident to handle any problems happen, so that you're not afraid of them happening
Yup you got it right, the vid also contains direction for how to move from being too motivated to being more generally content.
So check it out, maybe some of your colleagues could need it 😊
That is actually what the video is about. :)
This needs to be watched by every person with anxiety, depression, ocd, perfectionism, ADD/ADHD, addictions and eating disorders.
If not being motivated gets results then I guess I'm more motivated then I thought
Edit: preciate all the likes guys lmao
right??
😂
That is literally the point of the video. it's so clever
congrats
oh so i just have to get even lazier and then i’ll loop back around to not being a waste of life
I never thought about it like this before. When I was in the Marine Corps everything you do is all about motivation. Now, these motivations tend to be healthy, team oriented, and beneficial but you lose sight of what you were trying to accomplish in the first place. I got really bad depression and anxiety when I was in but a lot of it was not understanding why I felt the way I did. I was at the pinacle of health but I couldn't keep going. I lost what I thought was motivation but really I lost purpose and fulfillment. When you're at the top of your game and people keep pushing you to achieve bigger and greater things you get lost in an embodiement of confusion. Why should we continue to exceed expectations when we have already reached our pinacle? You continue to hone your craft naturally if you don't focus on it.
You're also more productive now than someone was 50 years ago. Productivity is at an all time high with people really only being productive for 3-4 hours a day. Nothing in nature runs at 100% for any extended period of time.
@@Jebbis You mean an all time low? Orrrrr...
@@ArdorstormI think they mean that technological advancements afford people more relaxed work. So what would take people in the old days maybe a full day to get done, a modern day person can get done in a couple hours, hence they're more "productive"
@@leonardodavinci4259 Ohhhhhhhh. Yeah, makes sense
I think you perfectly described burnout. We become 'motivated' towards external accomplishment, and because that motivation is not aligned with our core values we become fatigued, depressed, and burnt out. If action is aligned with our core values, acting on those core values leads to contentment as external factors don't influence our behavior. You can tie this into feeling resolved, which is when your actions in the moment align with your core values. When you are resolved towards a purpose, you don't become burnt out as there is no discontent within you.
Dissecting your pleasure, is like explaining a funny joke to someone. They both take the fun out of it.
Good analogy, it sometimes really helpfull to made us understanding better about the subject, thanks man
Correct. But do you want fun or do you want contentment? All good either way, just know you cannot choose both.
@@guillermorelobalopez7553 you can't have your cake and eat it too.
Not if you have 2 cakes. -miles morales.
@@swaggyp1219 Miles isn't someone I'd trust with anything cake related tbh.
Well put
I won't lie. This is, imo, the best 'life-changer' channels. It won't tell you how to do stuff. It just goes "kay we suck, but you can do this to change" and this is represented not only with experience backing it up, but with science too
10 days ago we had a video "The Secret To Always Staying Motivated" and now this 💀💀
Both are perspective
I started “dissecting” my pleasure around 4th - 5th grade and it became common practice for me. I’m fairly sure it is a big reason that caused me to see life through a fairly grey lens. Over analyzing things that make me happy and sad to the point of meaninglessness. The issue is I was content with never progressing and now my lack of progression at my age has caused me confidence issues at times and bouts of depression and anxiety.
This, at least the first bit, is exactly what I was thinking when watching the video. I actively wish I COULDN'T dissect my pleasures. I can't EVER fucking let loose and just enjoy shit for what it is.
@@psy-fi64 the point of dissecting pleasure is not that you shouldn't enjoy anything, it's the opposite. It is supposed to make you enjoy everything. But with eudaimonic pleasure instead of hedonic.
@fissionmail3d Maybe it works for some people. I don't know. I'm just in a rough patch I guess.
Too much of one thing is bad. I'm largely content in life, but still curious. That curiosity is what keeps me sane to this day, and dissecting many things including emotions only fuel that.
No clue if it's tied to motivation, but it has kept me levelheaded over negative things like "Why do toxic people act the way they are? I might need some more context. I'm genuinely curious"
@@psy-fi64 I feel like you're probably young and thats fine but it gets better cuz I was analyzing everything from 15-21 and I stopped (after weed) and I'm like huh, its finally clear. I'm not advocating for drugs but I learned what a quiet mind felt like and I started another journey to stop thinking and shut off my mind when I feel its getting cluttered but i haven't used any substances in a year.
a) over analyzing anything is a headache and not fun but its addictive (wrong motivation)
b) do more think less. don't allow anytime for thoughts to ruminate and get too loud. Once you start doing hard shit, your mind finds ways to enjoy it. I found when doing something hard, its only painful for about 15-20 minutes, then it feels good. And when I have fun, I'm completely have fun and in the present.
c) analyze where pleasure comes from, don't analyze everything about it. All I know is watching youtube, music, listening to something while doing any work and women are things I think about as an addictive thing. I've known this for a long time, but I don't ask myself why. I mean I used to, but its no point. If its taking away cogntive energy towards important things, it needs to either be blocked or needs added friction. Like I deleted social media off my phone and I only respond to messages on my computer once a week. Nonetheless its important to know where the hedonic pleasure comes from so you can do something about it.
The greatest realization I've had from Dr. K, meditation and studying yogic traditions and Buddhism, is that the natural state of being human, is to be energized, and clear minded.
We don't even realize how much bandwidth we're constantly using until we free some up.
I always thought I struggled with motivation, and then I found love, and I found a positive source of motivation, and that in of itself is not enough.
My positive sources of motivation haven't changed me overnight on their own, instead they made me realize the motivations that I have that are blocking my progress by being resource hogs.
I have realized that my brain is like my browser: Full of so many tabs that I can't count them all, even though only a handful at most are actually useful, and the rest are just lingering, sapping away resources.
Your analogy of browser tabs is intirguing. I too have an extreme "tab-hoarding" problem (had phases where I literally had 2000 tabs simultaneously open) and I wonder if this behavior is also analogus to my brain's behavior.
I'm left stranded after Dr. K's video. He has a habit of presenting counter-intuitive findings to us (and apparently backing them up ("apparently" because I have no relevant expertise to attempt to debunk his findings but I trust him enough to let him do the heavy-lifting (Oh god, nested parentheses))). While the contrarian in me enjoys these videos, this one left me at an impasse. I've always thought that I lacked motivation because I always did things spontaneously and, almost always, when I do deep-work it's due to the intense anxiety and terror I get from imagining me failing or disappointing whoever is expecting progress. Without deadlines and fear, I'm like a leaf blowing in the wind, with the occassional drifts to places that give me momentary pleasure (even if I view these drifts as productive and useful, which do abound). What's worse is that I absolutely detest deadlines the most out of everything. The worst periods of my life coincide with my most productive. I do want to be productive because I enjoy my area of work, but for me, choosing productivity is tantamount to willingly showering in fire. I have extreme GAD and even with medication I'm struggling. I wonder if I'm a lost cause.
What should I do here? I see my potential and where I could be with my crafts (however numerous) and as I age, I find myself betraying that expectant potential. I don't have to meet my potential head-on, but I'm so far away it hurts.
Do I simply give up trying to be motivated even for the good things? Wouldn't that place me where I'm already at? Is Dr. K. saying that this freedom due to maximizing my eudaimonics will land me where I want to be anyway? Or is Dr. K. saying to simply give up only the bad motivations by way of dissecting the pleasures they bring out?
@@RainnFTWj You really remind me of myself, even down to how I type when I'm thinking about a lot, down to the nested parenthesis...although I will admit I never reached the thousands before, I think even my computer would melt if I tried that-
I believe, ultimately, it boils down to this-
How do you subconsciously prioritize things when you're not TRYING to do something specific?
The brain is always active even when we're not directing it in a certain direction. So that means that motivation isn't something you lack, it's something that you already have.
Whether it's motivations and drives that push you to avoid the things that make you anxious or afraid, or towards things that are entertaining, pleasurable or stimulating-
I believe what Dr. K is trying to get at here is this.
Many of our own inner conflicts do not come from a LACK of motivation, they come from CONFLICTING motivations.
Be it addictions, fears, physiological impulses, physical needs, procrastination, rumination, mixed feelings, battles between the logical but underpowered higher functions of the brain that exist in the pre-frontal cortex, and the messy, primal, illogical, emotional and impulsive but POWERFUL urges, instincts, and emotions from the baser parts of the brain.
In other words, when you, whether consciously or unconsciously have a conflict of interest, whichever interest is stronger is the one that dominates, although it can be a tiring process to get to that point, as your brain essentially is spending it's time and resources trying to calculate the subjective risks, rewards, and preferences to get to the result.
Then you may be sitting there thinking what you are now. "If I'm stuck in conflict between my drives and motivations, then which one wins and what can I do about it?"
And that's what this video is about, the motivation that drives you is the one that you choose to FEED. In effect, you can overcome this in two ways-
One is to develop the behavior or drive that you want to develop to such a high degree that it becomes like instinct, as the motivation that you cultivate within yourself will naturally grow deeper and deeper roots until doing actions tied to that motive become automatic, this is what most people commonly think of when they talk about building consistency and good habits. When you have a strong, persistent positive motivation, it becomes a core value, which then makes it easier to build positive habits and take positive actions.
But this topic is the other side to that, you see many of the good habits, skills, and so on that people talk about building don't start off as particularly deeply ingrained in us, they start as ideas, or concepts, thoughts, and logical conclusions, all things that are mainly formed from the cortexes of our brains, which deal in logic, problem solving and so on, the issue is that these positive ideas start from top of the brain, and work their way down into the deeper parts of the brain which are generally more powerful and more responsible for emotion, motivation, habits, and so on. Good habits need to be planted and tended to, and take consistency to take root, not just through repetition, but through reinforcement, nurture, leaning into the joy and peace that comes from that like a warm hug, until it becomes part of you.
While many negative habits or unproductive patterns actually have counter origins, when we indulge ourselves, it brings pleasure, adrenaline, excitement, euphoria, fear, etc. the ACTION sparks EMOTION or some other deep-brain signals innately. It's why, in the example of something like addicts, one tiny dose of a strong enough substance can spark a near instantaneous addictive response in the brain. It is IMMENSELY stimulating to the motivation and instinctual connections in the brain.
So generally speaking, what this breaks down to is, for the things you want more of in your life, and the traits you want to form in yourself, focus on building POSITIVE connections to the things you want to do, but do so in a way that you genuinely feel it towards the thing you're aiming for.
And for the things that you want less of in life, practice abstinence, but ALSO, learn to slow down your physiology so that when you DO feel the urge to do the things that a part of you wants to stop doing, practice meditation and mindfulness, in such a way that when you feel yourself getting anxious or excited, you can calm yourself physically and mentally enough that your impulses don't overpower your intellect.
YOU are in control of you. The key is to not fight with yourself.
If you can reach a point of absolute equilibrium, where you're not overly excited, or overly stressed, which is scientifically proven to be possible with consistent meditation practice-
You will enter a eudaimonic state like Dr K. talks about. The difference between a raging river and a flowing stream is pressure.
The key is not in hitting the brakes, it's in taking pressure off the gas pedal.
Running at full speed with the pedal to the floor is not fuel efficient for a car, and will often raise your risk of crashing even for the most experienced of drivers.
Does any of that make sense or help?
@@RainnFTWj The other part I see this as, to sum everything up in a few lines-
Hedonics (pleasure seeking and pain avoidant systems) thrive in fast paced, overwhelming minds and situations.
Eudaimonics (fulfillment and contentment systems) thrive in more relaxed, peaceful and slowed down minds and situations.
Learn to be the growing oak, not the speeding car. Meditation, meta cognition and mindfulness are all practical things you can engage in to make this shift.
Remember, you are the one in control of your body, so long as you move and breathe according to your own will, you have the power to be the person you wanna be.
Me: This sounds insane.
Dr. K: Now, this may sound insane…
He knows his audience 😂
So much for your ableist language
"Dr. K"? Changed reference?????
@dispenser6257 don't even start with the "ableist" nonsense, the rest of us are simply being lighthearted about this radical new concept.
Yep, i often feel surreal how i think i'm so different and he just so happens to know exactly what i'm thinking haha
I discovered something relating to this recently. I found that my lack of motivation actually came from lack of self worth. I knew I could do the things i need to do, but my self worth issues made me feel like if i can do it, then it must not be worth while because i myself am not worthwhile. So i only ever felt motivated by things that were totally out of my reach to achieve, but as soon as i was able to actually perform the task effectively, id lose interest and lose motivation... because after all, I am worthless so anything i am capable of accomplishing is also worthless so why bother?
Thank you for your comment, it really provoked some thoughts in me :)
similar to being content with bad situations
So what did you do after/now? I feel the same here in many ways. It's definitely for me one of my hardest barriers/weak spots.
@@Hanz264 Its kinda hard to explain. When that sluggish or reluctant feeling comes up, you have to be willing to sit with it and examine it and let the emotion sort of digest as you observe it. Just gotta let yourself feel all those nasty feels without pushing them away or trying to rationalize them. just feel your feels without talking about them in your mind.
Empathy helps me most in dealing with this. There is always someone currently doing or aspiring to do whatever I am pursuing, so are those people also doing something worthless? If I say yes, then I am content making sweeping value judgements on both the task/job/field of study and the capabilities of the individual people doing those things regardless of circumstance (which is a dangerous thougut process to indulge in), and if I say no, then my unique situation can also be one that justifies the pursuit.
In a way, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy: once you deem the endeavor worthless, you doubt your desire to pursue it. Then, you decide to cut it off after the honeymoon phase. But only through this action have you actually made the pursuit worthless, and you now can retroactively justify that you were correct all along and it was the right thing to do.
Once the honeymoon phase full of curiosity, wonder, excitement, and discovery wear off, all we have between us and continuing the pursuit is our own desire to pursue it regardless of being curious or excited about it. To pursue it to fulfill or fully realize something that led us to that exact point where it wore off. And finishing what we started is often in itself worth it, but it is difficult to see the value in this when there's tons of other things for you to experience another honeymoon phase. You have to sacrifice the honeymoon phase of many other potential pursuits to pursue this one endeavor. The goal is to remind yourself that this is something worth pursuing by returning to the honeymoon phase mindset every step of the way. I'm sure you've heard or seen or even experienced this idea in some aspect of your life.
This is just my perspective and what helps me clear the brain fog that comes from the same thought space you talked about. I don't know your thought process in much detail, but maybe hearing another perspective can be helpful.
People I see at the gym who always see me there tell me “you are so strong, you’re so motivated…” “how do you go 5 days a week?” but I tell them no I am not… going to the gym is just “something that I do.”
It’s been 8 years now, so not going to the gym during the week feels weird. I always tell them that it didn’t start this way. It started with me going 2-3x a week and I often just had to drive there after work and tell myself “okay I’m just going to do a slow walk on the treadmill for 5 minutes.” But after the 5 minutes, I was ready to keep going at least 9 out of 10 times. And if I wasn’t, I would honor it and go home.
Yes I’ve heard that going to the gym should be like brushing your teeth.
You don’t need motivation to brush your teeth every morning but it’s just something that you do.
Very helpful comment, that's a great, simple mindset shift. Start with 5 minutes and when you really don't feel like going longer, then honour your feelings. 😁👍🏾
Can we stop one second and appreciate Dr. K’s wardrobe getting more and more stylish in the last year. I think that’s awesome.
he's getting more steezy by the day
Miss K bringing the drip.
I like his wall decor with small tweaks going on over time.
I want this thing, yeah
always loved that kind of neck, but they do it only for man. Sadly
This checks out honestly, when it comes to make or break moments me being more chill is what's given the most reward
Short-term enjoyment being antagonistic to long-term happiyness equals my mind blown. Dr. K did it again :D. I mean I knew that in order to achieve long-term goals we need to work on them instead of only finding pleasure in short-term enjoyment, but them being connected in such a way is mad.
So basically the years at school made me very good at avoiding (potential) pain. Plus I've been told I'm bad at stuff, so my brain defaults to "you're probably bad at it, don't do it"
yes, don't do it.
But are you bad at stuff? Have you tried things and see for yourself if you’re bad at stuff or you only listen to others that you are?
@@GenesRapture I know that it's not true, but it is probably what my subconscous is still reacting to. At least that is my guess.
@@ann18o96 That is probably true - a habit that can be easily triggered. I have had similar but not with what I cannot do, but can do but ain’t given psych traumas during childhood.
You're good at being bad at stuff, gotta give you that...
But really, how much weight should other persons' opinion weight for you? Let alone completely random strangers'
Dunno, I'm just going by the 'if something is worth doing, it's worth doing badly over not doing at all'
That's exactly the right thing to hear for me right now.
Recently, telling myself that I don't have to do anything actually was my best tool to become productive.
I really didn't lack motivation to work towards my goals, but was too invested into useless things.
This video actually hit me fairly hard on a personal level, as a few times in my life, I had periods of social anxiety and social withdrawal and what happened was my "motivation" for things became more inflated. So I was trying to hold myself to this high standard and set myself to these high goals I couldn't achieve and I also noticed that I statred eating more to satisfy that hedonistic part of my brain. Which also brings my conclusion that insecurites is a fuel to addictive behaviours.
After 6 months of intense social anxiety, I stopped trying to push myself to achieve these external standards and accepted myself for who I was and try to find my own strengths and weaknesses, "let" myself be, then I found the social anxiety went away. And I found that I was generally more content overall about life and even coped with a couple of slip ups that my younger self couldn't.
Thanks for this video Dr K, it helped explain things that happened in my life!
You've got to give Dr. K some credit; these intros for the past videos have been getting crazier. It makes me so excited to watch the rest of the video.
Yea, but they have been real cope
@@paperrancher2412 so you just don't watch the videos then
@@paperrancher2412he’s lowkey a professional coper like that’s his job
@@paperrancher2412 what's "cope" ?
@pineapplethief4418 it's what people call things that they want to immediately dismiss and discredit when they can't be bothered to think about them critically
Wow I’ve discovered this by accident when i noticed that if i didnt care about the job i was interviewing for, i would ace the interview as opposed to being super anxious and nervous.
I didn't really see it that way. What is happening to me these days, since I failed my physics exam and now I have to make it up I am getting this deep motivation that is making me study in a highly efficient way. Taking into account what you are telling me is that, not that I should stop studying because it is giving me an enormous pleasure, but that I should control it and understand that it is not all I have to do. Eating, talking to people, relaxing, that's what I've been doing these days along with those highly efficient study sessions I've been having, plus, it helped me to understand certain aspects of how I approached physics practice as compared to math. Thank you, you opened a new perspective on motivation.
I had a highly motivated medical student in my college English class. All he cared about was his grades. He wrote well enough, but he couldn’t or wouldn’t listen to anything I tried to show him to improve his writing. He’d start arguing because he was afraid to get a lower grade. I finally promised him an A just to get him to relax and learn. I’m not sure it worked. I don’t think I’d want him as my doctor either. 😂
I'm trying to make music, a game, and pixel art. Let me tell you, having creative endeavors that rely on you sitting there makes wanting to do anything else harder
00:01 Being less motivated can lead to more results.
02:11 Nucleus accumbens controls motivation and pleasure.
04:14 UDICS leads to contentment and less motivation
06:05 Detaching from pleasure and pain leads to contentment and happiness.
08:08 Abstain from pleasurable things to observe contentment
10:00 Detach from the positive to increase mindfulness
12:17 Motivation can lead to loss of control and limited choices.
14:20 Excess motivation in the wrong direction limits freedom and contentment
16:26 Distills important learning into an Adventure format
9:24 f-bomb
UDICS = eudaimonics :)
I’ve watched this video 3x now, and I think it’s really struck a chord with me. I’m planning on adopting this eudaemonic mental state to dieting instead of always seeking motivation. I think it’ll really help me stay content and happy with the day to day of adopting good lifestyle habits, as opposed to always being so goal driven.
Wish me luck!
At one point I started to dissect what I was getting from my League of Legends obsession.
I liked the gameplay, the open ended possibility to mess up or do well. I also liked the cooperation aspect of it, to put effort into doing well, but specially into doing well in a coordinated fashion, where other people can appreciate the effort.
This way, I found out that I didn't really need to spend 2 digit hours playing League every single day, chasing the good feelings in a desperate attempt to feel accomplished with my performance.
I decided to start playing difficult singleplayer games, which not only consumed less hours of my day, but also played less of a role in my mood.
I kind of had to give up on the cooperative appreciation of competitive games, but thanks to that I was able to get out of the League loop.
I still kind of get obsessed with one or two singleplayer games, finding myself in wild gaming marathons, but at least those games do end at some point and then I'm back into real life.
Never again did I go to sleep at insane hours, fuming with frustration due to repeatedly failing to get a good gameplay session.
How about playing a real life game with a team, like football, basketball etc. You will have what you want and also +more movement and good for your health and social skills
@@j.p.4658 Thanks for the recommendation.
I do go to the gym. Albeit everyone minds their own business there, but it's still okay.
I used to play football, but grew up to not really care about sports in general. I just don't take them seriously nor care to improve/do well on them, but I do see the similarities with League.
A good sport would be great for any enjoyer of cooperative competition.
I kinda forgot to add that this was almost a decade ago, I'm doing fine now. Still, thanks!
2 digit daily hours? Holy shit
@@thomasgamer4000 I don't think that's very uncommon with ppl who play games like these. I used t o play Paladins (moba shooter) and I could stay up for 12, 16 or even 24 hours
Tried ultrakill? Very difficult(unless you play on lenient/harmless) but super rewarding to learn, nearly infinite skill ceiling
It's eery just how on time Dr K videos are, I was really struggling with pointing my motivation to productivity, but never once thought that I needed to decrease my motivation to make my daily life easier. Thank you so much Dr. K, please keep these kind of videos coming 🎉❤
Probably one of your most interesting videos. I'm going to think about these ideas for a long time.
I cant believe you always say the most ridiculous stuff, then somehow make it make so much sense i feel like i should have thought of it
Thank you dr k
From a Catholic perspective, this makes so much sense. It is exactly the point of Lent & the yearly, repeating rhythms of feast-fast-“ordinary time”. It’s so interesting how different religious traditions generally arrive at the same fundamental conclusions about healthy human functioning. And how often we ignore them because they are simultaneously super simple and super hard.
No, lent is about creating emotional bond/dependence. Once you've "invested" in something you're naturally inclined to convince yourself it was worthwhile, and tell yourself that your religion makes you a better person (even though it doesn't.) It's all an emotional manipulation to increase your bond with catholicism and make you want to spread it to others. Religions that don't manipulate their followers into spreading it will not survive beyond the existing generation of hosts. It's not about healthy human functioning, it's about using human quirks to spread itself to new hosts.
It is a shame though because there are some practices and advice by the saints that could have helped many. For example, in 11:30 or so onwards Dr. K discusses about detachment from a pleasure to increase eudaimonia, and his advice is to "dissect" why the hedonic pleasure is pleasureable.
St Thomas Aquinas has actually a better advice. He wrote, "Hence the most effective remedy against intemperance is not to dwell on the consideration of singulars." Singulars are qualities that makes things unique, and their opposites are universals or commonalities, what qualities they share with others.
As an example, think of your favorite food. You'll realize that the reasons why you like that food is because of how good it is in comparison to other food you've tasted. Now, to detach yourself from the food, focus on its universals, what qualities it shares with other food. Well, it's made of protein, carbohydrates, fats, micronutrients, water, and others; it was cooked; it comes out the other end after some time; etc.
Lent is exactly what came to mind!
I was thinking the same thing! It's super interesting to see the scientific explanation of why these things are good for us. I believe it may help me have a better view of what is happening with my brain during these times
Yeah I thought the similar thing,I'm a muslim and when he mentioned fasting I started to contemplate my last Ramadhan fasting.
These videos in general have been so incredibly helpful for me. To the point where I'm writing a comment that feels really cheesy about how helpful they have been.
TAKE AWAYS :
# A state bliss, joy, contentment.....something which i am considering to be the ultimate sucess in my life...the goal....this is how i want to live ....is being assured in this video
# We should dissect the pleasure that is be conscious while being involved in the distraction/pleasurable activity....he says this will dec our pleasure to that activity ....which puts 2 and 2 together as he said in one of his video that what binging youtube for 4 hrs does is it dec our awareness....also it similar to playing the tape through end which he talked about in prev video ...that even after value re assessment we end up watching youtube ...we will be actively thinking about it being wrong while watching
Earlier this week, I finally gave up on a painting project I had been excited about after it was just clogging desk space for two months.
I sat down to clear it off the desk, and immediately felt like painting, now that I had given myself permission not to do it.
7:39 life with deprivation, pay attention to it.
12:25 pay attention to pleasure
13:03 motivation is bad
When you have purpose, “motivation” is not needed as things will naturally flow. The modern problem, is that we really don’t have much purpose.
It's like everytime I watch a Dr. K video I know exactly what he's going to say because I cognitively understand all of this and have for years and yet despite trying to improve all the time for years I have yet to be able to make progress in aligning my actions with my cognized preferences. Oh well, I'll just continue trying, that's all I can do :)
Funny thing is he even has a video on that where he responded to a reddit post that memed about watching his videos and doing nothing.
That’s because doing so is very uncomfortable and takes considerable amounts of effort and pain.
Definitely keep trying, but perhaps try more deliberately by listening even closer. Even if you feel like you're making no progress today, it's often a small, deliberate attempt one random day that creates the breakthrough you need. Each attempt helps create new connections, and you'll be surprised how all those years of cognitive understanding actually will come up when you deliberately try. Also, this is why coaching is useful.
- eudaimonic > hedonic pleasure
- 6:20 "attachment to pleasure and avoidance of pain come hand in hand" = detach from all hedonic pleasure
- deprivation, give up something that's mildly pleasurable for a longer time period: observe life in the absence of pleasurable things - this is still ok
- dissect pleasure - observe it to detach from it (pleasure will decrease a little)
- motivation drives you rather than you being in control, able to choose = more freedom with less motivation
So (too much) motivation is essentially bad, because it takes away our ability to control ourselves, which is why we want to 1) abstain from doing any activity that we're addicted to and see how it affects us and 2) observe our pleasure when engaging in pleasurable activities. This will make those experiences much less pleasurable, which will help in not reinforcing the behavior in an unhealthy way, giving us more choices.
When I play video games, I always hyperfocus on it and can't do anything else. I abstained from it a while ago and I feel a lot better now. I didn't trust myself going back into it because I knew I would get addicted again, but now I feel like trying Dr. K's advice (2) and use awareness (dissect pleasure) when I play. I'll see what happens, thanks!
I suppose that is why we hate when games break immersion, as it disrupts this maximal pleasure from being lost in a game.
This is was a very interesting find. The most common motivation hack is to gamify your tasks in order to to use your dopamine receptors for self-development.
I've never thought about giving up both the pleasure and pain in order to maintain a more consistent mental state. On one hand, you get no dopamine hits for success but also no dopamine deprivation for failure.
Loved it. Keep up the good work
I have schizophrenia which creates a lack of hedonic energy. I often feel very content just sitting in the living room with the tv off and nothing going on. sometimes I really want to play a video game, but am unable to. it tends to create a struggle within me in which I feel upset because I'm not leveling up in my game. It's almost as if the nucleus accumbens is inactive sometimes. I believe it is negative symptoms.
That is very interesting. As an observer, one would probably see negative symptoms as the opposite of contentment. We would probably see it as something similar to depression from the outside. Never thought it could be experienced as such high levels of contentment that you aren't motivated to do anything
Thanks for sharing. It is always useful to hear about people's internal experience of something directly
I actually before seeing this video already started observing my experience when I play video games to see what exactly I’m craving. I found out I get into this carefree relaxed state with no worries and anxiety. So now I’m seeing that it’s that state that I’m craving, not the video game. What I do now is to not take things in life so seriously, so maybe life turns into a game for me (don’t take it too literally obviously).
Thank you so much for this video. Lately I've been too conscious of my actions, and they've been less pleasurable. I thought this was a problem. I thought I was overthinking it to the point that things are slowly becoming less pleasurable. But I understand now. I was dissecting my pleasures which is true, because what I'm looking for right now is not an impulsive supply of dopamine. I want a stable life, and permanent things. Thank you for clarifying what nucleus Accumbeus, Hedonics and Eudamonics is. I am grateful for your vidoes. Thank you so much.
Another fantastic gain from dissecting any activity you do comes in the form of dissecting things that you would procrastinate doing. Those things generally have some mental resistance, but if you break down why you have resistance (for example, washing dishes, despite only taking 5-10 minutes max.), you find that the negative side isn't as large as initially perceived.
I am sitting at home feeling constantly unmotivated after starting clonidine for ADHD and examining my experience. My question was, do I need some of my extreme levels of motivation back? Then I searched for and listened to this talk. Mind blown! Thank you Dr. K! This could not have been more perfect.
In case I start my RUclips abstinence, I have to make an exception for this channel. Dr. K just pumps out those high value videos - I wouldn't want to miss out on those.
You have a ton of super helpful content in this channel but this video has opened my eyes to how much I've been dragging myself day-to-day working 20 hour days, worrying about my future and catastrophizing over scenarios that haven't happened.
Thank you for this doc 🙏 I needed this.
I’ve always been a top student with very little motivation but I somehow always finished what I needed to get finish🤣🤣maybe this video will help me to understand myself a little more
I remember using meditation apps to aid me in my meditation journey, and they would often have streak counters to keep people engaged. So naturrally I started being motivated towards keeping my streak, which was fine and unproblematic at first. But then my interest in the meditation the app tought started to become less interesting, so on day 60 i was already not very engaged with the actual meditation anymore. I was still motivated to keep the streak up though, So I did that for a while, with many days only doing 1 minute meditations, or sometimes cheating it entirely just to keep the streak. At day 100 however I was so burnt out I just stopped and I didn't meditate for probably a month after that.
What I discovered was that through the focus on the streak instead of the meditation itself, I had this sort of attached motivation as Dr. K. describes in the video. The streak started to control me, and it made my meditative practice worse. Now I realize that getting this attached motivation towards things like streaks or other endeavors, doesn't actually serve to further the progress of the activity. It becomes a new thing entirely, and pursuing this thing can often be unhelpful or even counterproductive at furthering the original goal.
This might explain why every streak of my sobriety has been broken. S
Counting streak became more important than/replaced sobriety and its so much easier to pick intoxication back up when it's only a number to be lost. Dang.. Thanks for this gentle kick, it was needed
I hate streak counters too! It’s too much pressure and sometimes I just don’t have time or energy one day and I don’t want the guilt trip of it. Sometimes if an app has it I’ll purposefully break a long streak just so I don’t have the pressure.
Time to be motivated to be unmotivated
I am someone who interested in self-improvement, Your videos are exceptional! Thank, Doctor!
This channel is seriously the best thing I’ve ever discovered
Thank god for this lan
12:54 wow the part where you describe the power of motivation, thats incredible
Thanks for the hard work and Emotional Support.
This actually helped me put some words on why I was feeling so less excited but more content, for the past few years, thanks!
I just realized i did this accidentaly when my laptop broke (which as a teeneager at that time, basically the thing i glued to everyday). It was missarable at first, but then i realize there is so much more i can do and actually feel the things that dr.K describe
Also yeah it helped to overcome my very strong motivation to avoid some tasks. I had a trauma/strong fear of burn out thanks to being chronically burned out since I was 8. Also fear of failure thanks to growing up as the "gifted kid".
This video has perfectly captured what people like me go through . I have always wondered about my work output , I feel se low alot of the times but now I know why .
There is a number of implausible things said in this video, for example, enjoyment as well as pain, according to my experience, does usually not decrease, but increase with heightened attentiveness. Also, I do not understand what you mean with "freedom" here; when there is no clear preference, i.e. motivation for a certain thing to do, choices become just random (what else could they be, at this point?), with me sometimes to the point where I will just use a coinflip to decide. "Freedom of choice" would mean that I chuse according to my preferences; when there is none, I am not really chusing, so I am effectively not exerting any kind of freedom. And even when I am in that "chilling vibe" you mention, while I may be more open to suggestions (or, in other words, motivations) than otherwise, I am still not really up to just anything, as obviously there are a lot of things I would never do, no matter what mood I am in.
youre helping thousands of people like me. thank you so so much
I think it relates to pratyahara. Man your lectures are really accessible, very pedagogical! It clarifies many concepts and ideas
Being more aware of how a "pleasure" was affecting me is exactly how I quit alcohol cold turkey. Not only did I not want to drink anymore after really observing how depressed I was after a single beer, I actively avoided it. That said I do drink a glass of mead with a steak dinner and arugula but I have a B12 supplement ready for the next morning to counter the alcohol effect which typically isn't bad, but with that I've only drink 3 times since last November whereas I we as drinking 3 cans of truly a night.
Amazing. I gave up social media for like 1-2 months. I felt a lot better. Some days I was down but in general I felt good and got a lot more done. Recently I started using social media again, Idk why but I couldn't stop myself, like I was feeling like crap one day and used it to fix the feeling and since then I've had no control. Anyway, I started using it again and immediatel started feeling way more depressed with no motivation. And almost immediately Dr K is there to explain what's going on in my brain.
I just did this with PMO. 92 days out now, and slowly the endorphin rush from workouts, meditation, and clarity of writing more have completely pushed porn out for the time being.
My goal now is to catalogue one week at a time and watch as my motivation readjusts.
What you teach is priceless, I've struggled with this all my life. I found myself most contented when things were going badly which did not make sense now it does.
well this was probably the best video ive ever seen, and honestly i see a bit of both in me, on one hand im super motivated to play games during my exam session, but honestly ive lived a life where for about half a year now i havent been sad at all i just roll with whatever, before i used to complain to my parents when they wanted to go somewhere because i was planning to play games but now i just go because theres really not much difference. Incredible video i need to remember this forever
Yes, it's a kind of inertia. What I have tried to do, and encourage others to do, is to start by adding something new. Don't start by stopping all the bad habits, just add a new one. Mine was reading books about a topic that can help me with my work-goals.
I buy the books 2nd hand, so it's not an expensive habit. Over time, you find that you get that dopamine hit you crave by finishing another book. Slowly but surely, the bad habits become less attractive.
It's pretty interesting seeing a more appropriate answer to how to get yourself to do something, I've always told some of the people I work with and others within a friend group; that motivation is really bad to rely on. And I've come to a moto, relatively, motivation can get you started with something but you're likely not to see it through where as determination and persistence prevails most the time. Although I wouldn't say I'm entirely right after this video, it's nice seeing how certain/unspecific niche pleasures coax you into feeling paralyzed in choice and not even abstaining can help you overcome or view your situation completely differently.
Usually, videos on this channel confirm what I already believe. This one actually changed my mind.
That's not motivation, it's obsession. Words have different meanings for a reason.
There was a kid I went to high school with. He was always highly motivated. He had all the acronyms by his name, MD, PHD, MBA, etc. His girlfriend broke up with him, and he unalived her and himself. Motivation kills 😢
Correlation does not indicate causation. You are merely looking superficially at his life and then drawing conclusions. Life is more nuanced and complicated than that buddy
@Cube_Box Yes, this is antidotal, but you didn't know the kid. He was trying to escape his demons by achieving and being better than everyone. He covered up his cracks superficially with achievements and was praised for it by everyone. I could see the red flags that it was not healthy, but the flags were ignored because the Western mindset says, achieving solves problems. The point is he had the wrong motivation in the wrong direction, but no one cared, and eventually, his world got rocked, and he didn't have the emotional fortitude to handle it and it ended tragically. Just my opinion 🤷
wow, this applies neuroscience to an intuition I gleaned from practicing buddhism. The new perspective was very helpful. Keep up the great content.
I'm a logic guy, i use discipline to do what's required. Lately i have a depression that keeps coming back, it's the lost of my dog😢 I've had many before but this one was extra special to me, even my logic of "life goes on" and "there's no coming back from death" isn't working anymore i use caffeine to suppress it every alternate days seems to be weakening.
I'm confused. I undertsand that less pleasure increases contentment, but I think I need clarification on how exactly should I treat the hedonistic pleasure.
The pleasure and motivation is what life is about for me, to use and experience pleasure in the right way. I am glad for the pleasure in my life and I want motivation to move on and experience life. If I give everything up, sure I might be more satisfied, but it's not what I want, it sound so contraporductive. I can't imagine giving up motivation.
"Too motivated in the wrong direction" The philosophy man!
Depervation of positive stimuli(detachment) -> awareness
Motivation ≠ choice
been trying lately to focus on how I spend my time instead of what i achieve with it. so far, it's had some good results for me as far as spending my time in better ways. Struggling rn though augh.
i will say that doing this has emphasized for me the difference between hedonistic pleasure and eudaimonic contentment, I didn't have words for it but I felt this immediate relief as I spent my time doing things I cared about and not worrying about which things got done when, but just that I was spending my time *taking care of* the things I care about. V caring headspace, simpler too.
I like how Dr K is single handedly saving two generation who have been gaslit their whole life.
Thank you for making this video. I am anhedonic and you make it seem good and natural.
When most people think of motivation they are thinking from a short-term results driven perspective. Real motivation is identifying negative habits and forming positive ones, so down the road they are just second nature to you. It's like building stats in an RPG before you tackle the big boss.
Ohhh that just made me realize something. That's where ADHD executive dysfunction comes from, isn't it? Cuz if I remember right, the big thing with ADHD is that dopamine is dysregulated. So I can't get work done cuz my nucleus accumbens is clinging to the doomscrolling dopamine pleasure so hard that I feel like I can't even force myself to abandon it.
...the thought of trying to dissect a hyperfixation just to make it less fun and life-consuming terrifies me but I will apply this tip to my life and hopefully get good results out of it! Thank you for the helpful and informative video 👍
I have always wondered why I was always content and went with the flow and never really cared what I ate despite still liking food.
This describes so much for me. Thank you, Dr. K!!!
I've recently quit of what I though was my life purpose, an academic research career, which I was highly motivated for (to the point of regular burn out), due to untenable working conditions. I've a decent industry job now that pays well, has regulated work hours, and is interesting enough that I feel at least neutral most days to go there and sell my time. I do my due diligence to become decent at the job but it doesn't feel like my life's purpose. I've meditated away many an evening and weekend to explore what I actually want to do with this new free time in the evenings and weekends that I have now, having escaped the 24/7 dreadmill (sic) of academia. Haven't really found anything yet. Being not highly motivated for my job anymore certainly helps with my health, a lot actually, but now I feel like I'm heading straight for a midlife crisis in that I can already smell the stagnation setting in (and my brain is SO HIGHLY CONDITIONED to always work towards the next goalpost, which now doesn't exist anymore). Posting this so that 1) maybe someone else who went through something similar can chime in with what helped them find purpose again (without setting yourself up for yet another burnout) and 2) warn people who are dropping off the motivation train that you wanna be prepared for the situation that you will suddenly experience things such as downtime and calmness that come with their own special brand of anxiety for those who conditioned themselves to think in terms of productivity and opportunity cost at each moment.
Do you have any updates on how it's worked out for you?
Absolutely love it and correct.
Have experienced this plenty of times at the end of months when I'm down to just eggs and rice.
It really sucks for the first week but then after a while it becomes the norm and you stop thinking about as much overtime.
Yea, I just applied to my dream job, and I feel like my chances are good. But I was dragging my feet and found it really hard to simply put in the application. It’s not exactly on topic, except it touches on what Alok said about attachment. It’s really scary, when you have so much desire.
This ties in perfectly with the other video of urge surfing. Shout out to maintaining consistency throughout your videos
I’m incredibly eudiamonic, except I struggle every year with hedonic impulses, “I should find a potential mate” or “I should workout more to build muscle” or “I should get out to do more things and find things I might enjoy”, I agree I’m really not that motivated to do those things, yet seeing as I’m consistently thinking of these things every month, it tricks me into thinking I’m not happy, so I begrudgingly ‘try’.
Stressing myself to get something done always makes me feel bad, but then again, gaming for hours has always left me empty as well.
Oh, wow! I understand now what procrastination is, just a strong motivation to do pleasurable things!
This is profound, what a small perspective shift can do!!
Thanks for sharing
I recently learned something about this, my take about this is that if you are interested in it, you are on your way there. It is not necessary to actually have motivation, it's fine but once you are done or the goal is too far, you'll likely retaliate from what you are doing, hence not doing anything about it anymore. With regards to the wrong direction, there's no right or wrong direction, you'll get there in different ways or another, the thing is if you have a correct direction in mind, you will resist it, because you already have correct direction, there's nothing more interesting about it as oppose to not knowing anything about it or proving a point or answering your question. Any subject in the world, is infinitely deep, anything can be interesting, so it just depends on how deep you are willing to go, motives are temporary. So, what could you do? look for what interests you at the moment, do it, and if you feel like not doing it, don't. You'll find yourself interested in it again, because it is not repulsive. Also, difficult means 2 things either you understand less about it, or you are tired, you'll know you are tired if you try different things but everything doesn't click.
Hey I just found the right video to procrastinate with and don't study for my exam on Monday!
This hit the nail for me. There were months of my life where, looking back, I feel like I was in a coma. I was so unaware, and I did notice that, however I did not know what that was. Now I know that I was living a hedonic life:
Ive had too much motivation given to me, causing some sort of motivation/pressure paralysis.
THIS INFO COULD BE CRITICAL
ADHD has been cruel to me yet again
So what if it is critical? You can't know everything, right?
Dr.K: The More Motivated You Are, The More Bad It Is
Vergil: Finally, A Worthy Opponent. Our Battle Will Be Legendary!
The one thing I struggle with is sweets. At one point I had a disdain for these things but they slipped back. Its okay they did because I can relearn that part, that giving up of this urge.
As an AuDHDer with constant burnout and depression and just wanting the hermit life: this is interesting to find out
“As you observe your pleasure, more, it feels less pleasurable”… Just FYI, this isn’t necessarily true, for everyone. Being mindful of a pleasurable sensation doesn’t necessarily make it less pleasurable.
But, you make very interesting points.