This time I have definitely been more lenient with food, which has been to my detriment, otherwise I think I would have become motivated even faster. The good news though, is that since I started from a much better place this time, I think the transition from low dopamine to a fully motivated me should be a bit smoother.
I am also steadily improving at making myself do hard things. While at the library today, I realized that this is also an important source of dopamine. You get a really good feeling when you cross something hard off your to-do list.
The problem is that this is not the ideal way to go through life. You don’t want to have to fight for every step of the way. When you here the phrase ‘get motivated’, you think of actually wanting to do something.
The weird thing here is that I should enjoy writing. It shouldn’t be something that I need to get motivated to do. The problem is that it doesn’t matter how enticing something is, if you have low dopamine you won’t be motivated to do it.
There are experiments where they gave starving rats a bowl of rat treats, if they simply walked across their cage, but because they had modified the rats to have no dopamine, they wouldn’t do it.
The good news for me, is that at the end of 7 hours in the library without any food or water or treats, I still kept working. I managed to really relax myself and convince my brain that this was its only choice, and I kept at’er.
The one problem was that I still didn’t finish my conclusion. I did do over three hours of work on it, but I am really struggling with it.
I am really struggling with it which makes the problem of getting motivated even harder.
My new strategy for tomorrow is to get really excited about solving the terrible problem of the addicted and lethargic masses (myself included). This, after all, is what I really want to do.
I want to help everyone be at peace with themselves and to be proud of themselves. Hopefully that little game will work. I really need to complete this book!
To-do List
- Finish Conclusion
- Research how to post book on Amazon
- Go skiing or go for a run.