I wouldn’t have thought to use that analogy, but I’m all too familiar with Ugh Fields. What’s a shift in context for the same task? You re-weight the value of success and failure. When the activity was for fun, there was no real way to fail! Even naming the value of success can be hazardous—sometimes a person focusing on the “prize” of success will notice the other positive aspects of the activity less.
Personally, I’ve often found myself focusing on the prize most associated with the greatest potential losses. I went so far at the end of college as to identify success as the negative of failing. Perhaps it’s something that happens when you fail a lot in sequence, and don’t have time to re-evaluate goals. Making a desperate effort is not the best way for every person to be motivated. You build up negative affect for the activity or topic, if you don’t get a good reward fast enough. Easier to think about the things that matter less—no loss, no stress.
If this rings true, then I hope you find an optimal strategy for dealing with it! I mentioned narrowing down the prize. When it’s “work”, I often find that I stop thinking about means as ends—the finish line is stuck in my mind, and the beautiful mountain trail is defined only by how inconvenient or hard it is. This might sound crazy, but I’d recommend making a solid plan that’s much more ambitious than you need for your end goal, and then think about the end goal less often than you would normally.
I wouldn’t have thought to use that analogy, but I’m all too familiar with Ugh Fields. What’s a shift in context for the same task? You re-weight the value of success and failure. When the activity was for fun, there was no real way to fail! Even naming the value of success can be hazardous—sometimes a person focusing on the “prize” of success will notice the other positive aspects of the activity less.
Personally, I’ve often found myself focusing on the prize most associated with the greatest potential losses. I went so far at the end of college as to identify success as the negative of failing. Perhaps it’s something that happens when you fail a lot in sequence, and don’t have time to re-evaluate goals. Making a desperate effort is not the best way for every person to be motivated. You build up negative affect for the activity or topic, if you don’t get a good reward fast enough. Easier to think about the things that matter less—no loss, no stress.
If this rings true, then I hope you find an optimal strategy for dealing with it! I mentioned narrowing down the prize. When it’s “work”, I often find that I stop thinking about means as ends—the finish line is stuck in my mind, and the beautiful mountain trail is defined only by how inconvenient or hard it is. This might sound crazy, but I’d recommend making a solid plan that’s much more ambitious than you need for your end goal, and then think about the end goal less often than you would normally.