Persist through exhaustion; this is a sign of working hard, not failure.
I strongly suspect it is things like this that make the greatest difference.
Where “things like this” refers to… how one almost automatically translates perceptions (“I feel tired”) to judgments (either “I am a failure” or “I am working hard”). Things we actually do a lot in our heads, but we either don’t talk about them, or just mention them as a side note; because it somehow feels more appropriate to focus on explaining techniques used outside of our heads (pomodoros) or theories (hyperbolic discounting).
Similar example: in a debate about exercising, a friend told me something like: “when you feel exhausted towards the end, that is the feeling of becoming stronger” (meaning: those are the moments in exercise that contribute most to the later increase of strength). Now when I am exercising, feeling tired at the end makes me feel happy, and gives me the motivation to do a few extra repetitions.
On intellectual level, either reaction could be defended; logically speaking, feeling exhausted could mean that you worked hard, but it also could mean that you took a task that exceeds your current capabilities. Neither emotional reaction is 100% guaranteed to reflect reality. (So perhaps the “rational” reaction would be… no reaction at all.) However, people who habitually feel “good work!” are likely to be more productive than people who habitually feel “oh no, I failed again. (And people who believe they feel nothing are probably just lying to themselves.)
I strongly suspect it is things like this that make the greatest difference.
Where “things like this” refers to… how one almost automatically translates perceptions (“I feel tired”) to judgments (either “I am a failure” or “I am working hard”). Things we actually do a lot in our heads, but we either don’t talk about them, or just mention them as a side note; because it somehow feels more appropriate to focus on explaining techniques used outside of our heads (pomodoros) or theories (hyperbolic discounting).
Similar example: in a debate about exercising, a friend told me something like: “when you feel exhausted towards the end, that is the feeling of becoming stronger” (meaning: those are the moments in exercise that contribute most to the later increase of strength). Now when I am exercising, feeling tired at the end makes me feel happy, and gives me the motivation to do a few extra repetitions.
On intellectual level, either reaction could be defended; logically speaking, feeling exhausted could mean that you worked hard, but it also could mean that you took a task that exceeds your current capabilities. Neither emotional reaction is 100% guaranteed to reflect reality. (So perhaps the “rational” reaction would be… no reaction at all.) However, people who habitually feel “good work!” are likely to be more productive than people who habitually feel “oh no, I failed again. (And people who believe they feel nothing are probably just lying to themselves.)