Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?

Often we talk about it at such a high level. But in the end everything boils down to the second-by-second internal monologue, and all the context and life experience surrounding this monologue.

Beneath this is the raw emotions that we feel and cannot explain. Its like when you're looking at a stack trace and it stops at an internal call into a private api.

I'd love to know more about the inner workings of people's internal monologues. Are there consistent patterns of thoughts that can lead people into the state of flow? How does the mind wandering into a day dream contribute to our motivation? Perhaps ignorance is bliss, and seeing behind the curtain spoils the show. Are we driven by our delusions of grandeur?

Can we trick ourselves into exaggerating the importance of what we are working on regardless of how we may feel about it after its finished?

Does contemplating your own motivation (regularly asking yourself why you are doing something) disrupt your actual motivation (uncertainty principle).

I have the exact same kind of issues focusing and basically have all my life. Sometime in college I talked to my doctor about it and it's single-handedly one of the best decisions I've made. With it, I can multi-task and stay focused on even tedious tasks. I'd say I'm easily 4x as productive, which has helped my career tremendously.

Seriously--I don't want to come across as a shill, but it's like a night and day difference in ability to stay focused. Insurance covers it, and diagnosis consists of your doctor asking you a few questions about exactly the kind of thing you're describing here.

Especially your mentions of punishing yourself and tracking “fail” days sound very unhealthy to me (not a professional), and perhaps working on what’s causing you to think in those terms could be beneficial.