How to Make Yourself Work When You Just Don’t Want To

If you don't feel like working, the bills don't take a vacation and the kids still eat and get sick.

>You'd inevitably learn to feel good at the prospect of not having to yield cash to a good cause.

Are you really saying this is like Pavlov's dog experiment? Since, the money goes for good cause, I think it might not act as a good motivation in the first place to finish the task. But yeah, publicly announcing this stuff can lead to many people comprehending this as unethical.

Donating to charity is good and making the donations large enough to be an effective disincentive would be foolhardy.

Try rewards rather than punishment. It seems like a sself-made, self-run system using rewards would be simpler and more resilient.

There are problems with all three techniques.

The problem with adopting a prevention focus is that it doesn't work. Or, rather, it might work when the fear of failure is the only fear at stake, but -- at least for me -- it seldom is. For example, one might have thoughts like "I really need to be doing this, otherwise it might be too late ... hang on, it already might be too late ... I really should check ... but what if it's already too late? I'd feel awful ... no, let's not feel awful, let's check sometime later." Poof, thought gone until next time. When you suffer from GAD or any other psychological disorder involving anxiety, about the only thing you can do is understand your fears and your reactions to them, and take small steps towards reinterpretation. Fighting anxiety with inducing more anxiety is not going to work.

The problem with ignoring your feelings is that it's much easier said than done. Good luck ignoring the urge of turning off the alarm clock when you're not even half-conscious, you feel dizzy, sleepy and have headaches. While in #3 the author advises to "embrace the fact that your willpower is limited," here he seems to forget all about it. In situations like getting up in the morning, techniques involving subconsciousness like [1] are more likely to work.

We are more feeling-driven than we think ourselves to be, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Those feelings are there for a reason, and ignoring them might just not work. Indeed, the author acknowledges that "on some level you need to be committed to what you are doing" and I think when he says "ignore not feeling like doing something," he actually means "_trick_ your mind into starting feeling like doing that."

The problem with using if-then planning is that for some people, it's all too easy to change the decision, even if it's already been done; the unconscious mind keeps re-examining the decision and re-pondering the issue at hand. So when the time comes, you end up re-considering the decision instead of deliberating what to do. That's not exactly the same thing, but it still eats up willpower.

[1]: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/04/how-to-get-up-right...

Simply ignoring your feelings to get a job done is just a tactic, and IMHO, not a very good one as it is not sustainable. You should always want to do what you are doing; not necessarily in the sense that this is what you would like to be doing for the rest of your life, but in the sense of recognising that this unpleasant task will get you closer to that something you would like to do the rest of your life.

I think the best method to get something done is to first have a clear vision and passion for the bigger picture. Then, understand how this unpleasant task gets you nearer to the goal of that bigger picture that you want. If it does, you won't need to ignore your feelings. On the contrary; your feelings will push you to do it. If it doesn't, there's a good chance you should be doing something else.