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I'm completely demotivated to work; what can I do?

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Re: I'm completely demotivated to work; what can I do?

#41

Post by alecco »

Some things that help me:

    Visualize goal: close your eyes, imagine your acceptance letters
    When stuck, go for a little walk or physical exercise
    Do goal-oriented studying (e.g. Pomodoro technique)
Understand the education system wants you to comply, this is wrong, but the faster you get over it the faster you'll forget about it. It's better to keep your mouth shut, don't complain or antagonize, they are not going to change for you or anybody (they haven't in centuries). Give them the little self importance they crave for and get from them what you want (grades, diploma). Of course, keep your mind critical but keep it to yourself until they give you what you want.

Also don't overwork yourself, perhaps this is not the best time to spend many hours doing unrelated programming or research. It can be a distraction to your education goal. We have limited willpower, try to avoid depletion. Only when you achieve your studying goals for the day you get to do your own thing. Study in the mornings, play in the afternoons.

Modifying your routine takes a while, do it in baby steps. Remove all temptations that might get in the way to your goals until you achieve them. But keep a good chunk of the day to clean up your head.

Of course, YMMV.

Re: I'm completely demotivated to work; what can I do?

#42

Post by rando289 »

Endeavor to make these things a habit. Every day or 5 days a week etc.

Write down some realistic things you want to do today that you might avoid. Do this as early in the day as possible.

Before you make a decision which will avoid doing one of those things you wrote down, stop, think about it for 60+ seconds. Usually these decisions are done just like instincts without thinking: "hit next episode on netflix", "read this HN link", etc.

In that 60+ seconds, suggestions:

1. Decide to start on the thing you'd rather avoid for just 5 minutes, then you can quit if you want.

2. Imagine your future self looking back on your decisions.

3. Remember how this thing ties into long term goals.

4. Plan a reward for yourself if you do the thing.

5. When negative thoughts or feelings happen, accept them, don't believe them or give them any more power, see them from the outside.

Re: I'm completely demotivated to work; what can I do?

#43

Post by discostrings »

jotm wrote: post #36
scarecrowbob wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we can abstract the advice you're commenting on to "if you don't feel motivated to do what you're doing, do something else", which seems okay. It's quite possible that continuing to do things you are not enthusiastic about doing may be a bad idea. I see your point that it's not a very actionable bit of real advice. Pragmatically, if you told my 16 year old to pack a bag and leave, I'd want to smack you :D

Sixteen is old enough - especially when he can always return. Being away from everything for a few months really puts things into perspective - why are you doing what you're doing, why you were so afraid of some things, whether you're on the right path, and more.

The weakness of the advice isn't that it might not be helpful and mind-expanding. It falls short in that most sixteen-year-olds probably don't really have the option to do it:

1) The plan takes more than a trivial amount of money. Most sixteen-year-olds cannot afford this sort of plan.

2) Many parents, if not most parents, are unlikely to support this idea. There's of course a spectrum of what parents might do to stop it if they're not supportive, but it's easier to just save up money and wait until you're done with school.

3) It can only be done in the summer without causing a lot of problems, and perhaps not even then.

It's a potentially helpful suggestion for someone who's over eighteen, but for many sixteen-year-olds it's probably a pipe dream or something that may bring more problems than benefits. The suggestion assumes a certain type of parents and a certain level of privilege that I would estimate are the exception and not the norm. I would have been extremely frustrated if someone gave me advice that presented this as a serious option when I was sixteen.

Advice that makes these sort of assumptions may end up decreasing motivation. I think more universal advice that addresses the actual question is a lot more helpful.

Re: I'm completely demotivated to work; what can I do?

#44

Post by bane »

I'm going to say something that's a little tough but it's meant as advice coming from years of mistakes before I finally got my head on the right way: Part of growing up is learning to prioritize what you need to do, even if it isn't fun, over what you like to do. This is how the real world works, and it's what you'll spend the rest of your life doing. Learning to do it when you're young, when mistakes are smaller, will make the rest of your life so much better.

When you get your needs out of the way, the fun stuff you can do is all the better, and you'll know more about the fun stuff that you're doing enabling you to open more worlds of enjoyment later that you'll never be able to conceive of without putting in the hard work to start. Doors will be open to you that you'll never even imagine if you put in the work to build the foundation of your life right now. Digging the metaphorical ditches and laying the metaphorical concrete for your foundation sucks, but that's how life is. Lots of sucky boring shitty work, for a few profound moments of bliss.

I know this sounds just like words right now, but I wish this was a concept that I had truly grokked much earlier in my life before I had to spend years fixing all the bits and pieces I needed to do that I had deferred.

Nobody gets to do the fun stuff for long, without working out all the dreadfully boring bits a head of time.

Want to be an explorer? Spend months raising money and building schedules and looking at maps and buying equipment.

Want to be a rock star? Spend years learning to play an instrument, playing in dive bars and making demo tapes. Get a break then play the same 4 hit songs for 20 years.

Want to write awesome code and run an awesome business? Spend years learning computational theory, business management and leadership, raising funds, and last but not least, writing thousands of lines of boring boiler plate, edge case handling and plumbing code.

Want to be an author? Spend a few years writing a couple hundred pages on your topic then get rejected by 99 out of 100 publishers. Then do an endless book tour where you read the same passage from your book 300 times.

Learning to do the boring, dreadfully dull, uninteresting stuff...learning to just muscle through it...is the most important life skill any human being can learn. It's the marshmallow test magnified by a million.

Re: I'm completely demotivated to work; what can I do?

#45

Post by buu700 »

DanBC wrote: post #30
nemathode wrote: post #2

Aniracetam (or Oxiracetam, if Aniracetam doesn't work for you) + DMAE. Don't forget to balance your blood pressure, use venous or arterial drugs to enhance whole body blood flow (don't use drugs that work only locally). If you don't want to use blood-related drugs, then just exercise regularly (try to focus only on resistance-oriented exercises). Try to sleep on a hard bed without any pillows. Also, increase your met…

Some of the nootropics are Prescription Only Medications. Being arrested for possession would have some negative consequences for OP. Accepting a caution would be worse. So, if OP does want to try this be careful about the legal status and if the police do call be polite but say, firmly and clearly, that you'll answer their questions after you've spoken to a lawyer, and refuse to say anything else.

I've never used aniracetam and can't advocate one way or the other, but it looks like aniracetam is OTC in the UK (where it sounds like OP lives) and freely available from amazon.co.uk.

Re: I'm completely demotivated to work; what can I do?

#48

Post by mamuninfo »

This is very common situation for most of the people and it is also general for all fields. Many colleague around me who are also not interested about their daily work. Mind set is important factor to do something. Just sharing a video with you....

In youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN34FNbOKXc

Re: I'm completely demotivated to work; what can I do?

#49

Post by alecco »

alecco wrote: post #41

Some things that help me: Visualize goal: close your eyes, imagine your acceptance letters When stuck, go for a little walk or physical exercise Do goal-oriented studying (e.g. Pomodoro technique) Understand the education system wants you to comply, this is wrong, but the faster you get over it the faster you'll forget about it. It's better to keep your mouth shut, don't complain or antagonize, they are not going to…

It might help to go study to a special quiet and motivational place, a library or your aunt's house.

Re: I'm completely demotivated to work; what can I do?

#50

Post by 910138391 »

frodopwns wrote: post #25
WizzleKake wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we are suggesting drugs, may as well throw in a suggestion for amphetamines. But personally, I would recommend intense and sustained cardiovascular exercise.

Adderall would make anything fun.

modafinil. your solution, for dire needs ofcourse
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