In highschool I managed to slide by doing the minimum amount of work but even then it caused problems. Obviously doing the stuff I love is easy and I’m successful at it, but as soon as something is hard for me or isn’t immediately engaging for me I become evasive. I know that if I don’t buckle down and do the stuff that is hard for me I’ll never get better at it. Ultimately, I got into a pretty good college based on my essays, interviews and standardized test scores, but now my slacking is starting to cause real problems.
I’m not a defeatist. I believe in self improvement. I’m really an optimist. I’m generally happy. I believe that the world is an awesome place and I believe that I’m an awesome person. I know I can do better but I just can’t seem to muster the willpower for continuous, meticulous work. I’m becoming increasingly disappointed in myself for analyzing and bitching about my problems and not just fixing them. I’m such a wuss, god damn.
Obviously I have no professional behavior science or psychology training education so what follows are entirely amateur musings.
I currently hold a hardline skinner type operant conditioning model of human behavior. I know that it is outdated but as a broad model I think it works pretty well. Evolution designs us to survive and reproduce. Our physiology is equipped with whatever mechanisms successively kept our ancestors alive and *******. Apparently learning - adapting to the environment, modifying behavior in response to transpired events - was a tool that effectively kept our ancestors alive. I ate those berries yesterday and they made me sick, I guess I won’t eat them again today. Last year I gave flowers to the pretty girl and she let me stick my penis in her, I guess I’ll try giving this new pretty girl flowers too. Learning worked for your ancestors, so, you learn.
Our motivations are, to some extent, conditioned into us. One motivation that I believe is especially dependent on conditioning is our willingness to delay gratification. Our brains are naturally protective of our energy. We weigh the costs of our actions with their rewards. The part of our brain that handles motivations isn’t rational. Its action-reward price sheet is constructed over time through conditioning.
I think that, in many ways, my parents did a good job raising me. However, I wish that they had instilled in me a stronger ability to delay gratification. Sure, I know plenty of kids whose parents didn’t aggressively instill a work-ethic in them who still have a work ethic, but I think that my particular inherited survival strategy is too naturally evasive for the level of work-ethic conditioning my parents did. I think I needed a drill sergeant. As is, the part of my brain that handles motivation has yet to viscerally experience the rewards of delaying gratification.
I think that my procrastination is, at its core, a cowardly mechanism for avoiding the unpleasant feelings of doing things that are hard for me. Because I haven't been systematically forced to directly face sacrifice and then experience the ensuing rewards, my system of motivation avoids sacrifice aggressively. Over time this mechanism becomes more and more entrenched.
So, approaching this problem scientifically, what should I do?
I need to find someway to modify my motivations. The most obvious would be to use willpower to go against my motivations, face sacrifice, enjoy the ensuing rewards, and slowly condition my brain to value delaying gratification. I will continue to try this, but so far, it hasn’t worked at all.
I’m not a defeatist. I believe in self improvement. I’m really an optimist. I’m generally happy. I believe that the world is an awesome place and I believe that I’m an awesome person. I know I can do better but I just can’t seem to muster the willpower for continuous, meticulous work. I’m becoming increasingly disappointed in myself for analyzing and bitching about my problems and not just fixing them. I’m such a wuss, god damn.
Obviously I have no professional behavior science or psychology training education so what follows are entirely amateur musings.
I currently hold a hardline skinner type operant conditioning model of human behavior. I know that it is outdated but as a broad model I think it works pretty well. Evolution designs us to survive and reproduce. Our physiology is equipped with whatever mechanisms successively kept our ancestors alive and *******. Apparently learning - adapting to the environment, modifying behavior in response to transpired events - was a tool that effectively kept our ancestors alive. I ate those berries yesterday and they made me sick, I guess I won’t eat them again today. Last year I gave flowers to the pretty girl and she let me stick my penis in her, I guess I’ll try giving this new pretty girl flowers too. Learning worked for your ancestors, so, you learn.
Our motivations are, to some extent, conditioned into us. One motivation that I believe is especially dependent on conditioning is our willingness to delay gratification. Our brains are naturally protective of our energy. We weigh the costs of our actions with their rewards. The part of our brain that handles motivations isn’t rational. Its action-reward price sheet is constructed over time through conditioning.
I think that, in many ways, my parents did a good job raising me. However, I wish that they had instilled in me a stronger ability to delay gratification. Sure, I know plenty of kids whose parents didn’t aggressively instill a work-ethic in them who still have a work ethic, but I think that my particular inherited survival strategy is too naturally evasive for the level of work-ethic conditioning my parents did. I think I needed a drill sergeant. As is, the part of my brain that handles motivation has yet to viscerally experience the rewards of delaying gratification.
I think that my procrastination is, at its core, a cowardly mechanism for avoiding the unpleasant feelings of doing things that are hard for me. Because I haven't been systematically forced to directly face sacrifice and then experience the ensuing rewards, my system of motivation avoids sacrifice aggressively. Over time this mechanism becomes more and more entrenched.
So, approaching this problem scientifically, what should I do?
I need to find someway to modify my motivations. The most obvious would be to use willpower to go against my motivations, face sacrifice, enjoy the ensuing rewards, and slowly condition my brain to value delaying gratification. I will continue to try this, but so far, it hasn’t worked at all.