<story><title>It is easier to educate a Do-er than to motivate the educated</title><url>https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/1445424833181925376</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>zeroxfe</author><text>I really think that action changes attitude faster than attitude changes action. Learning this the hard way in my 40s, it&amp;#x27;s been really life changing for me. Particularly when you&amp;#x27;re depressed, demotivated, find yourself procrastinating, etc.&lt;p&gt;You can try this yourself -- the next time you&amp;#x27;re feeling demotivated, start with the smallest amount of tiny measurable action. If you can&amp;#x27;t get out of bed, move your fingers, shake your head, work your way up to standing up, walking, leaving your house, and very slowly building momentum.&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;#x27;re procrastinating about work, start with opening up a terminal, launch your editor, write one tiny snippet of code that just compiles, add another snippet, build momentum.&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#x27;ll find yourself making excuses, telling yourself that none of this matters, or that you&amp;#x27;re too tired, or that you&amp;#x27;re not in the mood. Accept the thoughts and push through the actions.&lt;p&gt;Very quickly, as the dopamine hits from these tiny successes arrive, you&amp;#x27;ll find your attitude changing, and this turns into a feedback loop where you end up performing more actions, further improving your mood and attitude.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>npunt</author><text>&amp;quot;Motion before emotion&amp;quot; is a great little mantra to get you started on whatever - waking up, exercise, writing, working, etc.&lt;p&gt;Emotions are sometimes helpful, but in the case of starting things they&amp;#x27;re usually wrong.</text></comment>
<story><title>It is easier to educate a Do-er than to motivate the educated</title><url>https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/1445424833181925376</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>zeroxfe</author><text>I really think that action changes attitude faster than attitude changes action. Learning this the hard way in my 40s, it&amp;#x27;s been really life changing for me. Particularly when you&amp;#x27;re depressed, demotivated, find yourself procrastinating, etc.&lt;p&gt;You can try this yourself -- the next time you&amp;#x27;re feeling demotivated, start with the smallest amount of tiny measurable action. If you can&amp;#x27;t get out of bed, move your fingers, shake your head, work your way up to standing up, walking, leaving your house, and very slowly building momentum.&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;#x27;re procrastinating about work, start with opening up a terminal, launch your editor, write one tiny snippet of code that just compiles, add another snippet, build momentum.&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#x27;ll find yourself making excuses, telling yourself that none of this matters, or that you&amp;#x27;re too tired, or that you&amp;#x27;re not in the mood. Accept the thoughts and push through the actions.&lt;p&gt;Very quickly, as the dopamine hits from these tiny successes arrive, you&amp;#x27;ll find your attitude changing, and this turns into a feedback loop where you end up performing more actions, further improving your mood and attitude.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>karmakaze</author><text>My favorite way when I&amp;#x27;m not up to doing something is to merely prepare an environment for the thing I&amp;#x27;m not going to do right now in the simplest ways. Create a new empty directory not even thinking about its name. CD into it, leave a terminal tab in that directory. Maybe I&amp;#x27;ll copy&amp;#x2F;paste a config&amp;#x2F;makefile or something and search&amp;#x2F;replace the copied name with the arbitrary directory name. And so on.&lt;p&gt;Some point along the way, I&amp;#x27;ll care. Whether it&amp;#x27;s the dumb name I picked, or some specific thing in the config&amp;#x2F;makefile I want a certain way--I&amp;#x27;ve been tricked.</text></comment>