There are a lot of positive implications that become obvious when you say you want to be strong and lightweight. While "not weak" is a passive character judgement, "strong" is a constantly available opportunity.
A popular example would be sports if you're not very fit. You would obviously have tangible health benefits if you did it, you may look more attractive, you may have more energy both physically and mentally. But since you're a couch potatoe sports is demanding, exhausting and sucks. Would you do more sports it would suck less or you might even find it enjoyable, but you don't and that's where you are.
This puts you in the weird spot of wanting a thing but not wanting to do what would get you there, even if the reasons you don't want to do it would vanish if you did it.
You can only really overcome this mentally, e.g. by priming yourself in certain ways, or by creating situations where you don't have a choice, because others rely on you, etc.
I wrote about this (as a tangent, but anyway) recently. https://asemic-horizon.com/2025/07/28/julian/
TL;DR "akrasia", procrastination etc. are all forms of ambivalence that are not nearly as "psychological" and individual as usually presented. The nausea is in the world itself.
Now, those who go out of obligation and have negative experiences may agree with you, but church services are some of what I miss most from leaving the religion.
I have many complaints specific to my experience of dragging myself to church, but the experience itself was incredibly neutral.
A self-help guide about language wholly distinct from thought.
My initial pet theory was that is going to be more uniform as a result, but now... I am not so certain.
This confused conviction is the real problem. There is no other you to convince. The same you that you are bargaining with to do the thing is the same you that's doing the bargaining. You can at any moment just do it.
Write down the problem. Think really hard. Write down the solution.
> Combine the task with something you enjoy. You know what makes cleaning out the garage a lot better? Some good tunes.
This motivational advice is deeply misguided. These are very clear examples of "dopamine stacking". The idea is that by combining a stimulating activity (eg watching show/music) with a motivation-requiring activity (eg working out/cleaning) you can get an initial boost in motivation to accomplish the hard task. It works (initially) because the stimulating task (show/music) is giving you a dopamine increase which feels like motivation to complete the hard task. The problem is that if you repeat this behavior with any consistency, your dopamine system quickly adjusts the high activity-combo level of dopamine as a new baseline. Soon not even the dopamine you get from the combination is sufficient to motivate you to accomplish the task. At this point people often seek another short lived dopamine-increasing stimulus to combine into the mix.
You can see this pattern in people who exercise only with some combination of pre-workout, caffeine, music, phone scrolling.
The off-ramp is learning how to derive dopamine (aka "motivation") from the actual activity itself.
further reading: 1. https://youtu.be/PhBQ4riwDj4?si=n-afP-Rj_k7qfATz
Any ways, a lot of studies have shown your body has a variety of methods that attempt to counteract excess calories burned, like reduction in non-exercise activity thermogenesis.
My disagreement is that I think exercise should not primarily be about calories - it should be about fitness. And almost all of the fitness gains from exercise persist even if you replace the calories with a donut.
Exercising for 30min and then relacing those spent calories with donuts is FAR better than not exercising and forgoing those extra calories.
the aerobics build up muscle that will always be burning calories by merely existing. a donut here and there won't make a negligible difference, as long as the weekly aerobic activity level is maintained.
Tell that to all the lean 150 pound / 68kg runners stuffing their faces with high calorie foods all the time.
So, just start liking the things you don't like? Sure, ideally that's the solution you want, but it's not exactly actionable advice.
1) reward/incentive/expected good feelings
2) effort/displeasure of doing the thing and the result
One way to increase #1 is to make it more socially involved. If you're working on a project solitarily, start going to events and talking about it with people, or write about it online. Humans are massively socially motivated.
For #2, one way to address this is with emotional processing. Often something is unpleasant because it reminds of something we didn't like from the past. So really digesting those emotions can allow the expected displeasure to fade because we kind of integrate it into our brains/bodies. But the key for this is that it has to be emotional processing, not intellectual processing.
Probably not a healthy outlook!
Perhaps you don't have compelling enough reasons to do things.
For $100 million I would probably just learn to put on the scuba gear but for instance my mind would go to "I should make my own scuba gear". So for a personal project I start on something and decide I need something else, so then I want to make a tool to help me make that thing and so on. I think it's probably related to a shorter attention span so I'm working on that.
Actually do it? That's a lot less certain than you would expect.
I would probably start. Since this hypothetical is a pretty simple one-off, I might even manage to generate enough executive functioning to follow through.
What I can tell you for certain is that I am still very excited to work on a custom keyboard project that I started 4 years ago. I have all the parts and equipment readily available at home, and plenty of free time. I have not worked on it at all over the past 4 years.
As a person with ADHD, this struck me. I have an easy time continuing something. But an impossible time starting and finishing something. Obviously I am not mentally healthy. But who is this person who is mentally healthy? And what am I missing to being the same way?
I think it boils down to being yelled at and penalized and being unable to handle this feedback well enough. I don’t know exactly what I am fearing here. It will be an exploration.
> you are both pleased with yourself and a little annoyed that it took you so long to deal with.
I am never pleased at the end of a project. I am blame full why I could not do it before.
There's a lots of one can do to overcome and accommodate it, but one of the first steps is to approach neurotypical productivity advice with substantial skepticism: they aren't fighting the fight we are; don't even know that our fight exists.
1. Think about the ultimate goal and why you want to do it. If there isn't a compelling reason, there is no reason to do it, especially if there is short-term pain or annoyance.
2. Take at least one small action towards it per day. This often puts you in the mindset to do more things.
It can make the actual work even more painful, because your mind is too focused on the reward, instead of trying to enjoy the hard work itself.
Also the role of dopamine cycles has a big effect on proactiveness.
It's a bit counter intuitive, and while your environment needs to be conducive to work. Among the other factors, you dont just gain motivation by having a clean desk.
-Shia LaBeouf
Don't do what u don't wanna do.
..
Or at least try, doing otherwise is crazy right?
It can be a single word or a instruction that crashes your program at the location that needs to be worked on.
Leave a syntax error for getting started quick tomorrow.
Write down what needs to be done before it leaves your head (but don't make it perfectly structured and clean, a few words on a paper on your desk will do).
edit: For instance, you'd possibly want to fix the missing "n" in this comment. Make this feeling a tool against your procrastination.
edit2: ah, and get the hell out of HN, too.
Doing hard things is hard, and that means I won't be thinking about the other stuff I have to do. I'm more apt to miss a text from my family when I'm running or writing a document than when I'm vibe coding, because the effort is all-encompassing. Subconsciously, that's stressful, so I steer away from it.
Habits help here, because with enough repetition, I learn that it's OK to disappear for an hour to do the thing. But the real issue is getting the meta-organization of my life right enough that I'm not scared to shut down my ambient executive function for that hour. This shows up as both "I'm too busy to do the hard thing" and "I'm too tired to do the hard thing."
Slowing down isn't the answer, but it's been pretty transformative to notice that that's what I'm worried about.
Sleep, diet, and stress are like "system dependencies".
The only thing that matters for me nowadays is this: before I start the task, I admit to myself that it is going to be hard, but I am doing it anyways, so why do it like its a drag? It's pointless and it's a waste of energy.
There is a myriad of things that can be invented to avoid or cope with the pain, but if I am going through this anyway, there is no reason whatsoever to make it more painful that it will already be.
I use Vyvanse.
Lifting weights... imagine the stronger person you will become. Studying for that exam.. picture the career you aspire to. Avoiding that donut... imagine the healthier you.
Habit stacking helps to remind one of the task to do. To avoid the struggle of doing them, picture the desired outcome.
By knowing if I don’t get this thing done, it doesn’t get done.
That for some tasks “want” doesn’t matter.
willahmad•1h ago