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The Holy Grail of Motivation
The Holy Grail of Motivation
The Holy Grail of motivation and drive is when effort starts to become the reward itself. I know that sounds crazy to some of you but when friction becomes the reward you can pass from an idea to a goal no matter how daunting it is to succeed at that goal (while experiencing pleasure the entire time) ~ AH
Yesterday you learned that you need mistakes to learn anything. And it's hard to stay motivated when you're doing things wrong. But there is a way that makes you enjoy the struggle.
When we're in friction, our reflex is to run away from it. This eliminates our motivation. It makes us stop what we're doing. So instead, when we face a problem, we should learn to enjoy it, or even seek the pain it makes us feel.
According to Andrew, this tool increases dopamine more than any of the other weird tools out there: making your bed, morning routines, cold showers, and of course, we can't forget the waking up at 2 AM to read a self-help book :)
Now realistically, in the next few hours, you will do something that requires effort/friction. A workout, a hard conversation, an exam, overcoming stress, closing social media, etc.
When that thing happens, try to direct your attention onto the effort.
In those moments of the most intense friction. You tell yourself "this is very painful and because it's painful, it will increase dopamine". And what's beautiful about it is that, it starts to become reflexive. - AH
You start enjoying the effort in everything. Mechanism: "This is challenging, but I love solving challenges. So any effort I put is going to make me feel better and motivate me to solve them even more".
You turn the struggle into unlimited motivation.
In your next difficult task, enjoy the friction. Use it to motivate you to keep going.
Jeez, feels like I'm a motivational speaker. This is the clip of Andrew explaining it in the dopamine episode.

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