#5 - Motivation 2

I want to talk about the other type of struggle I have with motivation. This is more common than the kind I talked about before, where I was in an unusual period where I did feel motivation to work, and the problem was motivation towards specific types of work which were more painful. Now, back to normal, I struggle to find motivation to even work in the first place. Why? 

The first question I would ask is if I actually don't have motivation do work, or, as before, it's a lack of motivation for a specific kind of work. 

• A question here would be do I have motivation outside of things considered 'work'; games, YouTube, other hobbies? I have to do some thing to pass the time, even if that's sitting in silence staring at a wall. And the interesting thing, at least right now, is that no, I don't have any motivation for anything. Not work, not YouTube, not sitting staring at wall. If anything, I think I had more motivation for these things before when I was also feeling the motivation to work. 
• But while motivation is lacking for these 'simpler' tasks, I still do them. I guess because the motivation isn't wholly non-existent, otherwise I would just sit there. Therefore the issue is both that I don't have the motivation for a specific kind of 'harder' work, but also that my overall motivation has decreased. 

An interesting point though is that I have the motivation to write this. In fact, the moment I had the idea to do this, I had the motivation to actually do it, and/or I knew that I would have the motivation. Why? 

• My first thought is that there's not really any 'work' going on here; no synthesis of information. I'm just writing out exactly what I'm thinking and feeling in the moment. But I am performing synthesis, clearly. 
• This reminds me of when I was struggling with motivation to overcome the painful issues I was facing while programming enemies. While I was struggling to find the motivation to keep working on the programming (although notably I still had more motivation than I do now), I was immediately motivated once I decided to explore why I was struggling with motivation. I would guess that again, this is because I don't really have to think about it, it's just what's going on in my head at the time. (And maybe also there's no pressure? Though I'm not sure, there's not much pressure right now on the programming front.) And thinking further about it, when I have the motivation to program, it's not a process of going above what's in my head at the moment. After starting, I'll have an idea or a problem, then my brain will just naturally start processing it without much effort on my end. And finally, the solution in this case was basically to give up and take an easier approach. Or in other words, one which didn't really require motivation; it was just there. 
• The conclusion I'm leaning towards here is that there isn't really a thing called 'conscious motivation', where I hit some wall where I don't want to do something, then some magic happens, then I overcome this lack of desire. I just give my brain problems/ideas, and for some of those things (and at some times), it will automatically or unconsciously just start solving/realising them respectively.  
• And the solution, given this conclusion, would be that any motivation blocks would be overcome by sidelining the issue and either coming at it from a different approach, or just trying something else entirely. 
• The phrase 'coming at it from a different approach' is vague and requires exploration. And I don't really know how to do that; I'll try going back to our previous example of lack of motivation. When I was struggling with the pain of annoying API struggles, I diverted to a different approach which I knew how to implement, wherein the unconscious motivation could take over.  

So I think I need to figure out what exactly distinguishes those things which do and don't cause unconscious motivation.  

• My initial thought given our example would be that it's something for which you already know the answer, or, actually, something for which you have a foothold to start on. 
• This would align with the other case where I was struggling with motivation, where I was overwhelmed by the amount of things I had to do, and so wasn't focusing on any one thing, on which I could start a foothold. 
• And coming back to my issues right now, I definitely don't have a clear 'next step'. So do that I guess. 

An interesting side note here: if this is the answer to my problem, it seems painfully mundane. Like, I already knew that. And the worry and fear I felt from this lack of motivation feels so much bigger than such a simple solution would solve. And it feels embarrassing, when in reality, actionable solutions should be simple to understand and implement; that's the point. 

• Though I do want to note that even if this resolves this specific issue, it doesn't resolve the totality of motivation (duh). For example, what if you actually just don't care about doing something? And what is this unconscious motivation? Where does it come from?