My Motivational Cycle
I’m motivated this week. My choice of the word week should be telling.
Over the last few years, I’ve noticed that I go through an oscillating pattern between big motivation and crippling, procrastinatory depression, with a short and elusive middle-ground usually indicating that I’m slipping into the depression phase. This happens somewhere between three and four times per year. Let’s say sqrt(12) times, that way the interval between the meltdowns in months and the number of meltdowns per year have the same scalar component.
I don’t think I’m bipolar, the frequency of the cycle is too low. I think the issue is more that I have a nasty procrastination habit that is only defeated by unreasonable optimism. Sort of how alcoholism is the only disease that people are allowed to get mad at you for, procrastination is the only psychological disorder I can think of that brings out the most non-constructive help in myself and those around me. “Stop procrastinating! Don’t be lazy, just fucking do it,” and so on. Words like that were driven so deeply into my head as a kid that I don’t even need anyone to say them in order to hear them anymore.
And that’s what causes the the meltdowns: I slack off for at least two days in a row (I’m surprisingly capable of recovering from only a single day of procrastinating as long as I focus on not letting it go any farther), which leads me to beat myself down about my procrastination issues, which provokes my depression issues, which leads to more procrastination, et bloody cetera, until the meltdown. After a week or so of being capable of little more than staring, something will inspire me and I’ll whip back into shape, rearrange my environment with a fresh set of motivational hacks, and go hyper-productive for several weeks until the first time I miss two days of productivity in a row again.
This wasn’t that big of a problem years ago, but ever since the goddesses of cohabitation blessed my home with someone to drag down with me, it’s become an issue. My fiancee deserves better, is what I’m saying, so, somehow, I need to fix this cycle. More precisely, I want to. But how do I keep myself riding on the momentum of my post-crash motivation once it starts? Or is that even the answer? Is the problem more that I still punish myself for procrastinating?
I’m not really looking for advice here, mostly because no one seems to be able to do any better than, “Why don’t you just not procrastinate?” I blame puritan America, “the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers any paid vacation or holidays,” and its idea of a “work ethic” for that. It’s just so remarkable that this society has trained itself to believe that doing work is the ethical thing to do. If you’re not working, you’re bad! If you’re not making your disproportionate contribution of blood and sweat in exchange for the gracious handouts from the upper class, you’re lazy! And because of that line of thinking, any time someone gets into the habit of not diving head first into unpleasant tasks — even if they’re otherwise productive! — they get labeled a procrastinator and shunned.
I’m not sure what I hoped to accomplish by writing this. All I know is that I’m productive right now, and I have no idea how to ensure I’ll stay that way. Does anybody have any advice that favors the carrot over the stick for once?
First person to say, “Well, if you’re already thinking you’re going to fail, then of course you’re going to,” gets a tetherball pole up the nose.