Okay, but then what to do about it? “Motivational perversity” seems to be doing useful predictive work—namely, that “try harder” is a good solution. If our best description is “people fail to do stuff despite trying really really hard, and we don’t really know why”—what are we even doing placing the source of the failure in “motivation” rather than “executive function” or “modelling and planning” or “sharing control between conscious and subconscious modules” or even “executing motor actions”?
Hmmm, it’s been a while, but someone pointed me here again, so here goes.
I placed it on motivation because the modeling and planning is easy, if the problem isn’t yours.
What to do about it? Talk to someone else. I went to counseling for a year. One of the mistakes I made, and the counselor made, was never just having him suggest a solution. He’s all busy “not directing” me, when in fact what I needed was perspective. Going round and round in my head wasn’t getting anywhere.
Eventually I think I found some of my motivational perversion, some of my unacknowledged beliefs and choices that explained my bad behavior.
Okay, but then what to do about it? “Motivational perversity” seems to be doing useful predictive work—namely, that “try harder” is a good solution. If our best description is “people fail to do stuff despite trying really really hard, and we don’t really know why”—what are we even doing placing the source of the failure in “motivation” rather than “executive function” or “modelling and planning” or “sharing control between conscious and subconscious modules” or even “executing motor actions”?
Hmmm, it’s been a while, but someone pointed me here again, so here goes.
I placed it on motivation because the modeling and planning is easy, if the problem isn’t yours.
What to do about it? Talk to someone else. I went to counseling for a year. One of the mistakes I made, and the counselor made, was never just having him suggest a solution. He’s all busy “not directing” me, when in fact what I needed was perspective. Going round and round in my head wasn’t getting anywhere.
Eventually I think I found some of my motivational perversion, some of my unacknowledged beliefs and choices that explained my bad behavior.