Very true, spoken as someone suffering from ADD. I’m already highly motivated by positive reinforcement: if something is in any way technical, or hierarchical, or requires learning new skills to master, I am all over it like gravy on biscuits. It isn’t hard for me to “trick” myself into enjoying a topic I might have previously decided was not worth my time.

However, if I really just don’t like something at all, or if it is something that isn’t really motivation-based but requires schedule-keeping (maybe some random deadline at work), it’s very hard for me to naturally elevate it to a high priority in my head. The things I enjoy come first, even at the expense of logic or self-preservation sometimes. If there is a strong negative motivation applied to the goal, like “So-and-so person is going to stop talking to you if you don’t do this”, that can be just the push I need to override my damn brain.

I think there’s a very fine line with negative motivation, stress builds up really fast and then it’s just counter productive and harmful

Couldn’t disagree more, but I think we may have hit on a natural split in what motivates people. I like goals and metrics. When a doctor told me I needed to lose weight or I’d become diabetic, that wasn’t what motivated me at all. In fact, the anxiety that came with that potential outcome manifested itself as super low-energy depressive episodes. That terror actually got in the way of me doing the work. What worked for me was deciding “Okay, I’m gonna get a whiteboard calendar, and mark every day that I do strength training in blue, meditation in green and cardio in pink. Then at the end of each month I’m gonna add them up and see what my totals are.” First month, my goal was to do each of them 3x/week. That felt like a pretty far off goal for someone who is basically sedentary, and I didn’t quite get there the first month. But getting close made it feel possible. Then every time I met a goal I raised it by 2. I eventually got to the point I’m at now, where I work out and meditate 5-6x/week and it’s an odd day where I don’t do at least one of those three activities. My blood glucose and A1C are down to normal, I finished my first 5k in 42 minutes flat and am training to get that time down into the 30s, and I can deadlift my weight and nearly bench press that much as well. I feel better, I look better, my office job is less oppressive because when I get frustrated I can just break out the Mental Health Rocks and work some of that energy out. All of it from positive motivation, even when there was actually a pretty strong negative motivation inasmuch as I really like my eyeballs and feet. Now that I’ve reached my goals wrt how often I work out, I’m setting quantifiable goals for how hard I work out.

I suppose I’m not really disagreeing with you. It’s obvious that this is what works for you, and I can’t negate your lived experience with mine. But what I’m saying is that not everyone is motivated the same way.

I agree if your objective is to get any given thing done to any completion percentage and any quality is acceptable. But I struggle to see how this management strategy would work, for eg, in a marketing department.

“WRITE ME A NEW SET OF EMAILS OR ILL PULL OUT YOUR FINGERNAILS” would probably work once, but that person would likely probably quit by the end of the day.

Unless you’re advocating that all jobs should be slavery?

Agree, depending on context. But as a blanket rule? Hard disagree.