The Problem

Recently been struggling with motivating myself to do things that are important to me. Such as Cardio, Gym, writing that creates impact, making money only to give, saving lives etc…

Despite Scooby saying in his website,

if you have only 20minutes of time in a day for exercise. Do cardio, the World Health Organization suggests it.

This is the third week and it is quite hard for me to feel motivated while doing cardio.

I have been working out at the gym full time for 3-4 weeks now, 4-5 days a week. And I am afraid the beginning where I do rotisserie workout for 15 mins is boring. I want to go inside lift straight up. I don’t want to do silly stuff, atleast not when I see I am loosing my ability to do more. The Rotisserie workout is important to strengthen the back and is thus quite important. I can go to the gym almost everyday, as long as I feel epic when I come out. On leg day, I finish with squats; The pump that I feel when I sweat my ass off pulling off the last reps, is crazy! Thats not what I see on ‘push’ day, and ‘pull’ day is the worst. Where is my motivation?

I told my friend I will write for 2 hrs every day and come up with 2.5k proper post at the end of the week. Oh god kill me, why did I even sign up for this. It’s painful. No actual real goals, just writing for 2 big hours. Where is my motivation?

I know the pleasurable life is shit, it wont last and is very costly. I know that people are dying and that they need ~most~ all my attention. Yet, I find myself watching vlogs of people living the hollywood life. Wo es ist die motivation?

It’s outdated to say “be like batman, make the decisions no one can make”. That’s a great saying, but that’s all that it is, without motivation you are nothing I guess. Rather, with Motivation life is much better init!

With the following we delve into the factors relating to motivation and apply them to the cardio and workout scenes.

Delay of reward

When do people file their taxes?
As close as possible to the deadline.

When does every one in my company submit “individual Review forms” for a review of a document?
Half hour before. I have done 5 mins before even.

A few weeks back, when did an agent write most of the 2.5 k words?
Goal was to deliver an article of 2.5k by the end of Friday starting on Monday. I had done only the first 1.2k by friday 20:00 hrs. Let’s just say it was a long night.

Why do people like eating so much?
We get the reward of eating the very instant.

The time before the deadline (delay) seems to be inversely proportional to our motivation.

Challenging

Why don’t people like doing laundry or cleaning the vessels, cutting vegetables and cooking? I for one procrastinate the fuck before I find my ass on its way to do this shit? I hate doing it. It’s boring. It’s work I don’t enjoy.

Why don’t I like to edit verification procedures at work? I am beyond bored. It’s not challenging. I listen to music on the side and still find it painful to do it all day.

Why don’t people like to stretch for 10 mins before starting work out? Why don’t people like to rotisserie workout before they begin the real deal?
It’s boring.

Why didn’t you like editing 1.5 k words? Because I couldn’t do it. In the beginning it was fun, but when the reality hit me I started taking it easy. What is the point of doing something when you can’t win?

Why do you like to solve hard problems at work? It keeps me on my toes, great learning etc. I remember one day at work, when I was asked to replace a trouble shooter all of a sudden. I didn’t want to eat. I was so engrossed in the trouble ticket of my life. I was on my toes. I caught a breather at 15:00 hrs, when I partially gave actions for the ticket. I told myself then. This is what I want to do. Solve trouble tickets?

Why do people like lifting weights, just beyond what they can? Because it feels amazing.

Why do people like playing chess with equal or higher ranked players only?
Because its challenging

Why do you like playing computer games? It keeps you on your toes. You are able to succeed, level up etc…

The game design is such that it keeps you motivated, it keeps all the 108 bits (your ram) alive, and just pushes you out of your comfortzone, to an achievable goal. Apparently you have 108 bits to occupy and a task that uses all these bits is challenging enough; Trouble shooting. Something that doesn’t need all 108 bits, is boring; folding your clothes perhaps! Something that needs more than 108 bits, aids in losing motivation; planning to write 1.5k words when you can’t. Something that, just pushes you out of your comfort-zone, and is also achievable seems like a deadly combination we would want.

The state of using all of your bits and continuing to do that over continuous periods is called as flow.

When you go by yourself in the woods and it is dark, what do you do? You keep looking around, try to keep your senses as active as you can. You freak out at small abnormalities in the sound you hear. If you are not active, there is a good chance that you are going to be fucked. This could be the history for full capacity being integrated in our system.

When we are not at our full capacity, we are bored, we are made to face the “most important of issues”, the social problems. We are made to think about setting it right.

Feedback reward punishment

Why do you like knowing that you did better than last time at the gym?
Progress. Today for the first time I am pressing 28kg 8 solid reps, struggling, increase from last time. I tell to myself, “I love working out”. I know that all the work I put in nutrition and elsewhere is paying. Positive feedback makes me wanna keep at it.

Why do you like hearing compliments from your Design Leader?
At work I solved a Trouble ticket after 2.5 days. In the end my DL said, “ Good job, this is what I wanted”. Hearing from him, meant the world. Whether It had implications for my job or not, it just felt great to hear that feedback.

Why do you like hearing compliments from your gym bros?
Reaction I get from random gym bro I respect on hearing I workout 5 days and do cardio everyday. Made my day.

I suspect its the same thing with your friends’ motivation to talk to you. I was recently ignored by a friend for a comment in a group. My friend scaled a mountain for beginners and all I said was a stupid comment about the pose he made in the picture. Where as my other friends said, “Amazing” and praised him for his efforts. I suspect the response I got was pretty much because I was such a negative whore. I thought I was begin funny, but my boy probably just wanted some feedback, a reward, perhaps a compliment.

Why do you like some people commenting on your posts? Feedback. Reward. I guess it always has a ‘Good Job Agent’, in there somewhere. As much as I think for some reason, that it is low life stuff, to expect peoples compliments, I can’t deny feeling good from it. I take the leap and say it is feedback, and it has potential to motivate.

Why can programmers keep programming forever? I have heard of people programming for 10hrs straight. But how?
Apparently the compile button gives you enough positive feedback, that you can keep going after it. For me it’s not that hard to pull an all-nighter on a programming assignment. I could pull it even today. Thats the feeling I have about writing code. I don’t imagine it to be a pain, a chore. It’s somehow fun. My friend (data-scientist) says casually while he was setting something up in python, I could do this all day. The feedback we get from it and us just being completely consumed in it, just works quite well.

Why can you play games forever? Right amount of challenge + continuous feedback on how you are performing. +1 this, +1 that, all sorts of noises when you kill someone, etc… I can’t remember the countless hours of AOE I played in my life WITHOUT GETTING BORED ever.

Why do you like talking to an STM? I smile when he puts the peace sign. I suspect its the positive feedback, the good old “Good job agent”, in a sign. He puts up the peace sign, when I got something right. It’s the good ol feedback!

Why do I like going to the subway near my house in chennai? Of course it is the food, but it could also be that I liked talking to the guy there, he probably made me feel special and cool. We always laughed. Why I say ‘probably’ is because, I didn’t realize I had told this to an STM 3 years back. The very fact that I had mentioned a guy in subway to him, raises questions as to if I went there only for the food.

Why do I sometimes not like to eat at a Turkish store here? I buy for exactly 2 euros. The guy hates me because of that, and treats me like shit. Negative feedback, lack of motivation?

The equation of motivation

$ Motivation = Capacity*feedback/delay of reward

Capacity informs how much of your ram is being used. Feedback/reward/punishment is self explanatory. Delay of reward is the time it takes to receive the reward.

The rudimentary equation of motivation seems to be the above as I was informed. The question is how do we feel more motivation towards tasks that we typically don’t.

Cardio

My cardio workout (mostly cycling at >120 bpm heart-rate) typically starts after 8 hrs of work and a heavy 45 min workout. I have random goals during cycling, like overtaking guys who are cycling ahead of me, because I am doing cardio and I should generally be better than them. But I am afraid this does not take me far with motivation or even actually doing good cardio. I vaguely measure the distance by trying to vaguely take the same route. I have been doing cardio for 3 weeks now, all days of the week. My motivation has been dipping down lately. I don’t know if I am improving, I don’t know if my heartrate is above 120bpm, I don’t know what speed I need to maintain. I don’t know what speed I need to do to make sure I meet the same goal as yesterday. I take 2 mini samosas everyday when I finish cardio, you know to motivate me.

I usually use my phone to measure distance and speed, but I am unable to use the data, as it is unreliable with informing me when I finished my workout and when I was just cycling after the workout.s

Feedback:
I suspect, knowing the actual total distance over 20 mins would help me gauge my victory better. There by giving me feedback, a sense of accomplishment, the reward or punishment telling me how I did. Even better if this number was real time, then I know how many more kilometers is there and how much more I need to cycle harder. Today, I did the same route as yesterday, I know that when I have 3 minutes, I should be in a particular ball park region. If I was there, I was safe, else I had to cycle my ass off. Feedback, to tell me what I need to do to reach my goal. The goal was definitely reachable.

Capacity:
In order to keep the task challenging I would need to occupy all my 108 bits. But I am cycling how do I keep my bits occupied. I have noticed this when I bench press or squat, when I am doing my absolute max, I don’t have ram to think about anything else. When I am pressing 28 kg (both hands), I am at max point, full focus, heavy flow. That’s what we want: Cycle at your best speed, take intermittent breaks to recover. But where will I go to find out my speed?

Considering all of the above a brand new cycle with thin tyres, with helmet, 21 gears, a onesie tights seems to be the right option for me NOT! For one, how is buying a new cycle, going to help you to feel motivated. You are going to be able to cycle fast, you are going to see locations farther than what you have done now. Having cycled for 3 weeks now, I largely suspect it is going to get me anywhere. I will see an initial increase in the distance traveled due to the new cycle, but how is that even real feedback. All the problems I have stated above are still going to appear with this new cycle.

Without detailing the problem, the solution always appeared to be obvious: “Buy a new cycle, with thin wheels that go faster, and change gears to match the frequency of the music and pedaling. Life will be great after that or at least that is how much you can do”. But it appears what you need is something else. Maybe its the thing of going fast that will keep me motivated. Maybe! But I suspect the novelty wears off quick, like for my boss who cycles everyday to work along the country side. When I said to him about cycling in the country side everyday to work was going to be amazing he said, “ It wears off quickly”. I am glad I didn’t move to the another city and cycle more to work, in the hopes of feeling great due to the sight.

Anyways, I am investing in a speedometer, that will give me real feedback. This will tell me how many kilometers I have done today in what time. It will also tell me the avg speed I am making now. One that I can use at the end and also constantly adjust my cycling level to keep the avg at a point. Once I have my goal, I will know how many more kms I need to cycle and at what pace. And at the end of the day, I have reliable data, which I can use to compare my progress over time.

In order to keep my 108 bits alive, I think I can keep pushing myself to do more kms (with some trial and error) to see what pace gets me crazy exhausted. Lets try this and report findings later.

And last but not the least the speedometer is a great way of reducing the delay in feedback. I suspect anyone who cycles a lot, who does speed cycling, who cycles large distances regularly, cannot go out without a speedometer. or atleast measuring the time it takes for him to reach from A to B.

I have also ordered a fat caliper, more motivation coming up.

How to handle winds and breaks due to traffic? I will see how the data turns out. For the most part I am not worried, I usually cycle in both ways of the wind and the routes I take are usually the same everyday, the results should even them out. As for traffic, I take routes without signals.

Working out motivation

I do supersets of what scooby gives in his intermediate workout. Usually in supersets, we use different muscles for successive exercises and so it is ok to keep continuously working out without rest between different exercises.

Making notes of reps and weights is a great way to get feedback. Knowing you are able to do more reps or more weight is a great feedback. I do the same workout every time in the same way. In case I want to change it up a little and still compare the reps and weight, time between successive sets would keep to real feedback that can be compared over months. I log data, but its not digital and I am finding it difficult to squint through the notes to understand what I have written. Need to change something about this (later) to improve the motivation, to record data.

The very act of lifting when you push yourself, when you feel exhausted and feel awesome after a set, when you drop some sweat after a set, when your body is sore the next day after workout, when there is no pain in the core, when you are able to enjoy all exercises, when you finally have a good physique, when you get compliments, are some ways in which we can receive feedback. Towards the end of the week I go crazy on some junk food as well as a nice reward for the hard work. To know how much muscle we have gained, would be a great indicator regarding what is working and what is not. The Fat calliper is coming soon. When it comes to back exercises, I really play it quite safe and slow and the enjoyment from them is not there yet. It is typically observed in barbell rows and SDLs. But I guess, the lower backpain is the feedback.

Having a killer body takes a long time (delay), so I am not explicitly counting on that, but implicitly I guess I am waiting for that to happen. Delay in reward is reduced as a result of keeping track of feedback with notes. When you pump heavy iron well enough you immediately get blessed with an amazing feeling, it’s the feedback with less delay.

To lift weights to the extent that I just succeed is challenging. Just finishing the set to your limit is challenging. The very act of pushing yourself to your limit, just keeps all the 108 bits at work. I can’t remember feeling bored or thinking about other things, when I am working out; especially after the initial 15 min core workout.

A big part of seeing them gains is to eating well (as given in scoobys website on nutrition). The only reason I knowingly eat “well”, is to get maximum gains possible. It’s the only time of the year when you can see me eat “well”. Its not that hard to eat healthy (Carbs, protein and fat). I don’t care that I go a little overboard on fat, but I can’t control all as it is costly now. I eat two mini samosas a day for sure after my cardio. Once the fat caliper is in, I hope to start taking fat and muscle gain more seriously. As it further tells me if I am doing things right or wrong. Because I need to see gains, if I don’t I am doing something wrong.

And of course the whole of lifting and cardio has the huge health benefit, which I barely understand right now. Not going to dig into it at the moment.

What de-motivates you?
The notes of the reps and weights is not proper, its too tightly spaced and am lacking the motivation to write there regularly as I am afraid it does not serve as great feedback tool. Will look into alternatives this week to make it well spaced and possibly digital.

Another thing that de-motivates me is the presence of back pain. I am used to do the rotisserie core workout for a long time now. Earlier I used to do the beginners workout 2 times a week (for the > 8 months). 4 weeks back I moved to Intermediate workout. I slowly moved to planking ~45s with 15 kg weight (around 6 to 8 weeks back). Recently, it seemed that I was loosing my back strength as I was struggling to do side planks and planks the way I always did it for 45s with 18 and 15 kg extra weights. Somewhere around this time, I also started getting lower back pain. Something that is prominent when I plank for sure. Afraid I was over-training, I decided to loosen the seriousness in having huge weights for the rotisserie workout and over-stressing about it. Since 3 days now I am planking with nothing, for 45s only. I am going to wait slowly for the pain to subside. Slowly start increasing weights. Make more notes of when the pain happens. One of my fears is that I don’t know if it is like the RSI, if it is in the head. I am hence going to play it cool and see how it goes in the next week. I am going to continue increasing weights for SDL Squats and barbell rows, look at videos on form, to be safe.

Summary

There are three factors that determine motivation. The first one is the capacity to to keep the brain in flow, fully active and in use of all its 108 bit ram. The second is the feedback/reward/punishment. The third is the delay in these rewards. For now, we have explored the scene relating to cardio and lifting weights. Next week we go on to even more important topics.