CstineSublime's Shortform

CstineSublime

This is a special post for quick takes by CstineSublime. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.

I don't like the word "motivation" because I find one of the chief factors in whether I'm motivated to do something or not is belief. Most discussions of motivation seem to basically see it as the pain or "cost" of doing something versus the reward. However just because you do something, be it painful or easy, doesn't mean you'll get the reward.

Perhaps some fragmentary dialogue will illustrate my thinking:

"digging for gold is hard work and you're not even sure if you'll find anything" - low motivation. High cost (hard work) no certainty of reward.

"I'd basically be sitting on my phone all afternoon, and they have to pay me $500" - high motivation. Low cost (easy) guaranteed reward.

Now let's compare it to this:

"buying a lottery ticket is easy but you're not even sure if you'll find anything"

"You should put it on the internet, you might go viral"

Personally, this is why I don't buy lottery tickets. And hopefully this illustrates why I don't like the implication that motivation is simply how easy a task is and the magnitude of reward. Because the certainty matters.

The problem becomes if you're a pessimist like me - then EVERYTHING has low certainty. Therefore you don't do much of anything. Becoming more 'motivated' isn't simply a matter of wanting it more - it is having belief.

1CstineSublime1y

I'm not sure how I (me, specifically - may be generalizable to others?) can apply any of those unless I'm already receiving feedback, reward. In the interest of being specific and concrete I'll use one example - my personal bugbear: the refrain from people who tell me that as a creative freelancer I need to "get your stuff out there" stuff here nebulously referring to the kinds of videos I can make. "There" is an impossibly vague assertion that the internet and social media are vectors for finding clients. Yet I have low belief in "getting stuff out there" is an effective measure to improve my standing as a creative freelancer, let's go through your suggested influences one-by-one: Peer Pressure: well it doesn't work evidently since I've been repetitively told that "you need to put your stuff out there" is true - but I don't believe it. These people are often peers, stating it as a fact, yet it doesn't shift my belief. The caveat I would put here is I have not had luck finding clients through previous forays online and most of my clients appear to come from offline networks and relationships. Getting Quick Feedback: This does seem like the most effective means of shifting belief - however it is no applicable in this example as the feedback is non-existant, let alone quick. Likes and comments don't translate into commissions and clients. Getting the information from a trustworthy source: yes, generally true, call it "appeal to authority" call it Aristotle's theory of ethos in rhetoric. Yet not applicable in this example, in fact people who repeat this refrain appear less trustworthy to me. Getting other reward in Parallel: Likes and comments are rewards in a sense, yet do not influence my belief because it is not directly affecting the core metric which is - getting more clients or commissions. However there are some caveats: the advice is impossibly vague and therefore impossible to action. Which begs the question of - what is my lack of faith or belief with?

2Viliam1y

Can they give you specific examples of the clients they gained as a result of publishing a video on a social network? (Maybe there was something special about those videos, and it is not true for videos in general. But maybe you could copy that special thing.) [...] Agreed, they don't. Maybe shares make it more likely for the video to reach a potential client. I suspect that a good video needs to be "actionable": it should give a specific example of a problem that you can solve, and it should explicitly encourage them to contact you if they need to have a problem like that solved. Other types of videos are only useful if they make people click on your video feed and find the "actionable" ones. But that's just a guess; I never had a job like that.

Can they give you specific examples of the clients they gained as a result of publishing a video on a social network?

To be honest I haven't asked for specific examples (and I guess I'll need to find a way to ask for it which is not misconstrued as confrontational) but no one has been forthcoming.

Agreed, they don't. Maybe shares make it more likely for the video to reach a potential client.

Yup, "Hey look at this, you should get them to do your next music video for you" or within a band: "hey look at this video they did for this band, we could us... (read more)