All this self-help woo never worked for me. It probably won't work for you, and I don't think it actually works for the people regurgitating it.

You're probably just spoiled, like the rest of us. You spend all your time around things that are intensely stimulating. Delicious food that you barely have to do anything for, this magical thing we call the internet, beautiful music, captivating movies, hundreds of the most attractive women at your fingertips.

All this stimulation with no effort -- and you think it's a surprise that you don't like hard work?

Having this knowledge, now figure out the solution yourself. Something that you're too spoiled to have done already. :)

This is probably it to be honest.

You're describing me until about age 30.

1. You need to realize that if something was easy or obvious, it would already exist. The only things worth doing are things that appear impossible.

2. Don't try to keep it all in your head at once. Get good at making a plan or a list of steps, following them (almost blindly), and correcting course every few steps. Taking a big problem apart and bringing small steps to completion keeps things interesting.

3. Make sure you're doing something you're personally interested in. Not everyone is cut out to dig ditches for the man.

This -- you have to realize there are two different versions of you. You1 is ambitious and smart and wants to do awesome things. You1 should think things through, actually plan things out, and write things down. At a detailed level!

You2 is super lazy and won't do anything even slightly difficult unless you make it really obvious and clear. You2 needs commit to following You1's plan; this requires discipline, but also a really easy-to-follow plan.

Where were you before you turned 30, what did you do that you did or did not like? And what happened to trigger the change in your thirtieth year?

The mindset shift for me was realizing that I kept having really fun/great ideas, but I didn't want to die with notebooks full of ideas and none of them implemented.

One thing that helped me towards getting them done has been to make projects as small as possible. For anything that I can't do in an afternoon, I try to make sure I can accomplish something small every day.

But it also took a lot of practice at improving self discipline (reading about it, writing about it, building habits), fixing my sleep schedule (way less lazy when I go to sleep at 11pm and wake up at 7am), and starting on pills to combat depression.

As others have said, make sure you love what you're working on. That's important. Don't get sucked into our society's focus on "productivity" over all else if it's not what works for you. There's more to life than producing output, and you are not what you create.

It sounds to me like you are telling yourself a story: "I severely dislike working" that quite possibly is covering for other issues.

Such as: "I am not naturally good at everything, and this is contrary to my self image" or "I am not really interested in my chosen field, but feel like I need to stick with it" or maybe "I am depressed."

I'd suggest talking to people who know you, if you know people who can be honest with you and who you trust. Or maybe even try something like http://www.7cupsoftea.com/ which provides neutral people to listen to your problems.

that's an awesome service. Is it always only text based?

The last time I tried it (which was a while ago), there was voice support, but looking at it now it seems to only have SMS.

First recognize that your abilities, motivations, likes/dislikes are extremely malleable. It is not productive to view your abilities as primarily innate, something you are powerless to influence.

* Building up your motivation, resilience, abilities is like building up muscles - it takes practice and work, pushing just beyond your previous limit each time.

* Understand better why you dislike working. Clearly you are able to do simple demos and experiments, that's actually a good place to start.

* Consider your diet as well. Do you find yourself often in a low-energy state? Look into what helps your energy level. Sleep is a factor as well.

It is hard to say what specific strategies will help you out - you need to do your homework to come up with your own plan. There are decent psychology books in this area - I recommend going for the ones actually written by reputable psychologists rather than self-help gurus.

Here a few snippets of advice I've cribbed from a psychology blog (sorry I've lost the link):

"Do the hardest work first. We all move instinctively toward pleasure and away from pain. Most great performers, Ericsson and others have found, delay gratification and take on the difficult work of practice in the mornings, before they do anything else. That's when most of us have the most energy and the fewest distractions.

"Practice intensely, without interruption for short periods of no longer than 90 minutes and then take a break. Ninety minutes appears to be the maximum amount of time that we can bring the highest level of focus to any given activity. The evidence is equally strong that great performers practice no more than 4 ½ hours a day.

"Seek expert feedback, in intermittent doses. The simpler and more precise the feedback, the more equipped you are to make adjustments. Too much feedback, too continuously can create cognitive overload, increase anxiety, and interfere with learning.

"Take regular renewal breaks. Relaxing after intense effort not only provides an opportunity to rejuvenate, but also to metabolize and embed learning. It's also during rest that the right hemisphere becomes more dominant, which can lead to creative breakthroughs.

"Ritualize practice. Will and discipline are wildly overrated. As the researcher Roy Baumeister has found, none of us have very much of it. The best way to insure you'll take on difficult tasks is to build rituals — specific, inviolable times at which you do them, so that over time you do them without having to squander energy thinking about them.

> Consider your diet as well. Do you find yourself often in a low-energy state? Look into what helps your energy level. Sleep is a factor as well.

This one is big for me - it's much more difficult to use your willpower to continue working if you're in a low energy state. I found that eating a meal with a lot of carbohydrates before doing mental work messes my energy levels. That's why I prefer high fat, high protein meals to ones containing carbohydrates. I try to get most of my carbs from vegetables and fruits.

Nice. I think this is the blog.

http://www.eyesonsales.com/content/article/the_6_keys_to_bei...

There's nothing paradoxical here; you get excited at the beginning, and lose interest when you actually have to work. That's laziness, not a paradox.

I used to be just like you — Don't worry, it gets better!

Growing up I was a natural with math and science, and had sensitivity to the arts. I would often figure things out before needing to be taught, and because of that I always felt more comfortable in the truths I _knew_ that I knew, not just the truths that I _believed_ I knew.

I would get discouraged and frustrated when I wasn't able to use all of my intelligence to solve a problem, but was told over and over again: "Even though your answer is correct, since you didn't show your work or write down the formula using the exact model I showed you how can I tell you know the right answer?" and I would always answer, "Because if I didn't know the right answer my test wouldn't be the first to hit your desk and I'd still be working…"

Fast forward to high school, same thing. Even in college I had a me-vs-teachers struggle where I fought to push the limits only to be told time and time again to stay within the lines and do what's right in front of me.

Since graduating I've worked for a few companies, but for the last three years I've been self-directed. My income comes from large contracts and small freelance jobs and if I don't work - I don't get paid.

The other cool thing now - if I can work smarter, I can make more money!

So I would say that if you feel like your boss, your teacher, your leader, your '_x_' is holding you back - cut them out and _become_ that in your own life. You'll find the motivation to eat!

Now I've flipped. The amount of hours I work in a day _directly_ relates to how much I take home. My freelance rate is also a multiple of my contract rate, so it's easy for me to work hard and literally take home _double_ that day.

Now I don't have a motivation problem, I don't have enough hours in the day ;)

Working hard is habit.

Habit is born of doing. Doing is born of necessity. If you don't have an inner need you probably won't develop hard work habits. So find the need.

It's an emotional thing at the basic level really. If you aren't emotionally attached to what you are doing, the best thing you can do is something else. Not all the emotions involved are positive either. Fear, hunger and frustration are powerful motivators. But so is the joy of accomplishment. I do work hard and always have. I love building things. And I'm scared of being old and in poverty. The two of these together get me moving every morning without even thinking about it.

Maybe you find work hard because you are not doing it right or don't have the right mindset? A self-help book written by a computer science professor might be helpful. Go to amazon.com and read some reviews on Cal Newport's "So Good They Can't Ignore You" and see if it's right for you. Also check out his blogs, especially this post

http://calnewport.com/blog/2011/12/28/how-i-used-deliberate-...

Perhaps you can overcome your procrastination by breaking down problems into easy-to-accomplish tasks or tasks that you can concentrate your focus on. Or get someone to do them for you and that someone prods you into getting things done. I've faced this problem and the productivity experts say focus on habits/processes and not on end-goals. Do some google searching on that. Good luck!

Edit: There's also no shame in learning a trade and doing a 9-5 job for income and indulging in your passion away from work.

Find a career that has immediate feedback and rewards. For example teaching, customer service or acting.

The obstacle is the way. If you've lost motivation, find an empowering focus.

Tony Robbins has some good food for thought> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L5PMShQHas

At least you identify the issues and many are in denial mode throughout their life.Don't hard on you, once you find your passion you will be very successful. Just keep looking your passion.

This sounds like me before I was diagnosed with ADD. I thought I couldn't work hard, even if I wanted to. Not saying that's your issue, but something to think about.

Sounds like you're toiling in the wrong career field. Is there something that you have been or are particularly good at or enjoy doing?

I enjoy listening to music, I enjoy gaming and I enjoy the end result of my projects and experiments, but as I've noticed, not the way.

Apart from that, I'm a pretty stereotypical started programming on the TI-84 and did nothing but gaming nerd. I haven't really ever done anything else, except for a 1 year job at a grocery store. I simply took this path of the programmer as something that instantly "made sense". But now, I really don't know anymore if I picked the right thing, or maybe I did and that this is just some kind of weird phase I'm going through.

I used to think I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write novels and wonderful fictional worlds. The idea of crafting stories that people would eventually enjoy was very exciting to me. I tried and tried for years, but I could never write more than a few pages a week. I finished about 5 very short stories and started countless other shorts and novels. Eventually I realized that I didn't actually like writing. The actual act of putting words on the screen was never fun after the first page and a half.

So, I admitted to myself that I didn't like writing and no longer thought of myself as a writer. I know it's cliche, but it was like a very heavy weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. I didn't have to feel guilty anymore for not wanting to do the thing I thought I was meant to do. I was able to focus on the things that I actually enjoy the process of.

I was a little sad at first, and sometimes that feeling of "I want to write an amazing space opera!" pops back into my mind for a second. But mostly, it feels good to not feel guilty anymore.

If you don't like the process of making the thing you want to eventually make, just quit.

It might be a weird phase, but I'd say give quitting a try and see if you come back to programming. Once you quit programming, you might be able to better recognize the things you actually love doing, not just the things you want to have done.

This was wise, thank you. People who revise their ambitions are interesting... What proximate cause led to your admission to yourself that you didn't like fiction-writing?

Did you know that Winston Churchill wanted to be an adventure author? 'Savrola: A Tale of the Revolution in Laurania is the only fictional work of Sir Winston Churchill... Savrola is in many respects a conventional example of the "Ruritanian" genre, being published just four years after the classic The Prisoner of Zenda, by Anthony Hope...' Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savrola

That's cool. I didn't know that. That'll be good to remember if I'm ever on Jeopardy. :)

What led to that admission was all the built up stress of trying again and again to have fun while writing. Eventually I didn't even start new stories anymore, because I knew that even if I still had fun ideas for the story, I hated writing them down. I realized there was no point in trying to push through. I even forced myself to write a 12,000 word (quite a feat for me) short once and it was just awful (the story and the experience of writing it).

Things like NaNoWriMo were never fun for me, whereas game jams or hackathons or Startup Weekend are a blast. That's the main thing.

This is good to hear. I quit focusing on art (drawing, painting) recently for the same reason. No matter what I'd do I would always end up agonizing over my projects. I hated the process and I almost always hated the result. So I gave up, and now I don't know what I want to do but I don't really care, because at least I don't have to spend all my time thinking about what a terrible artist I am. Oh, and I did this for like five years.

Thanks for the reply!

> The idea of crafting stories that people would eventually enjoy was very exciting to me.

> game jams or hackathons

It sounds like you're still finding ways of building stuff to bring joy to strangers, although not in the way you thought you would be. You use code instead of prose. (:

Have you ever been tested for ADHD?

If you do have ADHD you can seek guidance from ADHD experts, who can tell you how to manage it without drugs.

Work on what your passionate about. Then it's not work.

Work with a friend who encourages you and keeps you on-task.

Find projects that intrinsically motivate you.

how about donating your money/ property to charity or to poor refugees ? Then you'll get on track !!!!

Big factors for me:

Diet ( no sugar or carbs or red meat) Lots of sleep

Move closer to the equator and live amongst the other lazy people. You may even appear hard-working compared to them.

Hard work is the coolest thing in the world, and money shows that you are capable of actually accomplishing things. Another great thing about money is that you can put it towards nearly infinite good uses.

Now work hard and make money.