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Comment by johnsimer | Hacker News Reader

I think each person should learn what motivates them best, and the pros and cons of different motivational strategies.

Pre-burnout, dark motivation strategies such as stress and having a chip on my shoulder motivated me.

Now post-burnout, I still get stressed out easily, and a darker motivation strategy would probably lead me to collapsing from stress again. Gratitude, pride, self-compassion, and lovingkindness meditation motivate me better, without negative side effects. cf. Emotional Success — David DeSteno

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I needed to read this. I grew up on dark motivation and physically cringed at the idea of being motivated by happiness and positivity (I was quite an edgy teenager as I'm sure you can guess!)

Now in my late 20's, the pandemic plus all the years of accumulated negative energy seem to have broken the camel's back. I burned out hard over the last two years and I've had trouble picking up the pieces. But the motivational techniques you mentioned ring quite differently now than when I was younger and I think that's the path I'll want to pursue from here on out. Appreciate the thoughts.

Very similar life story and timeline here.

Going from being a very motivated worker to burnt out can be psychologically challenging, and people around you often don’t seem to understand that your burn out can last for longer than a few weeks.

Some other books helping me in my journey are Upward Spiral by Alex Korb and Feeling Great by David Burns

I'm quite interested in this exchange, because I've noticed that a lot of very successful people saying they had strong dark motivations early in their career, but are now very glad to have much healthier sources of motivation. The pattern is so consistent I can't think of many high achievers that I know for a fact weren't driven by dark motivations in some early stages of life.

I've developed the theory that explicit preponderance of dark motivations might have knock-on effects in shadow integration that are hard to get elsewhere - any thoughts from those who recognise this pattern?

Problem is, sometimes you don't have a say on what motivates you because life happens.

Ask any struggling freshly divorced parent who's trying to provide for their kids and suck up all the toxicity from her workplace because paying the rent matters more than loving what you do.

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