How to Get Motivated (Even When You Don’t Feel Like It) With Dr. K, HealthyGamerGG
- Guest
- Dr. Alok Kanojia (Dr. K)
- Read time
- ~5 min
- Uploaded
- 2 Sept 2024
- Duration
- 1:13:11
- Views
- 797.6K
KEYPOINTS
- 01
Motivation isn't one thing, and trying to increase it is the core mistake
Dr. Alok Kanojia, the Harvard-trained psychiatrist behind HealthyGamerGG, says there is no motivation center in the brain; it emerges from emotion, 'shoulds,' ego, identity and comparison. Chasing more motivation means trying to make action easy, which collapses when circumstances or feelings change. His alternative is learning to act independent of motivation.
- 02
Are you in control of your wants, or are they in control of you?
If you only act when you feel like it, your wants are running your life. He links this to addiction: whether opiates, social media or video games, addictions activate the nucleus accumbens to give pleasure and craving, and suppress negative emotional circuitry. Scrolling when you're tired doesn't give you energy to cook dinner; it only delays the tiredness.
- 03
Emotions fade and rewards dull, so motivation built on them wavers
He describes homeostasis (joy naturally recedes: a perfect wedding day doesn't guarantee a happy marriage) and tolerance (the second cookie is less delicious than the first). Chasing past highs to stay motivated is a losing game.
- 04
Focus on action, not outcome
He draws on the Sanskrit idea of karma (action) and its fruit: the more you devote yourself to actions rather than results, the easier life gets and the more you control your behavior. He ties a society fixated on outcomes like GPA and stock price to one that is increasingly burnt out and unmotivated.
- 05
Moving toward a goal costs pain before it pays off
Your brain runs an action-success calculation. Before the gym, both its pain and the comfort of staying home are hypothetical; once you start, the pain becomes real while the beach body doesn't appear. Your brain concludes 'this is dumb' and tells you not to go tomorrow. That's why people quit diets and workouts when results lag; you aren't lazy, you're fighting your wiring.
- 06
Running from negativity creates a pendulum
Going to the gym because you hate how you look means moving from pain into pain, so you go one week and not the next. Mel describes a friend promised a promotion for two years who alternates between wanting to quit and working harder. Dr. K says they are following through 100%, just on moving away from whatever feels worst that day.
- 07
Outcome goals like 'sober for a year' can't be done
As an addiction psychiatrist, he tells patients they can't be sober for a year because that's an outcome, not an action. Mel admits her brain jumped straight to the checkbox. 'Every day' goals turn success into failure: meditate 39 days, miss day 40, and you call it a failure; someone 48 days sober relapses and thinks 'what's the point.' Abandon 'every day' and focus on today.
- 08
You aren't stuck; you're strongly motivated not to move
Feeling stuck, he says, is a misdiagnosis: a powerful resistance says don't pick the fight, don't upset your boss, stay seated. Going out to fix loneliness can trigger social anxiety that sends you home: 'a lot of irrelevant movement.' Since awareness precedes control, simply seeing the conflict clearly is the main intervention.
- 09
Willpower is staying in conflict, not calm resolve
He cites research on the anterior cingulate cortex suggesting that what we experience as willpower is the brain monitoring conflict. You don't make a calm decision and then act; you stay conflicted until the action happens. Staying in that discomfort, whether skipping the happy-hour drink or studying chemistry for two hours, is how willpower grows.
- 10
Separate the problem from what you do to yourself about it
His parting point: you can't control whether a medical school admits you or someone marries you, but you can control whether you beat yourself up. Most shortcomings, he says, are manufactured by that self-punishment, which is the part actually in your control.
EXAMPLES
- 01
From a sub-2.0 GPA to 120 med school rejections
The child of Indian immigrant doctors, Dr. K played video games 16-20 hours a day and had below a 2.0 GPA after his first year. His father sent him to an ashram in India; at 21 he wanted to become a monk, but his teachers said he had nothing worth giving up yet and should earn a doctorate first. He graduated with a 2.5 after five and a half years, was rejected by about 120 medical schools over three years, then got into Tufts and trained in psychiatry at Mass General and McLean.
- 02
Why application 100 is the same as application 1
The action of filling out forms and hitting submit is identical; the only difference is the story that you've failed 99 times. People who quit after 20 rejections envy those who try 60 times, but he says each action is individual.
- 03
Mel's ice barrel
Mel doesn't hype herself up for cold plunges; she tells herself it will be 90 seconds of misery and gets in. Dr. K notes she never 'decided' calmly; she monitored the conflict for an hour until she was in the water.
- 04
The motivational interviewing role-play
Playing a partner with a sedentary lifestyle, Mel answered 'how do you feel about your health?' with 'I'm okay.' Dr. K reflected back each answer until she admitted feeling nagged and misunderstood. He validated how hard that must be rather than justifying the nagging, then asked whether she wants to change at all, rather than 'how can I help?'
- 05
Streaming therapy concepts on Twitch
Noticing he was teaching gamer patients the same dopamine and motivation concepts over and over, he started streaming conversations on Twitch, which briefly became the fastest-growing stream on the platform. HealthyGamer now has over 175 employees.
OTHER RELEVANT
- 01
Anticipate the negative
Before tomorrow's workout, tell yourself you won't feel like it and it will be hard. He says studies show predicting difficulty helps; give yourself an accurate preview, like warning someone an injection will hurt for a moment, rather than a pep talk.
- 02
Dwell for a few minutes after acting
After a 30-minute walk, sit for two or three minutes and ask how it felt and what was hard. He says research shows letting the brain mull consequences reinforces good behaviors and reduces bad ones. Also sit with wins, like an A, instead of moving the goalposts.
- 03
Run a personal post-mortem, not a shame spiral
If you scrolled for two hours instead of updating your resume, skip both self-blame and jumping to a fix. Ask whether the goal was reasonable, where the desire came from and what got in the way. Often you'll see you can be uncomfortable for one day or every day until it's done.
- 04
Create space instead of pushing others
Pushing produces resistance. Reflect, validate the difficulty, then ask whether they want to change, so the motivation comes from them. With kids: 'which do you want first, jacket or shoes?'
- 05
Study your own controls
His one action: spend time understanding your conflicting parts and where your drive to change comes from, since much of it is social conditioning, instead of copying other people's answers to fit your unique situation.