Rebuilding Atrophied Desire (to win)

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AxelHeyst
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Rebuilding Atrophied Desire (to win)

Post by AxelHeyst »

I made a post in my journal about how I think w*rk “trained” me to believe that “It doesn’t matter what you do, you can’t win.” I contrasted this with Special Forces training that attempts as much as possible to instill the idea that “It pays to be a winner”, while also training (and filtering) for people who can handle losing gracefully (thanks @whitebelt for the nuance there).
white belt wrote:
Sun Jan 23, 2022 4:24 pm
War, like life, is a marathon not a sprint. Anyone can win when things are going their way, but there will always be times when things aren't going your way. One thing that separates the elite soldiers from conventional is that the elite soldiers can continue to maintain a consistent performance regardless of the situation (sleep deprivation, low morale, death/danger, starvation, etc). There is a balance between going all-out to win and saving something in the tank for the next task because there is always a next task. If you burn yourself out trying to win at one task it might mean failure on the next task.
white belt wrote:
Sun Jan 23, 2022 7:40 pm
When dealing with dynamic real-time situations (life, team sports, war), it's critically important that one is able to be both process oriented and goal oriented. Process orientation is key for preparation and longevity; it will keep you focused on growth and perseverance even when you don't "win". Goal orientation is an important tool for motivation ("I want to win") and for remaining adaptive in real-time situations. I think the motivation connection is pretty straightforward, as it's well documented that creating goals can provide structure and motivation for individuals.

The ability to adapt (semper gumby**) is less discussed outside of circles that spend a lot of time interacting with dynamic, messy situations with incomplete information. In war, it's not sufficient to resign yourself to "Oh well, we aren't winning this battle but at least our process is solid." Fuck no, you need to figure out how to win at any cost because that absolutely matters, especially in life/death situations where TINA. This may require you to entirely throw out your previous framework/process to try something novel. Being too process oriented and getting your ego wrapped up with your process can be a hindrance to such a pivot. Many people would rather fail conventionally than succeed unconventionally (even in life and death situations). You can read a variety of survivor memoirs to see that dynamic in action.
jacob wrote:
Mon Jan 24, 2022 11:59 am
...My point is that there are different reward systems for different environments. I think transitioning from "salaryman" to "renaissanceman" requires rewiring one's reward system. For the renaissanceman-type, the innate playfulness and inner drive of a child (before creativity was trained out). See https://earlyretirementextreme.com/a-me ... ement.html or the Pearsall quote (see WL8) about not making a distinction between work and play.

In my experience this [innate drive] is pretty hard to recover once it's been damaged or destroyed by [OC] turning play into work.

Hence a pox on external reward-systems!! I can see how they'd get otherwise unmotivated people to do stuff, but insofar internal motivation is inherent, external rewards (operant conditioning) can really *fuck* with that system. One-size-does-not-fit-all.

Key concepts: grit, don’t-quit, resilience, ability to adapt, ability to tap into a sense of intrinsic motivation..

We’ve had several excellent discussions and posts about burnout. It seems that arriving at post-FI life burnt out and unable to muster the desire to win that one once had is a very common problem. What I’m interested in discussing in this thread is what are specific, actionable steps people can take to restore their desire to win, not quit, triumph, lose well, adapt, etc? An ideal outcome for this thread would be a guideline / set of best practices that anyone could read and use to adapt to their specific circumstance to build a program for restoring desire to win as much as is possible, whether they’re pre-FI, post-FI, or semiERE. Everything from understanding what’s going on at a neurological / operant conditioning level, to small-scale exercises to build small wins (James Clear “upward spiral of success/winning”), to what kinds of activities ought to be avoided at all costs, etc.

---//---
Ideas and thoughts on how to rebuild desire, grit, don't-quit, recover from burnout, etc, synthesized from the discussion:
  • Avoid people who are burnt out, it's contagious. Hang out with people who are gritty, it's contagious. @ego
  • Whiteknuckling through N more years might cause irreversible damage. Beware! @jacob
  • With Scott Young's Spiral of Confidence in mind, seek appropriately-sized wins. If you're really burnt, find the smallest win you can imagine, and do it. Then another. Then another. Don't attempt to go from burnt-out husk of a human meatsack to epic Hero by Tuesday - your subconscious will refuse to believe it's possible. Take the next step up the spiral of confidence. Keep going.
  • Testosterone. Get some. Years of losing almost definitely reduced T levels. Seek to increase it. It's probably (?) impossible to have too much endogenous T. @Kriegsspiel
Last edited by AxelHeyst on Tue Jan 25, 2022 4:36 pm, edited 2 times in total.

white belt
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Re: Rebuilding Destroyed Desire (to win)

Post by white belt »

Rather than thinking of it as destroyed, perhaps it would be better to think of it as atrophied? I suspect grit needs some regular stimulus because humans are so quick to adapt to new environments. I think this is one reason why you see guys like Goggins and Jocko still pursuing challenging activities in the form of ultra endurance races or BJJ. It keeps that “winning” muscle stimulated.
Last edited by white belt on Mon Jan 24, 2022 5:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

mathiverse
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Re: Rebuilding Destroyed Desire (to win)

Post by mathiverse »

My initial thoughts for how to rebuild this desire was to do a lot of inner work (changing how I approach the same situation), but after reading your post, I realized it may be more fruitful or as fruitful to focus on finding places where I can win (creating a new situation). I am thinking a lot about that now.

As for my original plan, this is relevant for me because I left my old job and I feel like my old job was often unwinnable (or at least that was my perspective on it in the past). I was planning to return to it with a focus on not trying to win in the way I used to aim for (ie no longer going for promo or max money), but win in another way (ie focus on a long term, mostly-enjoyable role where I do work that I prefer and have a good attitude about it and where I make money for a more meaningful purpose). I wonder how this experiment with focusing on primarily inner work to get that don't quit attitude back will turn out. I've already decided that I'll do weekly check ins about my attitude and leave if I can't make the job winnable in some meaningful sense. If I quit, then I'll try to find a new role/company/etc that allows me to win.

AxelHeyst
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Re: Rebuilding Atrophied Desire (to win)

Post by AxelHeyst »

Not James Clear - I was thinking of Scott Young’s Spiral of Confidence. Very relevant.

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Ego
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Re: Rebuilding Atrophied Desire (to win)

Post by Ego »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Mon Jan 24, 2022 2:11 pm
What I’m interested in discussing in this thread is what are specific, actionable steps people can take to restore their desire to win, not quit, triumph, lose well, adapt, etc?
Two things come to mind immediately.
  • Seek out others who have it because it is contagious. I find that the dogged determination of immigrants despite large hurdles is especially infectious.
  • Avoid others who do not have it because not having it is contagious.

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Re: Rebuilding Destroyed Desire (to win)

Post by Quadalupe »

Let me posit an unnecessary convoluted theory :P

In meaning-space, you can have 'work' vectors and 'stoke' vectors*. The length of the vector denotes how much work is needed to satisfy work/fuel your stoke. The direction of the denotes the area your work/passion lies in. If the work vector is aligned with your stoke vector and they are equally long, then work=play and you have a perfect situation. If your work vector is long, you risk burnout, especially if your work vector is badly aligned with your stoke vector.

However, I think desire can also be destroyed when ones job is too easy. This is why bore-out is also a thing. Suppose your work vector is perfectly aligned with your stoke vector but is way shorter. Then colleagues are easily impressed with your work, but it's not enough to scratch your own itch. Depending your own temperament, this can cause you to lose motivation to do more, but you also lack satisfaction in your work. Changing jobs, even if it means leaving a cushy job with good benefits, can be worth it to realign the stoke and work vectors, both in direction and length.

Theory aside, I have definitely suffered from boreout at some jobs. As soon as I moved to a shiny new job, desire to win/perform/impress was restored (at least for a while).

*the vectors are not static in longer timespans. I'd argue that one of the theses of So Good They Can't Ignore you for example is that your stoke vector (maybe you can have more than one?) can realign with your work vector as you become better at your job.

ETA:
The blog post AH mentioned (without having read it all yet) this formula:
Motivation = [Value of Success] * [Probability of Being Successful] – [Effort]
I think that Value of Success can also *depend* on Effort. If attaining success is ezpz, then it's not very satisfying (at least for me).

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Re: Rebuilding Atrophied Desire (to win)

Post by MBBboy »

I think the success spiral linked above aligns nicely with the concept of building momentum. There's a concept called Behavioral Momentum Theory which is typically used for dealing with difficult children (ha!) that may also apply.

In general, I think both lead you to the idea of setting smaller, achievable, and not threatening goals / wins as a lead up to more difficult things. Building that winning momentum builds motivation, which of course leads to higher probability of success. It's why the debt snowball method is so successful, even though it's mathematically inferior to paying higher interest first.

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Re: Rebuilding Atrophied Desire (to win)

Post by Jupiter »

I don't think it has been mentioned yet in this discussion (edit : it somewhat was in the last post :lol: ) and it might be very hypothetical, but another 'cheat' way to reinforce desire to win would be to put everything in perspective. Maybe there is a view angle at which the distance between your current state and your goal appears much smaller, so you don't need an as big as you thought you would desire. Then by little increment, rebuilding atrophied desire to win would be made possible.

Also, could a lack of desire to win might partially come from not enough marvelling/creative input? When we are younger, we often see the world as gigantic and worth exploring. We have idols. We are not afraid to shoot for the stars because we don't know how hard the journey will be and we fantasize it. Maybe that after some experiences, the part of our brain in charge of preserving us is becoming too efficient. That would mean your desire to win is not atrophied, it is just muzzled and locked because the path is difficult and the reward, no so worth it after all.

So yeah, very hypothetical.

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Re: Rebuilding Atrophied Desire (to win)

Post by mountainFrugal »

A few lessons from coaching little league at the transition from coach pitch to kids pitch (when things start to get competitive and ability levels/motivation are all over the board):
1) Every practice needs to be focused on skills (small goals)
2) "Losing" a game through good team play, but just some errors were always the greatest teaching moments (learn lessons from losing, if you are not failing/losing 15-20% of the time what you are doing is not hard enough)
3) Relying on the better kids to always play or pitch was a short term strategy to win games, but not win later season playoffs (needed all the kids/aspects of yourself to have practice)
4) Every individual game had a "game ball" that went to the player that executed something they were struggling with in practice and successfully did it during the game (celebrate small wins as stepping stones towards large wins)
5) Keep it fun. It is just a game (life) after all.

I think it is easy to focus on "winning" at all costs, but think there is a better lesson to be learned by winning in the right sort of way. Winning (or losing) with style. Repeat.

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Re: Rebuilding Atrophied Desire (to win)

Post by zbigi »

I'm not a psychologist, but isn't a desire to win mostly just a stage in one's psychological development? I.e. it's a driving force in adolescents and young adults and over time, as the person matures further, gives way to more holistic thinking, which encompasses not only oneself, but also family, the wider community and/or whole humanity? Or just alternative perspectives, such as epicureanism. That would explain why most people lose "the desire to win" over time.

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Re: Rebuilding Atrophied Desire (to win)

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

What zbigi said. Also, I think "desire to win" is just one narrow lane on the wide highway of internal motivation. For instance, I'm much more driven by curiousity and wanting to see things in the real world looking like I imagined them. People who are only driven to "win" can be quite annoying, and I am very happy when I see signs on the nature paths I wish to explore banning device-wearing-metric-focused fitness runners.

OTOH, it was still somewhat the case for my generation that females were subtly trained to not be very competitive. That combined with the fact that I was not challenged by any of my schoolwork until I was already a young woman developmentally probably left its mark.

OTOOH, my problem is usually too many things I would like to explore or do, but not enough focus or physical vigor. If I could afford a burly personal assistant or had a robot to do my bidding, then my visions might be more likely to manifest more quickly.

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Re: Rebuilding Destroyed Desire (to win)

Post by jacob »

Quadalupe wrote:
Mon Jan 24, 2022 3:58 pm
In meaning-space, you can have 'work' vectors and 'stoke' vectors*. The length of the vector denotes how much work is needed to satisfy work/fuel your stoke. The direction of the denotes the area your work/passion lies in. If the work vector is aligned with your stoke vector and they are equally long, then work=play and you have a perfect situation. If your work vector is long, you risk burnout, especially if your work vector is badly aligned with your stoke vector.
I love vector theories :mrgreen:

If work >> stoke, you get type-1 burnout, which is the traditional overworked kind.
If work << stoke, you get type-2 burnout (e.g. bore-out), which is described in two forms here viewtopic.php?p=95347#p95347

I tend towards naive ideologicalism (thanks tertiary Fi) which makes me a prime candidate for type-2. I think type-2 comes in flavors (see link) out of which bore-out is a third kind. In very general terms, humans of various types enter an activity with certain expectations of rewards (and punishments) and if these rewards are not properly adjusted, people will be misconditioned.

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Re: Rebuilding Atrophied Desire (to win)

Post by Kriegsspiel »

To add my 2 cents to Axel's OP, I think maximizing one's natural testosterone production is one of the most important, base of the pyramid steps to fix an atrophied will to win, to compete, and to maintain a healthy mental state if you lose.

I suspect this is an underlying factor in some of the forumites responses:

RE white belt, Jocko and Goggins have high T levels (speculative).
RE zbigi, men's T spike's in adolescence, and then gradually drops as they age.
RE Ego and MBBoy, losing lowers T, winning increases/doesn't change T.

I'm sure it doesn't explain everything, but if I was concerned about losing the will to compete and win, I would do everything I could to increase my T, and limit or avoid everything that lowers it.

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Re: Rebuilding Atrophied Desire (to win)

Post by jacob »

Incidentally, I don't really like the term "winning" as there are multiple ways to think about it.

Competition: Win-lose (your win is defined by someone else's loss, e.g. sports)
Cooperation: Win-win (your win is defined by someone else's win, e.g. dancing to make the other look good)
Success: Win (competing against yourself or nature, e.g. scientific discovery)
Support: Win-win-win (your win is defined by increasing other people's cooperation)
Chaos lord: Win-lose-lose (your win is defined by increasing conflict between people)

I don't want to start a word-squabble, but it may be that people seek different kinds of wins and that jobs in turn have atrophied or changed the form of winning from a desired kind to an undesired kind.

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Re: Rebuilding Atrophied Desire (to win)

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Kriegsspiel:

Good point. That’s why “helping him win” or “letting him take the lead” generally improves your odds of getting well laid. IFF you can afford the hit to your own dopamine/testosterone store.

@jacob:

True. Also true that sometimes failure is more interesting than success, because it introduces more randomness. I mean, we can only set our goals based on what we already know of the world, but failure might send us tumbling down into a briar patch of novelty.

OTOH, once again failing at losing the same 20 lbs is much more boring than conventional success, so maybe what I mean is you need to make your goals inherent of some amount of adventure, or possibility of novel failure/risk. If you just grit teeth/trudge towards goal then you are bound to only get brief hit of happy chemicals at achievement.

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Re: Rebuilding Atrophied Desire (to win)

Post by jacob »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Tue Jan 25, 2022 11:07 am
OTOH, once again failing at losing the same 20 lbs is much more boring than conventional success, so maybe what I mean is you need to make your goals inherent of some amount of adventure, or possibility of novel failure/risk. If you just grit teeth/trudge towards goal then you are bound to only get brief hit of happy chemicals at achievement.
Differing J vs P perspectives on "winning"?

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Re: Rebuilding Atrophied Desire (to win)

Post by AxelHeyst »

Yes, this conversation around what winning means is great. The word has baggage! We can start to slice and dice it, define a set of Shallow Winning and then a set of Deep Winning and then maybe even Transcendent Winning, make a table for what winning means to the different SD colors, or abandon the word all together and use or invent different ones to get at what we're getting at.

When I think of winning, I don't think of just crushing the competition, or even of breaking a Personal Record, although those are things contained within the set of Win. Broadly, I think "Explicitly sensing a desire for how I want my experience to go, and then fulfilling that desire/seeing it come to fruition by more than just random chance." So the sense that my desires were fulfilled due to some measure of my own agency is important to the sense of winning, and so is the application of skill, and the overcoming of challenge.

And with that measure of winning, we're basically defining what the literature says are prerequisites for Intrinsic Motivation.
(Ryan and Deci, 2000, p.70) wrote:Intrinsic motivation refers to the spontaneous tendency "to seek out novelty and challenges, to extend and exercise one's capacity to explore and to learn."
My notes from that paper:
Early studies show that intrinsic motivation is associated with enhanced (superior?) "learning, performance, creativity, and affective experience."

Intrinsic motivation requires "ambient supports" - the environment has to be right for IM to flourish, in particular autonomy and competence.
7Wannabe5 wrote:
Tue Jan 25, 2022 8:41 am
Also, I think "desire to win" is just one narrow lane on the wide highway of internal motivation. For instance, I'm much more driven by curiousity and wanting to see things in the real world looking like I imagined them.
I'm quite happy to define "winning" as "seeing things in the real world looking like I imagined them", whether that means "I cross the finish line FIRST MFER CHYEAH" or "I'm on a nature path on a crisp spring morning and the dappled light shimmering off the grass brings tears to my eyes while I feel the warmth of my partners hand in mine". I'm also fine if other people want to use a different word for it, but my point is that for the purposes of this thread, I'm explicitly including this broad understanding of winning.

At some point of burnout and loss of desire, you've become conditioned to the mindset that it doesn't matter what you dream any aspect of the world to become, it won't happen that way, so you might as well stop even trying.
  • Any project at work will get f*ked by dysfunction or just straight-up cancelled. Any hustle applied is a sucker's waste of time.
  • Any effort put into dieting or exercise will result in the same thing: dusty exercise equipment used once, two pounds lost and five gained, avoidance of the mirror in the hall until one night after a couple drinks you just smash the thing.
  • etc
I guess instead of saying "restore the desire to win" we can just say "restore the ability to feel and act upon desire, to have hope/faith that desires can be fulfilled".

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Re: Rebuilding Atrophied Desire (to win)

Post by jacob »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Tue Jan 25, 2022 12:54 pm
I guess instead of saying "restore the desire to win" we can just say "restore the ability to feel and act upon desire, to have hope/faith that desires can be fulfilled".
For a certain subset (possible innate high achievers and idealists?), orange-world has been destructive because the "diff" between expectations and the systems in place has manifested in a random (=non-detectable pattern) form once it maxed out (everybody is good enough, so now it comes down to random selection). The experience of random rewards or punishment is a surefire to create apathy in subjects.

Need/request an overall matrix to satisfy what we individually strive for ...

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Re: Rebuilding Atrophied Desire (to win)

Post by WFJ »

Posted below quote before but tends to apply to several high achievers in one domain that struggle to find meaning in other domains.

I try to switch from achieving excellence with my mind to achieving excellence with my body. Satisfied when I achieve a 90% level in any domain and realize to achieve any higher in any domain may be impossible (lack talent, time or resources) or require a sacrifice that swamps any enjoyment from the activity (health issues are prevalent with extreme high achievers in nearly all domains). Always trying to seek activities where learning curve is steep and move on when learning curve flattens significantly.

Also suspect you may be in a Sisyphean task, where success is met with a heavier rock. I am currently in a task that is much like fighting the tide everyday where success is keeping the sand dry. Some co-workers delude themselves (or not intelligent enough to know the futility of the exercise) into believing in their success. If anyone mentions that the only way to stop the tide is to destroy the moon, they are met with extreme vicious accusations of not being a team player or being capricious. I just enjoy soaking my feet in the cool water when the tide comes in and count the hours when the tide is out. When I'm in a Sisyphean task I try to leave and join an "Iwo Jima" hill type activity that is a clear goal at the top of a hill vs. and endless Sisyphean activity.

"A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both."
François-René de Chateaubriand

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Re: Rebuilding Atrophied Desire (to win)

Post by AxelHeyst »

James Clear meta-article on Grit. Some thoughts:
  • One way to describe the atrophied 'desire to win' I'm concerned about is 'noticing that I've become less mentally tough than I used to be'. I used to be mentally tough because I believed being mentally tough made a difference; after outcomes being either constant Lose or apparently random, I lost faith that mental toughness made any difference whatsoever. So I got mentally weaker.
  • Framing it like this, and combining with the Spiral of Confidence, it suggests many ways to work on mental toughness. Add a few seconds of cold to showers. Increase a little bit every shower (this also boosts longevity, apparently). Do intermittent fasting, and lean in to the feelings of hunger. Let yourself count these experiences as victories, as votes of becoming the person you want to be, as a few more xp (if that floats your boat) to your next level-up.
ps I'm adding summary of actionable ideas to the OP.

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