Motivated To Procrastinate: The Deadly Cycle

Noah Merriby
7 min readJun 18, 2021

How do you motivate yourself to work hard and stop procrastinating?

This is perhaps the most recurrent question I run into on Quora & in real life too. We always seem to be seeking motivation so we can stop procrastinating. However, motivation and procrastination, as closely linked as they can be, are not necessarily interconnected… Now, what do I mean by that?

You don’t need to feel motivated to stop procrastinating, you just need to feel responsible for yourself and your loved ones to get up and get busy despite your level of motivation.

In fact, psychologists shed the light on a very important concept called “The Hedonic Treadmill.” The illustration below emphasizes the referenced treadmill.

Now even though the main axis represents happiness, motivation levels and happiness levels are often interconnected. When people feel motivated and inspired, they can’t help but feel at least a slight level of happiness. Otherwise, if you’re motivated, inspired, & sad, motivation goes out the window.

Motivation is stimulated by dopamine release in our system. When we look at the role of dopamine in generating…

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Noah Merriby

Best-Selling Author, Mentor, and Passionate Instructor who taught more than 100,000 students.