That's what we call "the old anxiety routine." You keep generating unpleasant feelings until you're motivated to avoid them.

If you want to get motivated positively, you need to think about what's really attractive about a task. If you don't enjoy the task itself, what's attractive is having it done.

Most people motivate themselves by thinking about how bad they will feel if they don't do something, and then they move away from that bad feeling. She uses pleasant feelings to move toward what she does want to have happen, instead of away from what she doesn't want to have happen - and she gets reinforcement along the way.

A lot of the problems that bring people into therapy, or into jail, have to do with motivation. Either they're not motivated to do things they want to do, or other people want them to do, or they are motivated to do things they, or other people, don't want them to do.

Is the radical marching with red flag because he loves the poor, or because he hates the rich? Alas, to look for motives is as useless as to look for a life plan.