Harder to write after a few big rewards

Today I wrote an article on Medium talking about why it's quite difficult to make yourself work when there are so many other things out there, such as video games, YouTube videos, TikTok, etc, that just offer you much quicker rewards for very little effort.

This is best seen in video games. Whenever you play something, be it Elden Ring, or League of Legends, you get rewarded for your effort much quicker than if you'd be doing anything else. Every enemy that you kill gives you something, be it gold, experience, runes, or items. In League even minions give you something - gold immediately followed by a very satisfying sound indicating that you got money for the kill.

The examples can keep going, but you get the point. Games are fun because they immediately reward you for your effort. You can quickly see the consequences of your actions. Watching videos is fun because you are immediately entertained, or at least within minutes. Watching clips is even better - they are intentionally shortened to offer you the highest amount of entertainment in the shortest amount of time.

Work however, does the exact opposite - it rewards you greatly, but after a long time and after a lot of effort. Take, for example, writing articles. If you post on your own website, or on a platform like Medium, you'll have to keep on writing for weeks, maybe months before you see any type of reward, be it a follower, a comment or even a few cents. You have to trust the process and make yourself be okay with the delayed reward, in order to keep on working every day, to get to that reward.

Hive changes this. It offers you the chance to be immediately rewarded for your effort. Sure, at first you need a bit of luck in order to be discovered by someone willing to reward your content, but in time, your efforts will pay out. The more you write, the more likely it will be that you'll get rewarded. Once a community forms around what you do, there's a chance that for each article that you post you'll get some sort of a reward, which is quite motivating. This makes it easier to post on this platform compared to Medium or even your own website.

However, there is one disadvantage to Hive, one that is filled with quite a bit of irony. Getting rewarded too much, and too quickly, in too little time, can really distort your expectations in terms of what constitutes a normal reward.

For example, let's say you just started writing content there, and you post articles for a week. All of a sudden, you get lucky, and you get upvoted by a bunch of people. You make a bit of money, and that motivates you. You continue to write, and in a few more days you get lucky again. And then again. And again.

Eventually, your luck runs out. Sure, now there might be a few people following you, willing to vote your content, but you're not that lucky any more - your content doesn't get upvoted by hundreds of people. So, instead of making $20 - $50 per article, you make $0.10. You might well understand that this is normal, that it's how the system works. But it won't be less demotivating.

The problem with getting good rewards in the beginning is that it can create unrealistic expectations, even if they are unconscious. Every time you write an article after getting lucky too many times you'll hope, unconsciously, that you'll be lucky again. And every time that doesn't happen, you get demotivated a little, even if you don't notice it at first.

Repeat this cycle a few times and you might end up not feeling excited about posting any more. After all, there's a chance that your effort will be in vain. Sure, you understand the logical argument: the more you post, the higher your chances of getting something in return. But you were already subjected to immediate gratification again and again, and now you expect that, even if you want it or not.

This makes it quite easy to eventually give up on posting here. You just no longer see the point - if you cannot receive consistent rewards for your effort, like it happened the first time, then why should you even try? Why not give another platform a shot?

It's wrong to think that way, of course, and I'm definitely not saying that people should not be given anything for their effort when they first start. It's motivating to see your first few posts receive a bit of attention. It shows that this platform has potential. But it's good to be aware of this "trap" that you might find yourself in - the illusion that effort always equals reward. It's not always like that, and that's simply how the world works.

It took me a long time to figure this out. I always thought that at times I just get bored of writing and I want to give up. But while that surely happens once in a while, the reason behind getting so tired of writing and posting so much is another - it's just not always satisfying to spend hours creating content just to see it completely ignored by everybody else.

Even if you know very well that this is just how the internet works, that no one owes you anything and that there are millions of people out there trying to do exactly what you're trying to do, which lowers the chances of you being discovered by the right people - even if you realize all that, it's still demotivating to see that your effort goes unnoticed.

And in the midst of trying to work through this problem, you end up playing a few video games, or watching a few YouTube videos, or talking to a few people online, and you realize that those things also require effort, but unlike work, they reward you immediately. And so your brain is offered with an alternative. Why work so much and stress yourself and try so hard, when there's a chance that all that will be in vain? Why not choose the much better option - to do something useless, but fun, that offers you something for the time that you invest?

It's a good idea to realize all this. It's very difficult to fight all this without realizing it, to try to motivate yourself to work without even properly understanding why you're not motivated in the first place. Once you know the reason behind your procrastination and laziness, you might have an easier time finding the right goals and objectives to get back to work. You might create your own reward system. You might focus on the immediate consequences of your actions instead of waiting to achieve the big goal. Or you might simply find a way to prefer delayed over immediate gratification.

Regardless, it's good to know what goes on in your mind, and what the reason behind your motivation or lack of it is.