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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   1835 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for December 20, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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I believe I have.

I'm similar to you in that I've far more muted responses to victory and loss than my contemporaries. I had a hard time genuinely celebrating with the team when we won tournaments and I never cried or lashed out in anger when we lost.

I of course still prefer winning to losing but it's not at all the same intense reaction that some people have.

I've found two ways of getting myself invested despite this:

  1. Make others dependant on me. I care a lot more about not disappointing people than winning for its own sake.
  2. Spite. I might not care about winning for its own sake all that much but I can make myself really care about defeating someone I despise. This can be a bit unhealthy when I create semi-fictional enemies of people in order to motivate myself, i do this even unconciously. Ie. Find a guy to hate on the other team or possibly a rival on your own team.

Beyond that i often just like competition, not for the sake of winning or losing but because competition is fun on its own, since it increases the level and intensity of play.

Thanks - your 1 is definitely true for me, I think my primary motivation in a lot of things (especially at work) is not letting down people dependent upon me.

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