Balancing Pleasure & Motivation
What gets us to move?
Not just motivation—but what pulls us toward something. What creates that spark in the body?
That pull is driven by DOPAMINE.
The neurotransmitter behind desire, effort, and reward. It’s the thing that motivates us to act and feel satisfied after we accomplish something.
Before phones and streaming and the constant inputs of modern day—dopamine helped us to survive. It said, “That felt good. Do it again.” It reinforced our effort. You hunted or gathered or built something… and then came the nourishment. The meal. The fire. The connection.
But in modern life, this process of hard work and then reward is often backwards. Today, we get the reward without the work.
We scroll. Swipe. Binge. Buy. Sometimes first thing in the morning before we have done anything.
We’re surrounded by quick dopamine hits that flood our system—without requiring literally anything of us.
This process wears on our minds and bodies over time.
Things that used to feel good and required a little effort—like cooking dinner from scratch, reading a book, taking a walk—start to feel flat. Our capacity for pleasure gets blunted because our capacity for effort is blunted. Our nervous systems have adapted to a world that’s constantly stimulating and hitting our dopamine lottery for free.
We’ve become so disconnected from the middle—that space between desire and reward where the real nourishment lives. And it is actually where so many of us are really uncomfortable being.
The good news is: we can rebuild our relationship with it. We just have to face it, slow down, and reconnect with effort and a different pace.
This might look like:
Choosing to cook a real meal with real food instead of ordering in takeout or eating processed foods
Tending to your home in a way that brings beauty or calm
Gardening, stretching, and moving your body
Having the hard conversation instead of numbing out or avoiding
Letting your nervous system recalibrate to slower, simpler rhythms in every day life
But for it to really feel good, we have to walk through the middle.
We have to show up for the work that makes it worth it. In every day tasks, in relationships, in health, in everything! Doing so brings us a sense of self that feels a little more whole.