Most People Motivate Themselves This Way — and It Fails

10 Jul 2025 · 1 min

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In this segment of his motivational talk, Jesse Pujji explains how many people unconsciously drive themselves with scarcity and fear, creating tension that leads to a yo‑yo pattern of behavior. He argues that self‑judgment—telling oneself they should be smarter, more disciplined, or have more resources—creates an internal conflict between competing parts of the self (the critic and the desire). This inner battle causes people to oscillate between improvement and relapse, exemplified by the struggle to resist a chocolate cake. The core message is that using lack or fear as motivation backfires because it fuels self‑criticism and internal conflict, undermining lasting change.

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What most of us do fairly unconsciously is we create tension using lack or fear. Oh, I don't have as much money as I should. My company should be further along. It tends to create this yo-yo effect. You're making yourself wrong for being the way you are. You improve a little bit, but then you end up just oscillating back to where you were. Why do people yo-yo when they do it? Where the yo-yo tends to come is when you make yourself wrong. Right. I should be smarter. I should be more disciplined. There's this part of us that when it feels judged, it just sort of digs in and is like, you know, screw you. No, I shouldn't. I shouldn't be eating the chocolate cake. The one who wants the chocolate cake is like, screw you. I'm going to have the chocolate cake. And then we're at like, it creates this inner conflict. That's what creates the yo-yo is these different parts of us are in conflict.