What you're thinking of is delayed gratification. An eagle doesn't have to force itself to go hunt, because physiological processes tell it that it needs to hunt. It's the same reason you don't have to psych yourself up to go have lunch - your body desires lunch.
Humans have evolved to sometimes delay their gratification. That is, we don't hunt and eat our catch immediately, but instead we hunt and preserve the food to eat next time. This has been an immensely successful strategy, because it allows us to do things like plant crops and use that as food later. Modern society is essentially built upon delayed gratification. You go work, but get paid later.
The problem is that this delayed gratification is constantly under attack by things that you could do right now that would make you feel good. Delayed gratification tends to lead to better outcomes in the long term, but our base instincts are still about getting pleasure right now. This is why people with ADHD have no problem playing a video game for hours upon hours, but have difficulty doing their job - in the video game they get the rewards immediately, but at work the rewards are significantly delayed.
I'm talking about something much deeper, more fundamental, than delayed gratification. For example:
> Delayed gratification tends to lead to better outcomes in the long term
These outcomes are mostly considered better because they are made in the context of the system we live in. Often they are only better in the sense that they solve a problem which the system caused in the first place. E.g. if you can delay the gratification of eating food now, you'll be fitter later. But is this actually a problem (being overweight) that existed for human beings prior to the current system?
What I'm saying is - perhaps we should question whether being successful within our societal system is actually the same as being successful as human beings. There are plenty of people considered "successful" which are miserable and unhappy on a day-to-day basis.
The thing is that this delayed gratification is what allowed modern society to appear in the first place. Without delayed gratification you can't have farming or housing. Both of which are vitally important for human survival in most places in the world.
Humans, and probably all life, have a high time preference. We even have sayings about this in the form of "a bird in hand is better than two in the bush." My guess is that this has to do with the future being difficult to predict. It's essentially a balance between how many resources you should use right now vs how much you should invest into the future.
I had the same insight. If I'm having trouble bringing myself to do something, there is usually a good reason for it. Often it's because there is more thinking needed, or some other fundamental underlying reason. It's smart to learn to trust one's instincts, and to examine things more deeply, instead of trying to forcibly overpower one's subconscious.
On a related note, some people say that smoking weed doesn't make you lazy, it just makes you realize that the thing you were about to do isn't worth the effort. Also true.
What I have learned from decades of smoking weed and observing things, is that this society has absolutely no idea what the hell it's doing. It's a bunch of kids who are desperately pretending to be adults. The "reasons" given for the things people do are mostly just rationalizations and excuses. At least 90% of these things people are trying to force themselves to do, they likely shouldn't be doing in the first place.
I think what he's talking about is different than delayed gratification, although they might coincide together frequently.
For example, consider animals that bury their food. This is an example of a delayed gratification process that happens naturally.
Also consider the act of striving for monetary wealth. This is an example which I don't think is tied to delayed gratification, but rather of seeking fulfillment within our current social system.
Humans have evolved to sometimes delay their gratification. That is, we don't hunt and eat our catch immediately, but instead we hunt and preserve the food to eat next time. This has been an immensely successful strategy, because it allows us to do things like plant crops and use that as food later. Modern society is essentially built upon delayed gratification. You go work, but get paid later.
The problem is that this delayed gratification is constantly under attack by things that you could do right now that would make you feel good. Delayed gratification tends to lead to better outcomes in the long term, but our base instincts are still about getting pleasure right now. This is why people with ADHD have no problem playing a video game for hours upon hours, but have difficulty doing their job - in the video game they get the rewards immediately, but at work the rewards are significantly delayed.