Effort seems to be a quite malleable kind of experience. It can be enjoyed or despised depending on how you've trained your impulses around that certain kind of effort. This further speaks to using the "it would be cool if ..." narrative.

Trying to build upon "it sucks that ..." seems to create a bunch of weird self sabotaging behaviours in my experience. Since I tried moving away from that I've found it easier to motivate myself to do things that aren't immediately rewarding. And perhaps more importantly, the journey there seems more enjoyable.

And I think it makes a lot of sense that using a carrot instead of a stick on yourself produces more consistent behaviour. You move towards a carrot and you flee from a stick. You can flee in most directions.

Changing the way you think about yourself takes a lot of time though. Impulses are deeply rooted.