It doesn't seem like you can produce these behaviors in yourself with a few self-imposed "ground rules". Heck, "self-imposed rules" and "desperate" are almost mutually exclusive.
Desperation doesn't mean being unable to hang out with friends and share beers. It means paying for gas to return home with pocket change - because you have no money and no credit anymore. And considering selling said car - which wouldn't even be enough to offset the debts. And not being sure if you will even have food in a month without having to borrow money from friends.
And even after the money starts flowing again, you don't hang out with friends until the debt is paid for.
However, this is a partial experiment and might provide the necessary incentive to launch something. But it is an experiment, not the real thing. Might be useful as a vocational exercise.
(FWIW, I've done an experiment on myself similar to this but more extreme: I forbid myself from having a social or romantic life while working on my startup, so that I was doing basically nothing except working and reading startup blogs. My results were that I made myself hella insecure, nearly drove myself crazy, and my startup failed anyway. But I did learn a lot about myself and what I wanted, did some cool side projects, and improved my programming chops enough to get into Google, so it wasn't a total loss.
Even that I wouldn't really equate with being "desperate", which I usually equate with not knowing whether you'll have food or a roof over your head at the end of the week.)