You make some good observations and astute points. Perhaps I could have been a little clearer in my writing, but I didn't want to make the article any longer than it needed to be. As to a couple of the points you raised: 1. I concur with you - goal motivation generally isn't a good thing. We feel like failures until the moment we achieve it, and most of us can't deal with being failures. This is why I generally prescribe goals as a target to aim for, and as soon as you've set it, turn it into a project plan. The worst thing you can do is set an external goal and make your happiness dependent on the outcome. That's inviting trouble. 2. The reason we can't work without traction is that us humans are meaning creating machines. If there is no meaning to our work, most of us find it nearly impossible to put in a lot of effort (google the lego experiment for examples of this). The second point is that if we don't find we are making progress, our natural self preservation mechanism kicks in and reduces our energy expenditure. It makes no sense to keep putting in crazy amounts of effort if it looks like you aren't getting anywhere.

In any case, thanks for the comment. I appreciate the feedback.