I recently started graduate school in mathematics, and I have been having some difficulty focusing on studying. Reading through various posts on Akrasia and a few posts on Overcoming Bias (I don't remember which ones and they aren't directly relevant) I came to the (tepid) conclusion that I don't feel like I will gain status by being good at math.

Has there been discussion of or does anyone have ideas about how to raise the status of an activity in one's own mind?

The specifics of my situation make it difficult for me to find students and faculty to become accountable to in the short term, so something that would be internal would probably be ideal for me. I'm also interested in seeing a more general discussion.