Cal Newport's 'solution' to this is basically: Get good at something and then you'll enjoy it; expecting to enjoy anything that you are not yet good at is unrealistic. I think this probably isn't the entire story, because natural aptitude and enjoyment are real things that can cause you to like things more or less initially... But for me at least, this does explain a lot of my enjoyment of things. I find that there are some programming tasks I used to really hate doing, which I now dig into feeling fine, because I've gotten good at them. It probably depends on your personality and how you react to different incentives, as well.