If one of your goals is making the world a better place (that's how I'd rephrase the statement: "I do recognize making the world a better place is a good thing," saying as saying things like "X is good" generally means "X is a desirable state of the world we should strive for), your intrinsic motivation shouldn't matter one bit.

That's not exactly what I meant, but nevertheless this is a good point.

On the other hand: So fucking what? You know how the world becomes a better place? By people doing things that are difficult and thankless because those things need to be done. The world doesn't become a better place by people sitting around waiting for the brief moment of inspiration in which they sorta want to solve a local problem.

Ok, let's play this out.

As I already said, I have good reason to believe that "should-based" motivation wouldn't work for me.

So what I'm wondering is, am I allowed to say "due to the way my mind currently works I'm choosing to optimize X by not actively committing to doing X" without running into the "you're not trying hard enough" kind of argument?

Just because some people do things in a particular way doesn't mean I can or should to try and do things the same way. It may simply not work for me. This may include thinking in a certain way or having a particular mindset.