I can relate to this by using an analogy. I'm a big fan of Magic: the Gathering, particularly the MTG Arena format. Not so long ago I was beating myself up constantly: why can't I get to Mythic? Why am I getting beaten, 3, 4, 5 times in a row? Then it dawned on me - I play custom decks, my own way. I've never gotten a deck off the Internet. My decks aren't so good, but they're a ton of fun to play. And I realised, I have such a good time playing my own way that I don't actually want to netdeck a tier 1 deck and play the same, boring, soulless game that lots of others, desperate to win, play over and over again. I like to play the game my own way, and enjoy it. And so I do, and I'm an avid player to this day. I'm not gaming the system. I'm just enjoying it.
Same applies to real-life, too. Many of my students (I teach mostly 18-21 year olds) suffer a kind of existential panic. Exactly as the OP says, why can they binge-watch the whole of GoT but cannot bring themselves to start an assignment? They, like everyone, myself included, are excellent procrastinators and accomplished at lying to themselves. My advice to them is similar to OP's advice - do better than you did before, by your own measure, no more, no less.
I have a friend who used to nag us to play MtG with him so that he could crush us with his hand-picked Rakdos deck, on which he spent a decent amount of cash.
META takes all the fun out of any game, but it's especially bad in MtG in my view.
Same applies to real-life, too. Many of my students (I teach mostly 18-21 year olds) suffer a kind of existential panic. Exactly as the OP says, why can they binge-watch the whole of GoT but cannot bring themselves to start an assignment? They, like everyone, myself included, are excellent procrastinators and accomplished at lying to themselves. My advice to them is similar to OP's advice - do better than you did before, by your own measure, no more, no less.