The Psychology of your 20s - 251. How to train your brain to do hard things

Episode Date: November 25, 2024

The best things in life aren't always the easiest and it's often this exertion and extra effort that holds us back from diving in or fully committing. Whether it's a new routine, an ambitious study schedule or workout plan, knowing how we can use psychology and neuroscience to make hard tasks easier is incredibly valuable. In today's episode we discuss:  The 5 minute rule  The power of a persona  Using mental imagery and visualisation to do hard things  The power of learned industriousness  The 3 forms of motivation to know and implement  This episode will make all the hard things you've been putting off infinitely easier. Listen now!    PREORDER MY BOOK: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/755841/person-in-progress-by-jemma-sbeg/  Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast For business: [e-mail]    The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe, on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world. You guys know the deal. It is so great to have you here back another episode as we of course break down the psychology of our 20s. There is a very famous saying, at least I think it's famous, that if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. And when I was in university, I used to have that printed out on like a piece of paper. I think I even wrote it out. And I had it blue-tacked on my wall above my desk. And when I was studying for exams,

when I was working through assignments, it was kind of like my go-to phrase, for motivation to like embrace the hard stuff, to appreciate that hard things bring about the best rewards, that kind of gist. However, as I have gotten older and I was thinking about that quote the other day, and this is what has inspired that episode, as I've gotten older, I've sort of revised my thinking around this. You know, yes, definitely. Some of the best things in life do demand a lot of our effort, time, energy, attention. But does that necessarily mean that they need to be unenjoyable or difficult? Does it always have to be such like a mental slug? I think those words and like concepts tend to get all melted together when we talk about doing hard things. We imagine that

they have to be almost painful. I also think, you know, with that quote, there is also this underlying secondary sense that maybe you and I, we don't deserve success if we don't almost suffer for it, if we don't strive for it, if it, you know, came to us easily. Today, I want to talk about that. I want to talk about this idea of how we can train our brain to do hard things by offering you a different approach, a different formula or understanding, one in which hard things become easier using some of these principles of psychology that mean that we find difficult tasks less mentally taxing, we find it less difficult to start, we appreciate the rewards more, you know, all motivation, our desire to do anything big or small, even the most mundane of

tasks. It all starts in the brain and it all starts with how we perceive how difficult the thing in front of us is and how we perceive the outcome and the rewards of our hard effort. That is actually something that we can influence, we can influence how our brain kind of perceives all of these components and mean that the hard, difficult things that all of us have to do in our 20s, like the things that are just so frustrating and annoying that we often put off become less of a chore. I will also say our brain does like a challenge, even when it's a bit physically, mentally painful. That's something that I think sometimes we forget when we just keep taking the easy route, which I'm definitely guilty of. The New York Marathon, as I'm

recording this, was I think a couple of weeks ago. I love the New York Marathon and every time I watch it, I think, why does anyone want to do that? And the answer is that the feeling is that the feeling of doing hard things that exert us is something that we actually value as humans. That is something that actually we do need more of in our lives. It all comes down to this thing known as the effort paradox. The more effort we put into something, the more we value it. That's why, you know, you value the crappy mug that you made at a pottery class over the perfect mug that you got at IKEA.

The end of a hard project is valued more than. the outcome of an easy one and it actually does make our life feel more fulfilling, we feel proud of ourselves and we just reap the rewards. So today, let us break down exactly how we can use the principles of behavioral psychology mainly, but also neuroscience to do the hard things, to start the hard routines, especially in our 20s when we can reap a lot of lifelong rewards from getting into the habit from biting the bullet. So without further reduced, Let's break down the psychology of how you and I can train our brains to do just that. The journey to completing or starting anything hard all actually has the exact same start line.

And the start line is going from doing nothing to doing something. And I think a lot of us know that that transition, that jump from doing nothing to something is the hardest. and it stops a lot of us from ever really beginning, even if we really, really want to see where something's going to take us. That is why my first biggest tip for how we can train our brain to do hard things is the five-minute rule. You know, after you begin, the first five minutes of anything is going to be the hardest because you have to dig deep and find the motivation to just begin and to deal with that tension from going from doing nothing to doing something.

And a big part of why that is so daunting is that it feels like when we begin a new task or we begin a new routine or we're like, okay, I'm committed to going to the gym every single morning or I'm committed to in this moment right now finishing my assignment and I need to work on it in this moment right now absolutely have to do it even though I don't want to do it. it often is like, okay, by telling myself that I need to do that, I now am committing to a lot more than just a couple of minutes. I'm committed to a whole process, a whole period of time where I have to be focused on this task. And it's that huge mountain and the idea of climbing that mountain, knowing it's going to take a while, that means that we put things off because of the time burden.

instead we want to overcome our brain's natural tendency to want to avoid discomfort that comes with the beginning of the task by saying I will just do this for five minutes it's not actually a trick you are only going to do the thing for five minutes unless after you have you know lasted that period of time you feel better about the thing you feel better about doing it if you're five minutes into your run and you're like, okay, I've done five minutes. I can stop. I'm allowed to stop because I've done better than doing nothing. But, you know, maybe I'll just do another minute. Maybe I'll do another minute after that. You see that you have overcome the first mental barrier. You've overcome that first point of tension. This is just such a simple, accessible, cognitive

behavioral strategy. And the reason that it works so much is also because it essentially tricks us into not being able to procrastinate. Now, one of the foundations of procrastination, a lot of people think, assume that it's laziness. It's actually not, it's perfectionism. If you are an overachiever, you are a big thinker, you are a perfectionist. The beginning of a task is always going to be the hardest because it's in that moment that you realize how much opportunity in space, there is to fail, how much space there is to do it wrong, how much space there is to be criticized, to not live up to your expectations, that is scary. And that is what's causing you to procrastinate and causing you to put off this reality that you're so fearful of. But the five-minute

rule undercuts that because it looks at this perfection as part of our brain and says, actually, like, you can clock off for this because anything that I do in five minutes is not going to be perfect. So great, I know that. That's amazing. I can just actually ignore my perfectionism for this moment and just give it a go. It doesn't have to be perfect. It definitely doesn't have to be done. And by the time you have gotten that momentum, suddenly your perfectionism is kind of like

trying to play catch up. It's like, hey, wait, you tricked me. I thought that we were like not actually going to do this today. I thought that we were going to like give it a break. Like I thought that, you know, I'd stopped you. It's like, actually. know when you start giving it a go when you get on like the fast train you start seeing that it's easier you start seeing that actually you're doing better than you expected perhaps and you also start

realizing that progress is just it's just important you've already made a dent and now you have something to work with so the five minute rule anything that you know is going to be hard just say you have to do it for five minutes and and like I said before you do only have to do it for five minutes. So if you're at the end of that period of time and you're like, okay, I want to stop, that's fine. You're allowed to stop, but at least you did it. My second tip, and this one is possibly one of my favorite strategies. I use this all the time. When I know I have to do something that is daunting, that is challenging, that I don't want to do, I picture the best person I know at that thing. I picture them doing it. I think about them.

I think about how they hold themselves. I think about how they would go about it. It's a really powerful form of mental imagery. And when we concoct these mental images in our brain, it serves as a form of motivation. So, for example, anytime I need to do public speaking, I always think about my mom because my mom is absolutely excellent at it. She's amazing. And I think about like almost stepping into her shoes, stepping into her outfit, believing that I am her and it's that admiration but also the fact that she has set an example that I can almost copy that makes me feel a lot more capable it's almost like I actually don't you know I don't have

to do all of this myself someone else that I know who I respect who is great at this has already done it for me all I need to do is emulate them all I need to do is copy them I also I will say do this at the gym all the time, like as a way to stick to the hard parts of like my gym workouts and my gym routine. But instead of thinking about the best person I know at the gym, which to be honest would probably also be my mom, which is crazy because she's just a legend. But instead of thinking about someone I really admire and copying them and thinking about what they would do, I actually also visualize this person in my mind called gym jimmer or a little. I actually, also visualize this person in my mind called Jim Gemma or Elite Gemma.

And Elite Gemma is like this really focused, fit version of myself that I've created. And I think about what she would do. I think about how confident she would be. I think about what moves she would do, what her routine would look like, how she would go about it? Would she care about those other people looking at her? No, she wouldn't. And Elite Gemma is who I step into in those moments where I'm like,

I don't really want to do this. but she would, and I have to listen to what she would do here, so I need to go. So there is a great study from 2019 on this exact topic, and it's titled Mental Imetry as a motivational amplifier to promote activities. And I love this, amplifier. It doesn't give you all the motivation to begin with, but it takes that tiny bit of sensation in you that wants to do something and says, you are capable, you are able to do this. So this study, it showed that when participants visualised themselves doing hard activities or hard things

and then being successful or finishing the task, this was associated with higher activity completion compared to those who were just given a task and told to go about it. The other reason and I guess the other way in which I think mental imagery is really important here is that it is a great source of bravery and it is a great way to fake it till you make it. And I'm going to give another example here of how I used a very similar visualization technique when I was trying to get over my fear of flying. I would imagine that I was someone famous and I would really picture being this famous person who caught all these planes all the time. This was like a part of my fast, luxurious life and just like rehearsing that and thinking about that over and over again,

creating that mental loop and repetition. I am this person. I'm emulating this person. It made me feel insanely powerful, insanely capable. And it was a complete game changer. So that is a way that you can use your ability, your very amazing special human ability to create mental images in your mind, you can use that to trick yourself into feeling more capable. You've got to remember, your mind is the source of all your beliefs about how able you are and how brave you are and how courageous you are. So if you feed it all of this like artificial confidence that is based on how someone else does things or how a future or an amazing version of yourself does things, it's going to eat that up and it's not going to know the difference between that.

and a negative or self-doubting thought. So it's an incredible technique. Let's move on from this and talk about mood. Talk about emotions. So if you have got something on your to-do list that you have been avoiding for a while because it is hard, because it is boring, because you just simply don't want to do it, you have got to choose the right mood to start tackling that. You've got to choose the right mood to implement your five minutes. A 2016 study found that when people are upset, they are less likely to try and do hard things. Very common sense, I understand. Sometimes we do just need like a good old-fashioned psychological study to prove what we already know. And the explanation behind why this is the case is also quite simple. When you're in a bad mood, all of your mental resources

are at a lower point. They're all kind of plummeting, right? So you're not going to feel as motivated. You're not going to feel like you have any energy. You're also, well, your mind is going to look at this hard task and it's going to make it feel a lot bigger and a lot more difficult, a lot more challenging as a way to convince you to rest,

convince you to get yourself back to a positive mental state by not putting any more pressure on yourself as it is. During those times, that is not the time when you want to start doing the hard thing. That is not the time when you want to start doing your chores. That is not the time when you want to, you know, suddenly handle your taxes after you've had like a really long day at work. You've missed your train. You're having a fight with your friend.

There's not enough food in the fridge. No. Because also another element of that is that you will end up resenting the activity even more when you have to do it when you're in a bad mood. And if you're trying to train yourself into a habit, but every time you go about doing the habit or practicing the behavior that is associated with it, every time you do that, if you're in a terrible mood, guess what's going to become associated? The terrible mood and the behavior. And it's going to become almost like this pattern or this link or this relationship in your brain that when you think about the

when you think about the whatever it is thing that you need to do, your brain's going to be like, huh, every time we do that, we're in a bad mood. And it doesn't see like the correlation or the causation points or it doesn't see like the chicken or the egg problem, which one came first. So it's really important to build positive associations when we are doing hard things. I'm going to use the gym example again and just think that it's like the easiest because it's like a behavior where you go to the same place and it's like something that a lot of us are probably going to be focused on in the new years.

If you are in a really bad mood, and I'm going to tell you something that is probably counterintuitive, if you are in a really bad mood and one of your long-time goals is to go to the gym more often, actually don't go to the gym during those times. Some people would argue that the endorphins are going to make you feel better, yada, yada, yada, in some ways I think that is the case. But if you're going to go to the gym and just do a really crappy workout and you're not going feel like you pushed yourself, you're not even going to get to that place of an endorphine high. Actually, what you're doing before you even get there is associating the bad mood with the behavior.

So when you are in the best mood, you've had a great day, you're feeling motivated. That's when you've got to almost like slide in the hard tasks. It's like when parents like sneak vegetables into like meatballs or into like cookies. That's what you're doing here. someone said to me when I like first talk to them about this like that's such a waste of a good mood like why would I do that but actually completing a hard task when you are already in a good mood has been shown to elevate that mood even further and there is a continuation so you feel really good in the moment but then you also continue to feel good in the minutes hours even sometimes days afterwards maybe in part because of

relief like oh gosh finally i did it that's done but also in part because of a sense of pride you know how often do we actually challenge ourselves and seriously when was the last time you put a lot of effort into something and it took a lot of commitment from you and there were times when you datted yourself and you didn't really want to do it when was the last time you did that because as an adult i do think that that's not as common anymore it might be in like a workplace environment. But when it comes to your personal life, we very often, we don't tend to often, you know, just jumping all over my words there, we don't often tend to changing it up again. We don't often tend to actually push ourselves. So I think that it's really important to actually

give yourself the opportunity to do that, to give yourself the confidence booster, to give yourself that further amplifier to your mood already. We're going to to take a short little break because obviously I need to have a drink of water since I am just tumbling all over my words here. But when we return, we're going to talk about how you can fall in love with the process and the different kinds of extrinsic, intrinsic and integrated motivation that you can use to do hard things. Stay with us. We'll be right back. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter, and on my podcast, 2%.

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Anything hard you are just thinking about what it's going to be like when it's done, when it's over, when you have the reward. it actually takes a while to get there and along that path along that route there's probably not going to be a lot of you know encouragement to spur you on people might not believe in you the thing that you're doing might just be very mundane no one's going to be celebrating you shouting like yay you've got this maybe there's not like any reward that you could even provide yourself during that time so if you are doing it all for the final outcome you are going to, unfortunately, probably lose steam. So what this theory says is that individuals who are reinforced for exerting high effort on a task, they don't just fall in love with the outcome.

They actually, in some ways, get hooked or get addicted purely to the sensation of performing highly, purely to the sensation of exerting themselves. So we flip the whole narrative away from the physical tantal. outcome and towards a love for like the everyday hard actions that get us there. So how do we do that? Well, we'll, well, a few ways. Firstly, is by really romanticizing the process, really falling in love and getting quite sentimental about what it feels like to perform a task day and day out, what it feels like to be working towards your goals. Like what a privilege that is, how romantic it is. What's that story going to look like? What's that going to feel like?

I did this a lot when I was writing my book and I was staying up late and I felt very stressed. But instead of being like, oh my God, this just sucks it, I'm just so tired. I would like imagine that I was Ernest Hemingway or like a famous author working into the night in Paris on my book with a glass of wine. And I was like this tortured author, poet type. And I created this whole image that made me really feel like it was like fun. It was fun to not so much suffer, but it was fun to strive. It was fun to work hard. There was like this glamour associated with it. There was this romanticism that made it special and fun and like I have actually like very fond memories of those times. You know, even when it was

really, really like it felt nice knowing that I could push myself. Another way of doing this is by really noticing the signs of progress and letting them serve as the reward to kind of further fuel your fire. So the feeling of sore muscles, the feeling of being really mentally tired at the end of the day, but like super fulfilled and super satisfied and like falling asleep and just feeling really great about yourself. The feeling of seeing, I don't know, your art get better, seeing your writing get better, seeing your grades get better. That is a way of bringing about learned industriousness. It's why I really, one of the things I really recommend

and that I love when people do this is when they set up Instagram pages for like their projects, like their marathons or an art project or they're like when they're learning your language or when they're renovating their house, like setting up a progress page or a project page. You can really see how things get better and improve and get bigger and larger

and dreams come true. My God, I sound so cliche. But you really can see that day in and day out. It gets better every single day. Finally, the best way to really promote learned industriousness and the way that really aligns best with the theory is to just simply reinforce your effort through physical reward. So what this really relies on is something known as the hedonic principle.

As humans, as creatures, as people with brains, We are wired towards things that make us feel good and we are wired to avoid things that make us feel uncomfortable. Super simple principle, right? But an easy way to make an uncomfortable thing feel good is by maximizing the pleasure and the reward we get from it. So the more candy, I don't know, like the more candy you offer to a child, the more excited they're going to be to go to the dentist even if they hate the dentist.

the more treats you give a puppy, like the more obedient they become, allegedly, that's always backfired and made my puppies and dogs super fat. But you know what I mean? You can also do this for yourself by providing like physical rewards, artificial rewards that you give yourself in lieu of the bigger reward. One way we see people do this is by creating a schedule for positive reinforcement. That's an incredible behavioral change strategy. So people do this for savings goals a lot. I see this a lot on like TikTok and Instagram and I love seeing these every like $100, $200, $1,000 they save. $20, $50, whatever it is goes into buying something that they really, really want so that there is that reinforcement that's going along with the hard work.

We all kind of do want a special little thing every now and again. We want a break every now and again. We want a sweet treat every now and again. and factor that into how you are going about your goals, whatever it is, especially if it's a goal that is really based on a deficit of something. So having less saving money, having less sweet treats, having less downtime because you're working really, really hard, you can use that as a form of motivation to make you want to work harder so that you

finally get the reward. We see like studies on this with rats all the time. you know, the more that they are reinforced in a structured way. So, you know, they finish a task, they get a treat. They finish the next task. It's a little bit harder. They get a treat. The more that there is that structured reward, they end up performing better. They're more efficient. They tire less easily. And let's just say this, that it's not like a factor to do with energy. Like the reward is sometimes like they get to see their friend or the reward is like a pat. Like it's not always food base. but they actually keep going for longer.

The reason this is the case in scientifically, neurologically, the reason this is the case all comes down to dopamine. I think we all know like dopamine is the happy chemical. Dopamine is also the motivational chemical. It is the chemical that gets you to do things. So if you want to increase the dopamine that you are accessing when doing hard things, you've got to provide some form of catalyst for the release of that, some form of trigger, some form of reward. It will make you happier, but it will also make you more motivated. There you go. The more you know.

So when we do this, it's actually what creates intrinsic motivation. This is the first form of motivation we're going to be talking about. Intrinsic motivation is when you do things just because you love them and just because you find them enjoyable. So you don't have to force yourself to do things you love, right? like I wouldn't have to force you to go to the beach or I wouldn't have to force you to like have a wine with your friends or force you to read your favorite book because you just like doing it. And one way that we can make it so that we enjoy doing something, which is the highest form of motivation for actually doing it, is by associating positive experiences and reward with performance, determination, commitment, with, you know, doing the thing with being persistent. Now, I know what you're probably thinking. How do I fall in love with doing something that is just actually so frustrating and annoying and something that I really don't want to do? And like, how do I enjoy my job that involves firing people? How do I fall in love with the process there? Or how do I

fall in love with my painful IVF treatment? You know, that just sucks. Or like, how do I become intrinsically motivated to enjoy cleaning my toilet. There's just some things where this isn't possible, like we can't use this hedonic or pleasure principle. So the next best thing that you can aim for is integrated motivation. So this occurs when a behavior is performed to gain both an external reward, but it also aligns with your sense of identity, your sense of, your internal sense of value and interests and who you are as a person.

We can make our motivation to complete a task attached to our identity. And it's super, super powerful. You know, I clean the toilet because I am someone who is conscientious and I'm someone who cares about cleanliness and I care about having a nice environment. And because I am someone who cares about the details, even though I don't enjoy this, I'm going to do it because it reinforces something that I find important about my identity. I go through IVF treatment even when it's painful, even when it's hard, because I want to be a parent. That is something I have always felt is a deep part of my life purpose. So I will

endure the hard part of this journey because the outcome is something that is significant for my identity. The second best way that you can do hard things is to get super clear on the why and make a really, really big picture, like give it a meaning as big as life itself. Like I study because I believe in creating a better life for myself and I am someone who is a hard worker. So this behavior, although it is hard, is something that reinforces what I believe about myself. It reinforces my self-concept. It reinforces my confidence. This is who I am. So who would I be if I didn't do this behavior? Who would I be if I didn't do these hard things? This is just so, so powerful for taking something that is just, you know, a random thing on your to-do list, or maybe not,

taking something that you have, you know, mixed feelings towards, it's uncomfortable, it's difficult, and it becomes this thing, this gateway to being a more true, authentic version of yourself. and of course you are going to want to do that hard thing over the hard thing that is just bothersome over the hard thing that you have no meaning attached to. Finally, you know, if that doesn't work, if the intrinsic motivation doesn't work and the like integrated motivation systems don't work, you can always rely on extrinsic motivation. And that is basically doing things publicly, doing things in a public setting in front of others, promising others that you're going to do it as a way to make you feel like you're accountable,

make you feel like there are eyes on you. This is all rooted in social psychology. When we think that people are watching, we tend to behave better. We tend to put on our best behavior. You can use those same principles to force yourself to do hard things. one of my friends does this in an excellent way. She studies in very public places because it, you know, makes her feel almost embarrassed to go on her phone, like the acknowledgement that someone could be watching her.

And someone might be like, oh, God, she's going on her phone. Like, that's not good. I thought she was studying. Yes, sometimes it might not be the best for certain goals or certain behaviors. But in terms of things where you're like, I just need to get this done. And I need someone who, you know, a stranger doesn't even know me. I just need their presence to make me feel obligated to do this. Incredibly powerful.

That was my final tip for the day. We talked about intrinsic, integrated, an external or extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic is the best, actually finding a way to enjoy or fall in love with the process. Secondly, you can find a way to make the activity a part or a reinforcer of an important part of your identity. And then if all that fails, you know, the first. floodgates roll open, you can rely on the judgment of others. Less than ideal, but sometimes important. I really hope that this episode has given you some motivation. You know, we've got one month left of this year. We've got so much going on. We have a lot of goals that we might want to achieve. And we also

might be like preparing for next year. So I think these strategies are really, really doable and they're not about discipline. They're not about like working yourself to the bone. They're not a lot, not about burnout and exhaustion. They are small things that you can do mentally, psychologically, to be more productive and less busy and to reach your goals faster by essentially like tricking how our brain works and tricking our psychology. So if you did enjoy this episode, please make sure that you have left a five-star review. If you leave a review on Apple as well, I'm looking at all of them at the moment.

I'm like grabbing some out for a little post at the end of the year. I would really appreciate if you could leave some kind words there. Also make sure you have pre-ordered the book. I know I've been kind of not on the ball with reminding you guys. But yeah, it comes out next year and there will be a link in the podcast episode description. Even if you just want to check out the cover, that's totally fine. I just appreciate any support that you are giving me this like crazy amazing time in my life. Make sure you are following us on Instagram at That Psychology Podcast.

And until next time, stay safe, stay kind, be gentle to yourself. And we will talk very, very soon. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hard Way with your favorite therapist and host, Kear Games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit or armor. It signals to the world that you're not to be played with.

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