How to Trick Your Brain into Doing Hard Things

for the longest time I struggled with procrastination it was tough to regularly hit the gym study for exams or do hard things even if I knew it was for my own good recently though I've been able to consistently take action and I realized it actually has nothing to do with willpower because there's a way to trick our brain into doing difficult things even when we don't feel like it so to outsmart our brain we first have to look at how our mind works because our behaviors have patterns and if we pay attention we'll discover that

hard work is always met with two types of resistance first first negative emotions the analogy I always use here is to think of our brain like a spoiled child when they don't get their way what do they do they complain and throw a tantrum our mind works the exact same way when things feel stressful or boring our inner child awakens and procrastinate like imagining how difficult it's going to be to get started with a work for the day start a side hustle or study for exam second is our ego or the self-image we have about

ourselves our mind does its best to protect our ego from being hurt because the ego is what we attach our self worth to for example if I grew up believing I was gifted or better than most people that makes me feel special but if suddenly I had to do something outside of my comfort zone like ask out a beautiful woman I would subconsciously avoid it because if I failed that would prove I wasn't gifted and it would destroy my ego so instead to preserve my self-image I would avoid doing the hard thing at all so

in either case of resistance trying to fight against our brain's natural response to doing hard things it won't work but if we identify the source of the resistance we can change our approach to trick our brain into working with us so let's start with negative emotions the amount of negative emotion we feel towards something directly depends on the size of it for example the feeling of boredom would be substantially worse if I knew I had to spend 2 months without my phone versus spending 1 hour without it I would feel substantially more overwhelm if I

had to write an entire book than if I had to write one paragraph our mind is very visual it does a mental calculation for the amount of effort and struggle it's going to take to reach that end goal so what if instead we shift the goal so first tip is tell yourself you're only going to do the hard thing for a little bit right you're only going to take a baby step finishing the entire U World Q bank is a lot of damage but let's just do one practice problem getting jacked feels impossible but let's

just do one set of bench press running a 10K sounds really really far but hey let's just run around the block James Clear calls this technique the two-minute rule we can lower the stakes of the Tas ask so the negative emotions around it don't feel so overwhelming do the hard thing for just a little bit and then re-evaluate how you feel probably wasn't that bad so what would it look like to just do it for a little bit longer how bad would it be to do one more practice problem or one more bench press when

we break apart a huge daunting challenge into very small steps it won't feel so scary and we'll be more likely to follow through another trick that's absolutely worked for me is I'll just start getting ready like if I'm supposed to go work out but I'm feeling resistance I just change it my my shorts I'll put on my shoes and grab my keys if I feel frustrated that I have to study I'll just open up my textbook I'll pull up my study schedule I'll get my calculator out I'm not telling myself I'm going to do it

I just start getting ready and usually just going through the motions of getting ready I eventually convince myself that you know well I might as well just do it now since I'm already here this literally happened to me this morning like some guy called and tried to sell me like landscaping services and I don't even have a house you know he was like well since I have you on the phone already or like you came all this way we might as well just buy it right seriously this tip works just give it a shot the

next thing you can try is to batch difficult work with enjoyable work or with rewards remember our brain is a spoiled child so we need to speak to it that way or else we'll encounter even more resistance like say you're babysitting a kid and they start throwing a tantrum about doing their homework I would say well if you finish your homework watch a movie and you get to choose the movie batching is incredibly underrated and effective I used this all the time when I was in school I'd make plans to go out with friends but

only if if I finished my work before then or I'd only watch anime if I was on the StairMaster try to find ways to incentivize hard work with enjoyable things and the negative emotions around it won't be so high and be more likely to do it let's move on to Ego now so our ego is formed based on all our past experiences and it defines who we are and shapes our reality in Maxwell maltz's book psycho cybernetics he explains that all of our actions feelings behaviors even our abilities are always consistent with our self-image we

can only act based on the beliefs we have about ourselves but our beliefs have nothing to do with the action itself for example regardless of whether or not I believe I can run a 5minute mile the act of running and trying is exactly the same the only difference is that my ego puts up resistance because it's afraid of failing so something we can do is what I call taking the pressure off our ego during clinical rotations in medical school I frequently had to step out of my comfort zone and do difficult things I had to

give lectures I had to do procedures I had to break tough news to families I even had to tell a 16-year-old she was pregnant and if you've never done it before and you know you're going to suck at it and multiple high-profile doctors are watching and Grading your performance let me tell you it is terrifying but I did work with other students who didn't really seem bothered like even when they made mistakes or they messed up and stuff they were eager to get back at it I remember asking one of my friends how she was

always so positive and willing to step out of her comfort zone and she told me she wasn't even thinking about that all she was doing was having fun she was immersed in the process learning and treating it like a game and that idea really stuck with me if we take the pressure offo and just focus on having fun the resistance drops and we can just start to enjoy the task and actually perform better Alex low he was this inspirational Mountaineer who was Notorious for his infectious enthusiasm he once said the best climber is the one

having the most fun and I think that idea truly applies to so many things in life especially when doing difficult things now of course you're probably thinking what if there's absolutely no way I can imagine this hard thing being fun what if waking up at 5:00 a.m. running in the freezing cold to the gym to lift heavy things just can't be fun fair enough there is another trick we can use on our brain change the narrative we have about oursel we all talk to ourselves but what most people don't realize is that the words we

use are very important there are nuances in language we can use to trick our brain for example change the narrative so that doing the actions of that hard thing aligns with your identity take this statement for example if I tell myself I need to work out and get in shape my brain receives this message processes it and decides you know what we're not going to work out today because by definition if I need to get in shape that means I in fact am not in shape and someone who's not in shape is not someone who

works out and so I'm not going to work out my brain's going to resist working out and come to this crazy conclusion because it doesn't align with my identity but if I rearrange the words a bit and I tell myself I am a person who works out well what do people who work out do they go to the gym they're probably in shape great that means I go to the gym doing that hard thing will align with my self-image because remember we can only act according to how we view oursel I know this might sound

crazy but I'm not saying a flat out lie to yourself obviously I can't say I'm a person who will launch a billion dollar company tomorrow that's just outright foolish but this is why language is so important the key to tricking our brain is to align our identity with the actions of the person we want to become not the end result I'm not saying I am project I'm saying I am someone who works out you see the difference one of those is based on progress based on actions and the other one is based on fantasy now

of course we don't want our brain to be in a constant state of deception tricking our brain is not a permanent solution to getting us off our asses and actually doing difficult work but it actually doesn't need to be once we're able to cultivate consistency in our work and in our habits that itself becomes a snowball effect that perpetuates motivation consistent action leads to progress which leads to motivation see gains in muscle growth gave me motivation to go to the gym and the more I went to the gym the better I got at exercising because

no one likes to be bad at what they do that's a breeding ground for negative emotions and ego buffering once we develop consistency we'll start to enjoy doing the hard things we'll start to enjoy the stressful feeling of pushing heavy weights we'll start to enjoy the cognitive effort of studying and learning and that is the ultimate goal definitely try these out for yourself those are some of the strategies that I use to get myself to do hard things by tricking my brain if you got other strategies you use drop them in the comments below let

me check them out and I will see you in the next video