My last post was on the “Third Most Important Reason for Resolution Failure“. Today I present the second most important one, which is: that doing the thing one has resolved to do (or to stop doing) is HARD. Easy things that are in our interest – things that make us healthier, wealthier, more fulfilled, or less stressed – we’ve probably already done and may not even realize we decided to make the changes required to start and continue doing them. After all, if they’re easy, we may have simply and naturally started doing them without struggle and without giving them much thought. But after the easy stuff is done and accounted for, the hard activities remain.

What do I mean by ‘hard’? When I converse with people about resolutions and life changes in general, ‘hard’ is used in two ways: hard as in having to do things in which we lack skill and experience, and hard as in having to do things that are unpleasant and not at all fun.

I first address ‘hard as in lacking skill.’ The first step is to realize and accept that you will do poorly in activities that you haven’t done before and in which you are unskilled. You will likely suck at them. It is easy to write and read this, but when you are trying to do those things at which you suck, it is really hard to do. It may be extremely revealing and embarrassing. Imagine trying to learn to sing when you suck at it. Or learn to play the piano as an adult. Or to write fiction. It can feel embarrassing to do these things even when you’re by yourself because you’re exposing your ‘embarrassingly bad’ results to your judging self. But it is ten times worse when you expose yourself with such bad results to your coach/trainer/mentor and perhaps to other students (if you’re learning in a group), some of whom (no doubt) will be much better than you.

It takes a thick skin to suck in front of other people. It can bring out performance anxiety and embarrassment. So, how can you grow a thicker skin to be resilient in the face of exposing your subpar work to others? One way is through gradual exposure but with the intent present from the start to continually rachet up how much you expose of your work. Usually, you will find that the person or people who are exposed to your work will show you grace and support your efforts. In turn, you will extend the grace of unkind judgment to them when you are exposed to their subpar results. Additionally, you can make the conscious decision to be more bold, more immune to the ‘judging eyes’ of others, and to get on to it. If you believe enough in your project or mission, you are more able to face the times of embarrassing bad results. It’s good to remind oneself that subpar performance is inherent in the learning process.

There is a crucial caveat to keep in mind: The only way to develop skill in an activity is by doing that activity AND doing so as often as possible and as correctly as possible from the start, even if those initial efforts are hesitant and slow-going. This caveat is meant to avoid 1) the development of bad habits and 2) the early plateauing of the level of skill achieved. From what I wrote, it becomes immediately apparent that getting professional guidance is almost always the right approach. Receiving high-level coaching can dramatically speed up your attainment of skills. It does so by teaching you the most relevant knowledge from the start and the practical dos and don’ts of the activity, by providing continuous monitoring and feedback, and by helping you maintain your motivation and discipline.

Now, let me address ‘hard as in doing the unpleasant.’ Let me introduce the concept of appetitive and aversive stimuli. We evolved to have two primary ways of navigating the world: approach and avoid/escape. We approach stimuli (others, objects, events, situations) we perceive as appetitive, that fulfill some instinctual or developed need, and we avoid stimuli that we perceive as aversive (painful, dangerous, harmful).

This often language-independent instinctual navigational system evolved in what is called the ‘environment of evolutionary adaptedness’ (EEA). In that ancestral environment of almost universal scarcity, we evolved to eat as much as we could when food was available, especially foods that were sweet, salty, and fatty. The reason foods with these characteristics taste so good is that it was in our evolutionary interest to eat foods with high caloric density, with the vitamins and micronutrients found in fruit, and with the salt our bodies needed. We eat foods that taste good and they taste good because we need what they provide.

Of course, now most of us live in an environment of plenty, a surfeit of stimuli we evolved to want and pursue. So, our selves, as we evolved in the land of lack that was the EEA, are misaligned with our current land of plenty that we find ourselves in.

What this means is that pursuing the things that feel good (the appetitive stimuli) often is no longer good for us in the doses available to us. It is hard to forego those things we evolved to pursue (like fatty, sweet, and salty food) and that now surround us. In the EEA, you didn’t have to hold back or starve yourself. The environment obliged.

The converse is true also: the things that are good for us, such as different forms of healthy and meaningful living, are not nearly as appetitive. In fact, they can be aversive. Some people naturally love running or lifting weights. For others, there is nothing enjoyable about any such activities. Exercise is hard, especially when that activity is not done for any immediate instrumental purpose. Our ancestors didn’t exercise. They just needed to engage in back-breaking work to survive.

This misalignment between our evolved self and our current environment has a temporal component. If we give in to the appetitive stimuli in the short term, we will pay the negative consequences in the long term. And, conversely, if we do the healthy, meaningful things that feel hard and aversive in the short term, we will reap positive consequences in the long term.

To put this succinctly; “Short-term gain leads to long-term pain and short-term pain leads to long-term gain.”

One could write an entire book on how to do the hard things now to receive the long-term payoff, so I can’t go into detail here. I will suggest that the strategy, briefly stated, is to manipulate your environment to reward yourself for doing the hard things that have positive payoffs in the long term and to punish yourself for doing the fun and easy things that have negative payoffs in the long term. Within this (what’s called) contingency management, the rewards and punishments you dole out to yourself should be done as soon as possible following the behavior you’re trying to increase (the healthy choice) or trying to decrease (the unhealthy choice).

What you’re doing is turning the ‘short-term gain leads to long-term pain’ into ‘short-term pain (through punishing the gain – the fun and easy) leads to long-term pain.’ And turning the ‘short-term pain leads to long-term gain’ into ‘short-term gain (through rewarding the pain – the hard but healthy) leads to long-term gain.’ You’re trying to align short-term pain with long-term pain and short-term gain with long-term gain by changing the incentives of the environment through a planned strategy of contingency management.

I’ll write about this more next month and provide examples and practical strategies. In the meantime, let me know your thoughts and what else you think I might be able to help you with. And, tune in next week, when I cover the “First Most Important Reason for Resolution Failure”.

Thanks, and take care,
Dr. Jack

Language Brief

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” ― Leo Tolstoy

“If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl. But whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” ― Socrates

“One child, one teacher, one pen, and one book can change the world.” ― Malala Yousafzai

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” ― Rumi