TIPS TO TRAIN YOUR BRAIN TO DO WHAT IS NECESSARY

Our mind works in mysterious ways. When things feel stressful or tedious, our inner child awakens and procrastinates, imagining how difficult it's going to be to get started with a work for the day, start a side hustle, or study for an exam, 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 to our self-worth. If I grew up believing I was gifted or better than most people -that made 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 of preserving 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 opposition, we can change our approach to trick our brain into working with us.

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 meant with resistance first, then negative emotions. The analogy I always use here is to think of our brain like a spoiled child. What do they complain about the tantrum when they don't get their way.

So let's start with negative emotions - the amount of negativity 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 two months without my phone versus spending one hour without it. I would feel significantly more overwhelmed if I had to write an entire book than if I had to write one paragraph. Our mind is very visual in nature. It does a mental calculus of the amount of effort and struggle it's going to take to reach that end goal.

5 EASY TIPS TO TRAIN THE BRAIN

1. The first tip is to tell yourself you're only going to do the hard thing for a little bit. You’re only going to take a baby step. Walking a 10 thousand steps a day sounds really far, but try to just walk around the block first. James Clear calls this technique the TWO MINUTE rule. We can lower the stakes of the task so the negative emotions around it don't feel so overwhelming.

Just do the hard thing for just a little bit and then re-evaluate how you feel. If you think that wasn't that bad, 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 vast, daunting challenge into a tiny step. By then, it won't feel so scary - it will be more likely to follow through with another trick that would absolutely work for sure.

For some people, it is just starting to get ready, like if I'm supposed to go work out, but I'm feeling resistance. They just need to change into their shorts, put on their shoes, and grab their keys. When frustration strikes, just start getting ready, and usually, just going through the motions of getting ready will eventually convince yourself that you know well you might as well just do it now since you are already there.

2. Remember, our brain is a spoiled child, so we need to speak to it that way, or else we'll encounter even more resistance. 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, you can watch a movie, and you get to choose a film. This is called BATCHING, which is incredibly underrated and effective. It’s finding 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.

3. TAKING THE PRESSURE OFF OUR EGO. 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, and even our abilities are always consistent with our self-image. We can only act based on beliefs we have about ourselves, but our thoughts have nothing to do with the action. Regardless of whether or not I believe I can run a five-minute mile, the act of running trying is precisely the same. The only difference is that my ego puts up resistance because it's afraid of failing. If we take the pressure off of us and just focus on having fun, the resistance drops, and we can just start to enjoy the task and actually perform better. Alex Lowe was an 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.

4. CHANGE THE NARRATIVE WE HAVE ABOUT OURSELVES where the words we use are significant. 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 our 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 form is not someone who works out, and so I'm not going to -work out - my brain is 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 tell myself, “I am a person who works out,” well, what do people who work out do? They go to the gym, and they're probably in shape - great, that means I'd 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 ourselves.

I know this might sound crazy, but I'm not saying to 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.

5. DEVELOP CONSISTENCY in what you started doing. I'm not saying I am super jacked; I'm saying I am someone who works out. Do 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 brains to be in a constant state of deception. Tricking our brains is not a permanent solution to getting us out of our asses and actually doing challenging 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 inspiration.

Seeing 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