HOW TO BECOME ADDICTED TO DOING HARD THINGS (with neuroscience) — Transcript

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1. 0:00You know exactly what you should be
2. 0:01doing. You know you should learn that
3. 0:03skill, you should work on that project,
4. 0:05you should study for that exam, but you
5. 0:07still do not do it. But believe me,
6. 0:09there is nothing wrong with you because
7. 0:11your brain is a literally designed to
8. 0:14resist effort. And in this video, I'll
9. 0:16explain how it works and the three ways
10. 0:19to fix it. My name is Olga. I study
11. 0:21computation and cognitive science at the
12. 0:23University of Pennsylvania. And in this
13. 0:25video, I'll break down how you can
14. 0:27finally stop fighting your brain so you
15. 0:29can easily do the hard tasks that life
16. 0:31throws at you. There's a key distinction
17. 0:33that separates people who easily do hard
18. 0:36tasks from those who struggle. So,
19. 0:38people who struggle with hard tasks,
20. 0:40they feel a lot of resistance towards
21. 0:43the task. And those who do it easily,
22. 0:45they feel way less resistance. And they
23. 0:47figured out that the solution is to not
24. 0:49push yourself harder and use up all of
25. 0:51your willpower. The solution is to
26. 0:53design your task in a way that your
27. 0:56brain actually wants to do it, that your
28. 0:58brain doesn't feel intimidated by the
29. 1:00task. But how is that even possible?
30. 1:02Well, first we have to understand how
31. 1:04your brain handles hard tasks in the
32. 1:06first place. And there's two systems for
33. 1:09handling tasks. The first one is your
34. 1:11basal ganglia, and it basically handles
35. 1:13all of the automatic behaviors such as
36. 1:16brushing your teeth because you stand
37. 1:18up, you brush your teeth, and you don't
38. 1:20actually think about the angle of the
39. 1:22brush, you don't think about how much
40. 1:23pressure to apply, where to start. It's
41. 1:25basically an automatic behavior for you
42. 1:27that doesn't require any conscious
43. 1:29decision-making. For example, if you
44. 1:31were to drive a car, if you drove a car
45. 1:33for a while, you're going to find it
46. 1:34very easy and automatic. But if you just
47. 1:37started learning how to drive a car,
48. 1:38that would require a lot of conscious
49. 1:40decision-making. And that brings me to
50. 1:42my second system, and it's prefrontal
51. 1:44cortex, which is located right behind
52. 1:46your forehead. And essentially, your
53. 1:48prefrontal cortex is responsible for all
54. 1:51the actions that require conscious
55. 1:53decision-making and conscious effort.
56. 1:55For example, when you're writing an
57. 1:57essay or learning a new skill or you're
58. 1:59working on a project that you've never
59. 2:01done before, these tasks require a lot
60. 2:04of conscious effort and your brain
61. 2:06doesn't really wants to use the
62. 2:08prefrontal cortex too much because if
63. 2:11you use it a lot, if you work for a very
64. 2:13long time on something very difficult,
65. 2:15it causes mental exhaustion. So, when
66. 2:17you think about actually doing the task,
67. 2:20your brain runs a cost-to-benefit
68. 2:22calculation. It essentially analyzes
69. 2:25whether the reward um that I'm going to
70. 2:26get from doing this task, whether it's
71. 2:28worth the effort that I'm going to put
72. 2:30into it. And there's a model that shows
73. 2:32exactly how this works, which is called
74. 2:34the Fogg Behavioral Model, which was
75. 2:36developed at Stanford. So, you have two
76. 2:38axes and on one side you see how much
77. 2:40effort the task requires. But on the
78. 2:43other side, you see how much reward your
79. 2:45brain expects right now. And there's a
80. 2:47threshold line between them, which is
81. 2:49the action line. So, if the reward
82. 2:51exceeds the effort for a specific task,
83. 2:54your brain says yes and you do it
84. 2:55easily. But if the
85. 2:56>> [music]
86. 2:56>> effort exceeds the reward, your brain
87. 2:59says no and you feel that resistance.
88. 3:01This is why scrolling TikTok is so easy
89. 3:03because it's almost zero effort and you
90. 3:05get immediate reward. But if you were to
91. 3:08read a textbook, for example, that would
92. 3:10require a lot of effort and distant
93. 3:12reward [music] because you're not going
94. 3:14to immediately feel the benefit of
95. 3:16reading a textbook. But the thing is,
96. 3:18you cannot actually control how much
97. 3:20immediate reward the task is going to
98. 3:22give you. But you can easily control how
99. 3:25much effort it requires by intelligently
100. 3:28designing your tasks. So, the first
101. 3:30thing you can design is you can design
102. 3:32the size of the task. And essentially,
103. 3:34you have to make every step of the tasks
104. 3:36absurdly small, so it feels very
105. 3:38achievable. For example, when I would be
106. 3:40writing something or I'd be scared to do
107. 3:42something, I would make this long
108. 3:44checklist of things I have to do to
109. 3:46accomplish a certain task. For example,
110. 3:49when I was making my first ever YouTube
111. 3:51video, it felt very big to me, and it
112. 3:53felt very scary. So, I essentially made
113. 3:56this long checklist
114. 3:58where number one, I have to open my
115. 4:01computer. Two, open Google document.
116. 4:03Three, write 10 possible titles. Four,
117. 4:07brainstorm for 20 minutes ideas for the
118. 4:09video. Look, I know it sounds
119. 4:10simplistic, but think about the video
120. 4:12games for a second. Video game
121. 4:15designers, they understand human
122. 4:17psychology better than any psychologist
123. 4:19in the world. They're not going to make
124. 4:21you fight a final boss on level one
125. 4:23>> [music]
126. 4:23>> because they're going to cut the whole
127. 4:24game into small achievable chunks, small
128. 4:27achievable levels, and every time you
129. 4:29complete a level, you can move on to the
130. 4:32next one, and you feel that sense of
131. 4:33accomplishment, and you feel that sense
132. 4:35of drive to keep going. And this is how
133. 4:37people accomplish extreme things. So,
134. 4:40Kelly McGonigal is a researcher, a
135. 4:42psychologist at Stanford, and she writes
136. 4:44about ultramarathon runners.
137. 4:46And these people are crazy. They run for
138. 4:48hundreds of kilometers through rain,
139. 4:51through mountains, through days. They It
140. 4:53requires a lot of grit. Every single one
141. 4:55of them reaches a point where they
142. 4:57cannot continue. And they all describe
143. 4:59the same mental strategy that they use
144. 5:02to keep going. And the strategy is to
145. 5:04stop thinking about the finish line, to
146. 5:07focus just on one single step at a time,
147. 5:10and you then take that step. You feel a
148. 5:12little bit of a sense of an
149. 5:13accomplishment, and then you can think,
150. 5:15"Oh, I just did this step, so I can do
151. 5:17another one." And that's how people run
152. 5:19hundreds of kilometers, one step at a
153. 5:21time. And the second thing you can
154. 5:23design is you can design how the task
155. 5:26feels, whether it feels like an
156. 5:27obligation or whether it feels like a
157. 5:29choice. And think about the difference
158. 5:31between these two sentences. And the
159. 5:33first one is, "I have to complete this
160. 5:36project." versus "I choose to complete
161. 5:39this project." Like, even though you
162. 5:41have the same exact task that requires
163. 5:43the same amount of effort, both of them
164. 5:45they feel completely different. When you
165. 5:47feel like something is your choice, you
166. 5:49engage more deeply with it. You persist
167. 5:51longer and you actually end up enjoying
168. 5:53it more. But when you feel forced to do
169. 5:55something, your brain generates that
170. 5:57resistance. So when you think, I have to
171. 6:00write this essay,
172. 6:02your brain treats it as an obligation
173. 6:03and it pushes back against it. But when
174. 6:05you think, I choose to write this essay
175. 6:08right now so that I can have the rest of
176. 6:10my evening free, this is [music] treated
177. 6:12like a decision that you made yourself
178. 6:14because your brain doesn't actually
179. 6:16resist hard work. It resists the work
180. 6:18that feels imposed even if you are the
181. 6:21one imposing it. And the third thing you
182. 6:22can do is you can design the commitment
183. 6:25itself. Because we start things all the
184. 6:27time, but the question is how do you
185. 6:29stick with it long enough so that
186. 6:31actually leads somewhere? Imagine you're
187. 6:33learning a new skill for your career
188. 6:34like coding or design and you feel
189. 6:36excited for the first few days, but then
190. 6:39you skip one lesson, then you skip
191. 6:40another lesson and eventually you
192. 6:42abandon it. And now it becomes another
193. 6:44thing on the big pile of things that you
194. 6:46started but never finished. Which makes
195. 6:49you feel like you are a person who
196. 6:50cannot follow through with your
197. 6:51commitments [music] and it makes the
198. 6:53next hard task even heavier for you. And
199. 6:56there's a framework that massively helps
200. 6:58with this. In your scientist and Laura
201. 7:00Le Conve in her book tiny experiments,
202. 7:03she talks about creating a pact with
203. 7:05yourself. And a pact is essentially a
204. 7:07commitment to do a certain action for a
205. 7:10certain duration. So for example, I
206. 7:13choose to study coding for 30 minutes a
207. 7:15day for the next two weeks. I choose to
208. 7:17go to the gym three times a week for one
209. 7:19month. I choose to read for 20 minutes
210. 7:22before bed for one week. And you should
211. 7:24keep in mind that in these tiny
212. 7:25experiments you're not actually trying
213. 7:27to succeed. You're trying to experiment
214. 7:30with something and you have to commit to
215. 7:32actually completing it. The very
216. 7:34important thing is that the commitment,
217. 7:36the pact has to be short and it should
218. 7:38feel achievable. So it shouldn't be
219. 7:40like, oh I'm going to go exercise every
220. 7:43day for the next year." No, that has to
221. 7:45be a few weeks or a few months, let's
222. 7:47say. So, you create this pact with
223. 7:49yourself. And once you're done with the
224. 7:51pact, you feel like, "Oh, I actually
225. 7:53completed what I set out to do." And
226. 7:55every time you complete one of these
227. 7:57experiments, your brain tells you that
228. 7:59you're actually the person who follows
229. 8:01through, and you can actually complete
230. 8:03hard tasks. And actually, I'm doing this
231. 8:05right now. So, I've been wanting to
232. 8:07learn more about how AI works. So, I
233. 8:10decided to create a pact for myself. And
234. 8:12my pact is study the course called how
235. 8:15AI works, which is a course on
236. 8:17Brilliant, for 2 hours a week for 3
237. 8:20weeks. That's my pact. And what I love
238. 8:22about Brilliant is that instead of long
239. 8:25and passive lectures, I learn by
240. 8:27interactively solving problems. Each
241. 8:30lesson is small and self-contained. So,
242. 8:33I work through one concept, I get
243. 8:35immediate feedback, and before I realize
244. 8:37it, I understand the concept that felt
245. 8:40intimidating to me 5 minutes ago.
246. 8:42Brilliant helps you build real skills in
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251. 8:57I just love that it makes you learn
252. 8:58concepts by actively solving problems
253. 9:01instead of just passively giving you
254. 9:02information. To learn for free on
255. 9:05Brilliant for full 30 days, go to
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264. 9:26So, to recap, if you're facing a
265. 9:28difficult task, design the task to be
266. 9:30small enough so that your brain doesn't
267. 9:32feel intimidated by it. Secondly, design
268. 9:35the framing of the task so that you feel
269. 9:37like you chose it yourself and it wasn't
270. 9:39imposed on you. And thirdly, design the
271. 9:42commitment itself by running these tiny
272. 9:44[music] experiments. Hard things do not
273. 9:47become easy because you force yourself
274. 9:49to do them.
275. 9:50>> [music]
276. 9:50>> They become easy because you design the
277. 9:52right conditions for your brain to
278. 9:54cooperate.
279. 9:56>> [snorts]
280. 9:56>> So that's it. Thank you for watching and
281. 9:58subscribe if this helped. And guys,
282. 10:01dreams come true because I just got
283. 10:03100,000 subscribers and I cannot
284. 10:05describe to you how grateful I am to be
285. 10:08able to share my thoughts with 100,000
286. 10:10of you. And this video actually it was
287. 10:12inspired by a lot of comments that you
288. 10:14wrote about video suggestions. So I take
289. 10:17all of the suggestions very seriously.
290. 10:19So do let me know in the comments I keep
291. 10:21making videos. I want to make more and
292. 10:23[music] let me know what other ideas you
293. 10:25have. Thank you.