Jumpstart Your Dream Life

How to Rewire Your Brain to Perform Difficult Tasks

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Why do some people accomplish so much, while others do hardly anything at all?

How is one person able to exercise, hold meetings, and finish numerous tasks before lunch, while someone else hasn’t gotten out of bed yet? How does someone work on their craft, day after day for years, while someone else can only daydream about getting started?

We all know what we should be doing. We should be learning. We should be staying healthy. We should be working on things that will pay dividends in the future.

But we don’t. You see, those things aren’t easy. In fact, they can be incredibly hard.

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Adversity Reveals Your True Character

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There is a well-known fable from Aesop concerning an ant and a grasshopper. You may have heard of it:

One fine summer day, a grasshopper was hopping about, happily chirping along without a care in the world. An ant passed by, bearing a large ear of corn to its nest.

As the grasshopper continued singing and dancing, it watched the ant scurry back and forth, carrying large burdens on its back. The grasshopper couldn’t understand why the ant would toil on such a beautiful day.

The grasshopper teasingly asked the ant, “Why not come and sing with me, instead of working so hard?”

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Now Is the Time to Start Fresh

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In 1918, a 15-year-old named Violet Harris decided to keep a diary. To prevent the spread of Spanish Flu, all schools, churches, and public venues in Seattle were closed until further notice. Her response to not having to go to school was that of pure joy: “Good idea? I’ll say it is!”

Despite the lockdown, the disease spread. Vi, as her family called her, heard news of her friend Rena when she went to return her umbrella. Rena’s father met Vi and informed her that both Rena’s mother and Rena were sick with the flu.

Eventually, they both recovered. Sometime later, Rena called Vi on the phone. When Vi asked her what it felt like to have the flu, Rena said, “Don’t get it.”

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Sunk Cost Fallacy: Why We Keep Throwing Good Money After Bad

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We are incredibly picky about where we spend our time and money.

When someone wants to meet, we evaluate the usefulness of the meeting before agreeing to their request. If a store sells items that aren’t of interest to us, we leave and take our money elsewhere. We naturally veer towards activities that give us the highest returns.

Every day, we make mental calculations on what we’re doing, what we’re getting out of it, and alternative options out there. Then, we make incremental adjustments to optimize our lives.

In short, we are smart when it comes to deciding how to use our finite resources.

So why is it that once we’ve started something and realized it’s a bad opportunity – knowing full well that it’s draining our time, money, and energy – do we find it hard to stop?

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Bad Things Happen When You Ignore Warning Signs

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In January 2002, a lone man predicted a natural disaster that would impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

Local expert Dieudonne Wafulah had been studying Mount Nyiragongo, a volcano in Congo, for 15 years without pay. He tracked the activity of Nyiragongo and another nearby, smaller volcano for signs of change. Although his equipment had been stolen and vandalized over the years, he persisted in his work.

Then, he saw it. Based on the patterns Wafulah witnessed, Mount Nyiragongo was about to blow. There had been a series of tremors in the earth some months before. Black smoke rose from the mountain. The lava pool inside the crater had shifted and was getting higher.

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8 Ways You’re Making Life Harder Than It Has to Be

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Do you crave the challenge?

When you see a problem waiting to be solved, you can feel your energy levels rise. Blood surges through your veins. Your mouth salivates. Like a hound tugging at a leash, you want nothing more than to lunge forward and tackle the issue into the ground.

Except the problem isn’t so easy to solve. After awhile, it stops being fun and starts turning into work. You wonder what you’ve gotten yourself into.

Sometimes, we don’t want to find the easy answer to a problem. We want to toil and struggle to feel like we’ve earned something. Otherwise, we don’t treasure the result.

While this helps us push through difficulties, the problem arises when you use this attitude towards everything. Some challenges are not worth the effort. Others can be achieved more quickly.

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The Meditative Magic of Journaling: How It Can Transform Your Life

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So you want to change your life.

What is it exactly that you want to change? If you were to answer honestly, the answer would likely be: everything. You look in every area of your life and see room for improvement.

You could be making more money, be in better shape, and have better relationships. You have all sorts of wishes that are yet to be fulfilled. When you envision the perfect lifestyle, it’s something drastically different from what you currently have.

But the big question is how do you get there?

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Slow Down and Take a Deep Breath

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We normally think perfection is the final stage in a process. But it’s not. There’s another step that comes after: speed.

When you first learn a skill or create something, you struggle. You go through trial and error, trying to figure out what went wrong. The going is slow.

Then, you start seeing small glimmers of success. You receive positive feedback. You begin to feel more confident as you get closer to where you want to be.

Finally, you have it. The ideal prototype. Your technique nailed down. A system in place. Now that the structure is in order, the next step is to go faster, and faster… and faster.

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How to Use the Eisenhower Matrix to Get Your Most Important Work Done

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Do you ever feel like you’re scrambling around like a chicken without a head?

Tasks just keep piling up on your plate. You frantically try to get everything done, leaving you flustered. In fact, sometimes there’s so much happening that your brain just ends up shutting down instead.

No matter what you do, there’s that sinking feeling at the end of the day that you haven’t really achieved what you wanted to. Sure, you might have done a number of things, but you can’t shake the feeling that something is missing.

If this sums what you’ve been experiencing, there’s a method you should consider using to organize your day.

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Before You Judge, Seek to Understand

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Have you ever looked at something and thought, “That’s crazy!”?

Maybe someone paid exorbitant amounts of money to buy a jacket when you could have gotten something similar for a fraction of the price. Or a company launched a product that seemed so strange, so unlike anything you had seen before, that you wondered what they were thinking. To you, it seemed illogical, maybe even stupid.

But to them, it made perfect sense.

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