The past few months I noticed a weird psychological problem. A gimmick in our brains that isn’t helping us at all. I’ve noticed it in most people, but I feel it’s especially present in my own brain.
I’ve actually noticed this thing for much longer—for years!—but only recently figured out exactly what and why.
I was always surprised about the unwillingness of people to just … try. All my life I’ve seen people spend more time and energy avoiding a task, or arguing how much they will not do it, than it would’ve taken to just try the thing. I’ve had people tell me how jealous they are that I can do something, but when I explain how easily they can learn it too, they will go out of their way to not even try for one second. I’ve tried to convince people to try a new board game or give a song a try, and people never ever do!
They would rather do nothing. They’d rather lie and say they are “busy”, then spend the night sitting on the couch feeling depressed and bored, than try to play some new game with their family. Why? WHY?!
Well, last month, I was working on some board games for my educational online store. I had a very productive day, actually. Woke up earlier than usual, went for a run, worked until dinner (finishing the game, except for some polishing and rulebook images), then worked until bed time (finishing the game entirely).
And I felt bad. Not physically drained or bad, no, just mentally.
I had created an entire board game from scratch in a day. The material, the rulebook, example images, marketing header, page on the web shop with explanation and details, the whole thing. (I obviously started with a text file containing the specific finished game idea I wanted to make, but still.)
So why was I feeling bad and demotivated? Why did I feel like I wasted my day? Why, I kept asking myself, until I had the answer.
Because the game had not become as good as I had hoped.
The game I’m talking about is Flipfire Bakery. And this is clearly not a bad attempt at marketing, because I’ve just told you that I think the game sucks ;) Or, rather, it does not match the vision in my head and could have been better.
The visual design is … messy. Not a clear art direction, subtle mistakes, awkward choices needed to make the game easily readable/playable. It’s both busy and too flat at the same time, somehow.
The game design has … untapped potential. Now it’s in this weird middle zone of “super simple game for kids” and “interesting, deep game for anyone”. One rule too many to play it with ~3 year olds, but not enough rules/variety to keep it interesting for older ages. When I finished the game, I immediately created a new text file with an “Advanced Version” that I might make someday and that will hopefully reach that potential.
So, why did I feel bad? Because I tried something and failed.
My brain strongly felt that I would rather have done nothing today, than do something and not (completely) succeed.
Considering it more, I noticed this type of thinking everywhere.
- Whenever I’m in doubt about something, I tend to just stop doing anything. I go play a game, maybe, or I go walk in circles in the backyard. I could have just tried the three different ideas in my mind, but instead my brain prefers to spend that time doing nothing instead.
- My first feeling whenever I sleep late is often a positive one. I’ve wasted my morning, lost many hours in a day, but I feel good … because my brain would rather do nothing than get up early, work hard, and maybe not succeed. Yay! Fewer hours to fill today! I have a good reason to not try anything, so I can’t fail!
- Whenever I am bored by something I sometimes just … zone out. My brain would rather sit in a chair like a zombie and not react to anything, than just, you know, get up and go do something more exciting.
Then you have to wonder, of course, if this is caused by some deep fear of failure. But I honestly don’t think so. I notice the same thinking in pretty much everyone. It’s just how our “lazy” brains are wired: we default to not spending energy unless we really have to.
Additionally, my massive body of work—a lot of it failed or unsuccessful—shows that I’m not scared at all about trying something new, failing, then trying something similar anyway a few months later. I might be very critical of that Flipfire Bakery game, but it’s miles ahead of my first attempts at making board games, which obviously failed miserably. If I was truly afraid of failure, I don’t think I would have made hundreds and hundreds of board games after that.
No, it’s literally just how our brains work: we’d rather do nothing, than do something that maybe wasn’t worth it in hindsight.
Subconsciously, I would rather have slept late that day, wasted a lot of time eating breakfast, then wasting more time playing a game … than work hard and finish an entire board game by nightfall. And the only reason why is because I don’t think that board game ended up being perfect.
And that’s just silly! Silly, I say!
Now that I’ve noticed this, and put words to it, I hope to recognize this more easily. And I hope this helps someone out there, too.
Know that it’s perfectly normal for your first instinct to be “do nothing”. Conserve energy. Take no risks. Let’s just sleep on it. Why try? We might fail and waste energy!
But also know that this isn’t helpful in today’s society. In most places, you do not have to fear running out of energy—running out of food and water. You do not have to conserve that energy anymore. (I’d say you also don’t need to worry about running out of heat, but I literally live in a house that hasn’t had heating in five years, and let me tell you: I have to eat a lot more in the winter to keep myself warm.)
The precious commodity of your life, right now, is time. Opportunity. And so I try to remind myself that it’s good to do things anyway. Even if they end up not being as great. Even if my brain keeps saying “pleeease I want to do noooootthiiing instead”.
After realizing this weird psychological thing, I’ve had a much easier time making decisions and getting stuff done. On days that I know I’d normally freeze and default to distracting myself (with eating, playing a game, reading the paper again, literally doing nothing), I could convince myself to try that new idea anyway. Usually, by evening, it is either partially done, or I have evidence about why the idea will not work and I can ignore it.
Even then, I might feel a bit bad (or sad) about throwing away the idea. About it not working out. But then I tell myself that it was good that I tried. That the alternative would have been to do nothing and have nothing to reflect back upon at the end of the day. And when you compare it like that—would you rather end the day with some work done and new insights, or nothing?—it’s quite easy to pick the first option.
This also ties into something I discussed recently with people around me. Someone claiming we lived in the “age of distraction”. With phones, social media, food, it has become so easy for people to distract themselves. Whenever they encounter any problem, whenever they need to think through anything, people are now conditioned to just NOT engage with it. To distract themselves until the uncomfortable feeling goes away. That feeling of actually having to sit with a problem for a while, or having to make a decision, or something as simple as having to write that one simple email.
A few months ago, I mentioned how one of my “new year’s resolutions” was to end my own bad habits in this regard. This discussion about the “age of distraction” helped a lot too. Because I’m glad to say it worked! I caught myself before I looked for a “distraction” whenever there was any problem or struggle in my work or my day.
A hard problem to solve? Don’t grab your phone, solve it.
A task you don’t like doing? Don’t go do something else, either do the task or take a break until you can come back and do it.
That’s the difference. “Distraction” is even worse than “doing nothing”. Because distraction means you are exhausted at the end of the day, but absolutely zero percent of your brain has actually been used for doing the productive thing. You are doing stuff, but none of it improves anything. Walking meaningless circles in the backyard is preferable to distraction, because at least you’re getting fresh air, stretching your legs, and can let your mind fully engage with the problem (instead of distracting yourself).
I guess it’s things like this that make me as productive as I am. I’ve said numerous times that I am not incredibly smart, and I’m not working 16-hour days either. I am forced to take a lot of breaks because of my chronic illness. I sleep a lot. I get distracted easily :p
But these simple realizations—and the good habits that flow out of them—help a lot. Don’t distract yourself, engage with the task or do nothing. Convince yourself that it’s still better to try and fail than to not even try at all. Even if our minds, by default, do not agree.
At the end of the day, what would you rather have?
A broken messy failed thing that you made, that taught you what not to do and let you confidently discard that idea/solution to a problem? Or … nothing?
A bad attempt at telling someone you love them? Or … them being none the wiser and nothing changing?
An hour spent playing a new board game that you ended up not liking? Or … an hour spent being bored doing nothing at all?
Hopefully this helps someone. It, at least, helped me a little bit.
Tiamo