Why do we do hard things?

Hello, dearest reader! Same Dunk Day, different newsletter. I wanted to take a step back and dig a little bit deeper into the concept of doing hard things. I was a psychology major way back in the day, and a little self-examination into the why behind this journey to dunk a basketball seemed apropos. Such range here at Dunk Day, we’re not just limited to jumping around in a weighted vest and no shoes, we also explore the mind!

I’ve been on this journey for something like a year and a half to two years. It’s involved everything from working on Nordic curls for pure hamstring strength, to squatting heavier than I had since high school, to jumping around with the aforementioned weighted vest. It’s been two to three sessions a week in the weight room, weekly sessions dunking on lower rims when the weather cooperates, and time spent stretching more days than not. In summary, it’s been challenging and time consuming.

So why keep at it? Several things have kept me going through this grind. The idea that I can actually summit this 10’ mountain (hoop) is a big part of it, as is my deep-held belief in the Growth Mindset, which I’ve discussed before. There’s also been the social accountability factor, which I have signed myself up for by telling my fiancé (she both wanted a shoutout in this list in this list and deserves it), close friends and family, and the whole entire internet on this silly little Substack. But I already know all of that, and it doesn’t get to the root of the question. Why do we do hard things? I have my preferred challenge of dunking, but what pushes someone to run a marathon, which a quick search tells me over one million people do on annual basis? Or to summit a literal mountain? To start their own company?

Photo by x ) on Unsplash

In high school, I was a decent student at a good school that was known for it’s AP (Advanced Placement) curriculum. My grades were solid, but never quite as high as they should could have been, and I struggled to find the motivation to push myself to go get an exceptionally good grade in classes that didn’t come easy to me like, say, AP Biology. Hard sciences were never my jam. Anyway, I was struggling through whatever topic it was at the time, and my mom certainly noticed that. In her own way, she pushed me to put the effort in with a well-placed JFK space-race quote on my desk:

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard

A nice nudge, accomplished in a subtle enough way, well done! I was on the phone recently with my mom and remembered this act of kindness. She knew I was capable of more but that I needed to put the effort in, and that I needed the nudge to do so. Great work. As we caught up, she recalled how I responded:

Dear mom, please go away

Woof. Thanks for dealing with me, mom! If only I could tell high school Tim what profound wisdom that is, and how well it was given. You never need new glasses with hindsight. I’ve found myself drawn to that quote over and over again, but of my own volition. As in, when I get to choose the hard thing, and it’s enticing, I’m in. Sets of plyometrics followed by eight reps of 245 pound calf raises? Sign me up. That just doesn’t apply to AP Biology. (I did double major in college by the way, tacking on a rhetoric and media studies major. This meant overloading a semester of my senior year, on top of being a Resident Advisor. Effort, just not for hard sciences!)

So why do I gravitate towards the hard thing (dunking) that no forced me to do and doesn’t have nearly the same intrinsic value as good grades? Why couldn’t I pour more energy and effort into those grades in high school? Let’s get into that psychology.

As I researched this concept, I found there wasn’t a ton out there on this specific concept. Maybe I didn’t look in the right places or with the right terms, but a lot of what I saw was about how to accomplish goals (breaking big challenges into small, attainable milestones) and how to avoid procrastination (do the hardest thing first, all the other things then seem easier). While this is valuable, it wasn’t really what I was interested in.

Finally, I came upon an article from the Washington Post that helps us establish a rock-solid foundation. I highly recommend reading it yourself (I was able to access for free, hopefully that works for you too), but if you don’t want to follow the link for myriad reasons (you like my writing style so much no other writer will do, or more likely, tech billionaires like Bezos ruining everything) I’ll do my best to summarize.

• We’re up against the Law of Least Effort (here’s a link to the whole book if you’re really curious, you nerd) which has certainly manifested itself in all of our lives. In short, effort takes a toll, and we generally try and avoid that. Like I avoided science.

• The Effort Paradox is not only in play, it’s playing for both sides. I’ll let the source material cited in the article speak directly for itself:

  • “Prominent models in the cognitive sciences indicate that mental and physical effort is costly, and that we avoid it. Here, we suggest that this is only half of the story.”

  • “Humans and non-human animals alike tend to associate effort with reward and will sometimes select objects or activities precisely because they require effort (e.g., mountain climbing, ultra-marathons).”

  • “Effort adds value to the products of effort, but effort itself also has value.

    Effort’s value can not only be accessed concurrently with or immediately following effort exertion, but also in anticipation of such expenditure, suggesting that we already have an intuitive understanding of effort’s potential positive value.”

  • “If effort is consistently rewarded, people might learn that effort is valuable and become more willing to exert it in general.”

• Finally, the IKEA Effect (yes, really) tells us that the old adage of a “labor of love” is psychologically true. In short, putting effort in led to more value being placed on items

Worth it. Photo by Jay Wennington on Unsplash

Part of what I love about psychology is how all of these concepts are seemingly common sense, and yet, they feel hard to name and say out loud. I don’t think anything in here is ground-breaking, or hasn’t been felt before by anyone reading this (thank you for reading this). We know that putting together furniture from IKEA kinda sucks, but the feeling of accomplishment behind the finished product makes that coffee table seem that much more valuable to us, because we know how hard we worked for it. In a way, the psychology of it all validates our worldview.

So it seems that we’re both programmed to avoid effort, but that when we do put the effort in, the value is multiplied. While we are conditioned to avoid failure and stay in our comfort zones, that makes the times we do step out and break barriers bountiful beyond what we could have even imagined!

If you have the time and the resources, find a way to challenge yourself! We know it’s all about balance, but we also know that it’s worth it (as long as it isn’t science). It’s easy to coast along with social media, streaming the newest show, and the endless other dopamine hits that are overly accessible today, but finding a challenge and working towards it is an essential part of our fabric, and one that we can’t ignore.

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Thanks, as always for jammin with me! If you enjoyed this deviation from the standard programming, leave a comment and let me know! If not, don’t worry, we’ll be back to more dunking updates soon.