Why should you make the difficult choice?

The most cliched answer “difficult choices often give the sweetest results”. Well, it is much beyond this and what can meet the eye.

Our brain is accustomed to switching the ‘alarms on’ the moment it suspects danger or an upcoming difficulty. It’s always ready to take a U-turn. Amygdala which is a section in the brain responsible for automatic emotional reaction to a situation gives out a fight (resistance) or flight (ignore) reaction when we perceive something as difficult. The brain tries to protect you from negative feelings. The norepinephrine chemical takes over, causing an increased level of fear and anxiety. Adrenaline gets pumped in. However, task difficulty is subjective. It is subjective to how much you have successfully deciphered or structured the task in your mind & how much of it you have accomplished.

A choice is difficult only till the point you begin to act on it. Once you have started the work your brain is tuned to get it finished with. It gets desperate to conclude it. This is probably the reason why episodes are left with a question mark. Your mind is restless till the next episode is aired and you get to know the conclusion. Your brain is designed to finish the unfinished. Psychology has an explanation for this. This is called the Zeigarnick effect. The best way to keep yourself motivated is to break this task into smaller goals. This helps your brain perceive it to be accomplishable because it is structured which brings in the clarity. As you go on accomplishing these smaller goals one after the other your perception of the level of difficulty is overshadowed by confidence to achieve it. The neurotransmitters in our brain release dopamine, which is a chemical produced by pleasurable experiences or when we are motivated. We need to train our brains to perceive task completion as a dopamine-producing experience rather than a norepinephrine-producing experience.

Thus it’s not the task to be blamed or its difficulty level for that matter. It’s all in our mind. When you have a task, the surest way to get it finished is to START. When I quit my well-paying job and position of ascendancy to chase my passion, making this decision was really tough. But I knew that’s what is going to kill it. I tuned myself to move on and at least to get started.

When you have a goal it is important for you to structurize it. When a task is structured you tend not let it unfinished since you have clarity about the future steps. You understand how things are going to unfold. A goal is difficult as long as you don’t act towards accomplishing it.

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