The Pain Is In The Anticipation
When I went to college I received a degree in neurobiology and I remember during my studies, there was a massive finding in the field that reshaped our understanding about rewards.
Studies found that the biggest dopamine spike we experience isn’t in receiving the reward itself, but in anticipation of it.
Let’s connect this to James Clear’s ‘Habit Loop’ that he shares in “Atomic Habits” - The 4 steps of a habit are the cure, craving, routine, and reward.
Basically what this finding proved is that the biggest dopamine spike occurs during the craving step, when the idea for the behavior was planted in your mind, rather than during the reward step after the behavior has been completed.
Biologically this does something really vital - It creates motivation for the action. Because we have this enriched positive state that happens before the routine, we’re more prone to follow through on the routine to claim the reward (even though the benefit of the reward is less significant than the craving).
While this finding has direct impacts on the ways that we experience reward, I think it also has implications in the way that we experience pain.
Have you ever felt completely resistant to getting an early morning workout in, but then once you’re there you realize it’s not that bad?
Or have you ever avoided a certain task that has been weighing on your mind, like taxes, and then once you get into it it’s not as confusing or hard as you thought it would be?
Those are examples of how we actually feel more pain in anticipation of the action rather than in doing the action itself, and why the biggest battle we fight is just to get started.
Now what can we do with this information?
First we can use it as awareness. If we feel a resistance to doing something, we can reason with ourselves that it won’t feel so painful once we get started. This gives us the awareness we need to will ourselves forward.
But more importantly, it highlights the difficulty of converting intention into action. It explains why you can big plans for who you’re going to be and what you’re going to do when you go to bed, and not show up for it the next day as it all goes out the window.
My mission statement is to help convert human intention into action. And now, knowing that we experience more pain in anticipation of doing something, we can use that as a way to help us understand our intentions and ultimately, what we want.
In case you didn’t know, the way I support people in that mission is to help them design the systems, mindsets, and procedures to follow through on their best intentions with real and tangible action.
That’s why I put together a video course about the 9 Super Habits - to help you actually become the healthy, productive, and disciplined person you know you’re capable of being. Want to change your life and change the world?
