Why it's so hard to just do the thing

“Accept the initial agitation.” by Andrew Huberman

I think we need to get comfortable as a culture in trying to understand our species and how we work, that the early stages of hard work and focus are gonna feel like agitation, stress and confusion, because that’s the norepinephrine and adrenaline system kicking in. None of us would expect to walk into the gym and do our PR lift, or, you know, a performer go do something without warming up. The brain also needs to warm up and start to hone in which circuits are gonna be active. And it’s unreasonable for us to think, “Oh I’ve got an hour, I’m gonna plop down and write beautifully for an hour my best work.” We need to accept that there’s a period of agitation and stress that accompanies the dropping into these highly concentrated states.

The agitation and stress that you feel at the beginning of something and when you’re trying to lean into it and you can’t focus is just a recognized gate. You have to pass that through that gate to get to the focus component. And then if you can reward the effort process you really start to feel joy and low levels of excitement in the effort process. That’s that buffering of adrenaline. That’s that feeling like, yes, I’ve got a lot of adrenaline in my system but I’m on the right path. It feels good to walk up this hill, so to speak. And when you start to bring those neural circuits together you really start to create a whole set of circuits that are designed to be exported to any behavior you want. So if it’s writing a book, great, if it’s podcasting great, if it’s building a business great. If it’s, you know, building a terrific relationship, great then the circuits that mother nature is designer incredibly generic so that we could adapt to whatever it is that we need to do. And I think the misunderstanding around how these circuits work, has led to this idea that there’s some secret entry point maybe marked flow on the door and there’s a trampoline up to that door and you just open that door and you’re gonna be in it. And nothing could be further from the truth. And anyone who’s done well in any career or athletic pursuit knows this, but unfortunately there’s a kind of obsession with the idea that it’s all supposed to feel good and it does feel good but there’s a whole staircase in which it feels kind of lousy. ¹

What people don’t realize is that mental focus follows visual focus. Now in blind people, it’s slightly different, it follows auditory focus, but in most people, your visual focus as you bring that into really sharp relief, that image of your book and you stare at you’re gonna feel some agitation and your mind’s gonna be jumping all over the place. But if you wait just a couple minutes, the rest of the world will disappear. I think this is sort of like the flow state people are looking for. But remember the gate of entry is one of which you have to wade through some sewage before you can swim in clear water. That’s the way I always think about it.

Remarks
Along with “accepting/embracing the initial mental discomfort/agitation/strain,” [^2] I sometimes say to myself, “Forget how you feel right now” when I’m feeling unmotivated, uninterested, or low on energy. That’s the mindset I always return to. I used to set a timer and force myself to stay in the chair, enduring the initial agitation. But over time, I built the endurance to work for long, uninterrupted hours of stretches.

Footnotes

1. The truth is the opposite: we must first start working, lean in, and push forward, in order to feel good and motivated. ↩