In the last post, we talked about starting small. One pushup. One page. One minute of breathing.This strategy is invaluable and helps me tremendously, I hope it helped you too!
I also left you with a promise. I said we'd explore why effort itself eventually becomes satisfying, and why choosing slightly hard things might be the missing ingredient you didn't know you needed.
So let's get into it!
The Effort Paradox
This is something that seems contradictory at first.
We are wired to avoid effort. The brain is expensive to operate - it takes about 20% of our caloric intake just to keep us alive - so it constantly looks for shortcuts, easier paths, and ways to lower resistance. Not wanting to get off the couch isn't necessarily lazy, it's the brain's wiring that is designed for energy efficiency and survival.
Yet, even though we are wired to avoid unnecessary effort... we humans will climb mountains when there's a horse or truck to ride. We grow a garden when we could buy from a grocery store. We run marathons when we could just not. This is what is called the "effort paradox", we are simultaneously wired to avoid hard things but we are also drawn to value them, often at the same time.
"Both things seem to exist at once - we avoid effort, we also seem to like it."
- Michael Inzlicht, psychologist, University of Toronto
What Your Brain Does with a Challenge
When you do something genuinely difficult - something that stretches you just past your comfort zone - your brain releases dopamine. But, there's a key difference from the dopamine you get from scrolling your phone or eating something sweet. The former (doing something difficult) gives a more gradual rise and a slower fall. The effect of this dopamine is more durable!
Stanford researchers describe this as a "potentially more sustainable form" of dopamine noting that when effort leads to reward, dopamine appears to play a role in reinforcing that effort, and is less vulnerable to the boom-and-bust "give me more" dopamine cycle seen in low and no effort tasks.
Think about that for a second. The cheap dopamine of easy rewards - notifications, sugar, passive entertainment - spikes fast and drops fast, leaving you reaching for the next hit, or feeling empty. But the dopamine earned through effort? It builds more sustainably, and sticks around longer.
And there's another piece: when you choose something slightly difficult and do it anyway, your prefrontal cortex (PFC) - where your best thinking happens (your values and long-term vision) gets exercised too. You're not just forcing a habit, though it may feel that way at first. You're actually building the neural wiring that makes choosing well easier the next time!
Arthur Brooks, Harvard social scientist and professor, frames it in a way I love: the PFC is what allows us to stand up to animal impulses and choose our moral aspirations instead. The habit of choosing slightly hard things allows us to take the reigns and practice becoming more fully human.
Move Toward, Not Away From
I also want to revisit something else from Part 1.
When I ask my clients about their goals, most will frame them negatively. "I want to stop binge eating junk food." "I don't want to feel anxious." "I want to stop getting frustrated so easily."
We now know that the brain doesn't do well with this type of framing. Negative framing and avoidance goals (like the examples above) are more linked with anxiety and negative emotions. When using negative framing you are essentially asking your nervous system to run away from something, which is exhausting - and not nearly as motivating or exciting as moving towards something.
Positive framing does something different. "I want to feel energized in my body." "I want to protect my mornings for the work that matters." "I want to show up calmer with the people I love." These approach goals are positively charged and naturally produce more forward momentum and positive emotions. They are helping you move toward something. And your brain releases a different type of motivational chemistry when you're moving toward a good thing versus fleeing a bad one.
Remember, words cast spells!
The reframe is simple but powerful: Focus mostly on what you're moving toward, not just what you're leaving behind.
Why Slightly Hard is the Sweet Spot
Here's what I've noticed - both in the research and in working with clients - about the challenge level of our goals.
Too easy, and you disengage. The brain doesn't bother laying down strong neural pathways for things that don't cost it anything. It signals: "this doesn't matter enough to save" (and you often even forget about it after a few days).
But, too hard and you shut down. The brain literally perceives a threat, cortisol rises, and the PFC actually goes offline a bit (looses some blood flow) - not helpful for reaching your goals!
Slightly hard is the sweet spot. It's often where learning and adaptation are easiest to sustain and where neuroplasticity really starts taking hold. Your brain is engaged, the challenge feels real, but completion is within reach. And when you complete something that was genuinely difficult - even a little difficult - the satisfaction (serotonin release) is real in a way that those easy dopamine hits can never compete with. One great example that comes to mind is a an 8 minute Tabata routine.. quick, slightly to moderately difficult, and rewarding!
Memorize this term... Desirable difficulty.
It's the viewpoint that the effort required IS the point, not a problem to get through.
Pro Tip - Rub your hands together and say to yourself "Bring it on!" when starting 😉
Which leads us to the next level of this philosophy...
Pain as a Teacher, Not an Enemy
We've been culturally conditioned to treat discomfort as a problem to be solved. But Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and Seneca saw it differently. So did Seligman, Dweck, and Duckworth. Thinkers separated by centuries who arrived at the same conclusion: pain, handled correctly, is one of our best teachers.
This isn't about being masochistic or glorifying pain. It's about the wisdom that difficulty contains information. When something is hard, when you want to quit, when your body or mind is pushing back - that resistance is pointing at something meaningful worth leaning into.
Marcus Aurelius was not practicing his morning meditations because they felt good. He was practicing because they built the capacity for what the day would ask of him. The discomfort was the work and the discipline was his curriculum.
People who move toward their discomfort rather than away from it - who treat difficulty as meaningful rather than threatening - tend to report more satisfaction, more resilience, and what the positive psychology movement calls "flourishing".
What This Means for You Right Now
What intentions or goals did you set in January? That early burst of intention + excitement has definitely settled by this point. Is the habit you started still holding up? Have you pushed yourself further? Have you slacked off or given up? Whichever way it has gone, here's the question worth sitting with:
Is what you're doing now still asking something more of you? ... still moving your forward?
If yes - then there's still a little friction, a little resistance when you sit down to do it - and that's a good sign! Keep showing up for yourself and keep congratulating yourself! That friction is the growth signal. Let resistance be your guide!
If not - if you've given up, or if it feels automatic or boring - that's the invitation to start again or to make it slightly harder. Add five more minutes or five more pounds. Go a little deeper. Raise the bar enough to feel the edge again and keep growing!
Remember to pace yourself. Don't make it too too difficult. You just need to stay in the zone where your brain is engaged enough to care. This is the zone where neuroplasticity and real neural wiring sears in. This is where you build resilience!
In Part 3, we'll bring this home: what it looks like to build a life around these principles rather than just a single habit - and what Heroic living means when the challenges stack up.
Until then, if you want to talk through where you are in your own process - what's working, what's plateaued, what might need a nudge - that's the kind of conversation I love to have. You can always reach me at michael at head way health dot com or schedule a free consultation here.
