To Raise Happiness, Complicate the Pain
Before becoming an entrepreneur, I went to business school. During my MBA studies, I learned one lesson that has proved useful over and over again in my life. Basically, if you do your least favorite things first and load up pain ahead of time, you can be happier in the long run.
This post originally appeared on James Clear’s blog .
I sat in a marketing class and we discussed ways to create great customer experiences. The goal was not only to provide a decent service, but also to please the customer.
Behavioral scientists have found that one of the most effective ways to create an enjoyable experience is to add painful parts of the experience early in the process. Psychologically, we prefer experiences that improve over time. This means the annoying parts of the purchase are best done early on. Moreover, we do not like it when painful experiences are prolonged or repeated.
Here are some examples:
- If you’re in a doctor’s office, it’s best to combine the pain of waiting into one segment. You will feel like the wait will be shorter if you spend 20 minutes in the waiting room, rather than 10 minutes in the waiting room and 10 minutes in the examination room.
- People love all inclusive vacations because they pay a lump sum at the start (pain) and the rest of the trip is divided into positive experiences, excursions and parties. All-inclusive vacations “share pleasure and unite pain,” my professor said.
- If you are a professional service provider (lawyer, insurance agent, freelancer, etc.), it is best to break the bad news to your clients first and end with the good news. Clients will remember the experience better if you start out weak but end up on a high note rather than start well and end up badly.
These examples gave me an idea: if you can make customer service more enjoyable, why not make your life more enjoyable? How can you take advantage of the way your brain processes painful and annoying experiences and use that knowledge to live better lives?
Here are some ideas on how to do it.
Do the painful things first
Delightful customer experiences combine painful experiences into a single segment that occurs early in the process and then improves over time. If you want to increase your happiness and have a more enjoyable day, you can do the same.
Here’s an example: On a typical day, you might have something unpleasant or painful (like paying bills). Also, something good can happen to you (for example, a friend sends you a thoughtful email).
If you read an email during your lunch break and then pay your bills when you get home from work, you will remember your day as a transition from good to bad. This is the opposite of what you want.
However, if you choose to ease your pain early in the day – for example, if you pay your bills in the morning before going to work and then read an email from a friend at lunchtime – you will remember your day as going on. from bad to good. As a result, you will feel happier because your brain likes it when the experience improves over time.
This same principle can be applied in dozens of ways throughout the day.
- When you’re working on a project, cleaning the house, or doing your homework, start with the task you don’t like the most. Once this is resolved, your experience will improve and you will end up with a more fulfilled feeling.
- When trying to start a new habit, combine the pain of the beginning into a small segment. For example, in this article, I talked about how one woman eliminated pain points that prevented her from constantly exercising. By reducing the pain she felt at the beginning, it was more likely that she would follow through.
- When you go to the gym, start with the exercise you hate the most. Excluding the hardest exercises, your experience will improve throughout your workout, and you are more likely to remember your workout as positive. And when you think of your workouts as positive, the more likely you will come next time and train again.
Eliminate pain for a long time
It’s easy to worry about making the right choices in your life. However, if you choose to do something that feels painful in the beginning – like building a business, losing weight, or making art – then you will tend to look back lovingly on those experiences because they get better over time.
By comparison, trying to beat the stock market or become a professional gambler is very inconsistent. They can bring big wins, but they can also bring big losses at any time. The pain is not necessary at the beginning. Because of this, these experiences are unlikely to make you happy in the long run.
Of course, it’s easy to forget about this when you are trying to achieve other goals. At first, you might easily think, “Building a business is so difficult, why don’t I try to beat the stock market?”
Understanding this difference can help you stay on track and keep improving your habits even when the daily routine becomes tiresome.
- It can be painful to do the work required to get in shape or become a better athlete, but as your skills improve over time, you will remember the experience as a positive one.
- It can be painful to create bad art now, but as you master your craft and your work gets better, you will remember the experience as positive.
- It can be painful to struggle through the uncertain early years of entrepreneurship right now, but when you learn to build a sustainable business, you will remember the experience as a positive one.
Choosing for pain and discomfort during frontal loading is not just a choice that applies to daily tasks and assignments. It can also be used to nudge you towards achieving goals that you tend to put off.
Where to go from here
If you are anything like me, you want to go to the end of your life and remember it as joyful and happy. Given what we know about behavioral psychology, we are more likely to remember our lives as happy if they improve over time.
This is one of the reasons why it’s worth overcoming the pain of learning new skills for your job, training to get stronger and healthier, and taking the time it takes to master your craft. You may feel foolish at first learning a new skill, or frustrated at sacrificing current pleasure for future gain, but when you choose to go through pain earlier, you will enjoy pleasure later.
The journey to a delightful life is very similar to the journey to a delightful customer experience. It all starts with a few painful experiences and improves over time. Using this strategy allows you to move towards happiness, even if you have to do something annoying or painful.
Another reason to stop procrastinating until later , get rid of unpleasant experiences early, and tackle the difficult ones now.
Do Painful Things First | James Clear