Doing Despite Disliking: Top Mental Strategies to Get You Through Doing Things You Don’t Like

We all have to do things in life that we don’t necessarily like to do: a project at work, doing chores around the house, going to the gym, or attending an event you don’t want to go to. That’s just part of being responsible and taking care of what needs to be done in life.

While it can be tedious, boring, and unpleasant to do these activities, psychologists have developed various “mental strategies” to make these activities a little easier to accomplish and get through.

In a new study published in the European Journal of Personality, researchers looked at these “mental strategies” to find out which are the most commonly used and which are the most effective for helping individuals to complete a task.

First psychologists conducted an experiment where they had participants imagine themselves doing challenging activities (like running on a treadmill) and asked individuals to list what strategies they would use to help push themselves to the end. They discovered 19 different strategies, separated into two distinct categories: 1) Situation modification (such as drinking coffee or listening to music while working), and 2) Attentional deployment (such as motivational self-talk or thinking the end of the task is near).

Then psychologists decided to look at how people use these strategies throughout their everyday lives. Participants were given an alert multiple times per day asking them to log any daily challenges they had to go through (such as studying, going to class, commuting, or housework), and then asked participants to choose what strategies (if any) that they used, and whether or not they were successful.

By following participants’ daily challenges for a week, psychologists could then find out what mental strategies were most associated with successful outcomes in their lives.

4 Mental Strategies To Get Sh!t Done…

• Think about the positive consequences of getting to the end – This is one of the most popular and successful strategies used by individuals to help them overcome a difficult task. By thinking about the rewards they will get by the end of it, they were more likely to stick with the task until it was completed. For example, “Once I finish exercising at the gym, I’ll feel healthier and better about myself.” Make sure you take the time to give yourself credit and do a mental pat on the back when you finish a difficult or tedious task. You can also consider creating your own physical rewards to motivate yourself, such as treating yourself to a delicious snack or funny movie when you complete a task – a healthy sense of anticipation can be a powerful thing during menial or boring activities.
• Create checkpoints to keep track of your progress – Another successful strategy for completing difficult tasks was to break it down into smaller goals. By doing this, individuals can reach certain “checkpoints” or “milestoneS” on their way to finishing a much bigger task. This often gives individuals a sense of progress along the way, which helps keep them motivated to stick with the task until it’s over. For example, “I’ve already completed one mile of my three mile run. Keep going!” or “Let me just clean this one corner of my bedroom to get started.” Finding ways to set-up checkpoints or being able to measure your progress creates a feeling of moving in the right direction, which helps to build momentum and keep going.
• Believe that the end is near – Another effective strategy to help individuals finish a difficult task was to think that the “end is near.” By believing they were just at the cusp of finishing the activity, they were more motivated to keep going that extra mile, because completion was just around the corner. For example, “I’ll be done with cleaning the kitchen soon! Just need to stick with it a bit longer.” or “I’ll solve this math problem at any moment now, just need to stay focused!” If you believe a breakthrough is always near, you’ll have every reason to keep going and marching onward. But you have to hope and faith that you’re close to success – so close you can taste it!
• Regulate your emotions and mood – The last strategy found to be successful for getting things done was to try to stay in a good mood as much as possible. Participants did this in a variety of ways (that often borrowed from other strategies), such as listening to their favorite music or a podcast while doing a boring task, working with people they like being around, or trying to find ways to make the task a bit more fun. For example, “I’m going to listen to good music and dance while I do my chores.” In general listening to music is one of the most common ways we regulate our emotions on a daily basis. Another common way is to be around more positive and likable people, so that we experience emotional contagion, where other people’s good moods rub off on you. It’s hard to be your best self if you’re only around people who are negative or lazy.

These were the top mental strategies that psychologists found to be the most effective for completely tasks that we generally don’t like doing. These could be applied to a wide-range of situations: work, chores, studying, exercising, etc.

Of course, which strategies work most effectively for you will depend on your personality and the specific task you are trying to complete. But this is a good starting point for finding ways to work through difficult, tedious, or boring tasks that we often have to do throughout the day.

Some of these strategies play on extrinsic motivation (being motivated by something outside of yourself) rather than intrinsic motivation (being motivated because you really want to do it), but both forms of motivation can be healthy and beneficial depending on the circumstances.

The most important lesson is that we have a lot of mental strategies and mental tools available to us to help us get through life easier. And the more tools you have in your mental toolbox, the more options you’ll have when you find yourself having a rough time.

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