Appraising a situation to alter its emotional significance

Hard things aren’t always as hard as we think they are.

It’s just that our emotions have made us believe they are. Our mind tells us a story that there will be a monster lurking in the shadows, aka, shame, dread, fear, or disgust, waiting to pounce if we start.

And so, the resistance overwhelms us. Procrastination ensues. We put off doing the hard thing that we know we should do, mostly we don’t want to feel the hard feeling associated with doing it.

Now, if we read the literature about emotional regulation, psychologists explains that a core feature of this skill is the engagement of the processes that are responsible for altering the emotional trajectory.

One researcher summarized it by saying that:

Cognitive change refers to modifying how one appraises a situation so as to alter its emotional significance, either by changing how one thinks about the situation or by changing the capacity to manage the demands it poses.

Emotional regulation, contrary to popular belief, isn’t when emotions aren’t intense anymore. It’s when you learn how to quiet the brewing storm and know how to manage it when it unleashes.

Although I’ve never been a procrastinator myself, resistance still rears its ugly head in my creative process. Particularly when it comes to tasks that are administrative, highly detail oriented, and super in the weeds.

Not only does that kind of work not play to my strengths, but merely thinking about doing it fills me with dread. All the blood drains from my face. I groan at the thought of having to do those tasks, because I fear they will make me feel foolish and incompetent.

What’s your version of that? What type of task do you avoid the like the devil avoids holy water?

One helpful tactic in this situation is talking myself down off the ledge. Before my emotional response is fully generated, I make a cognitive change that involves reappraising my scenario to alter its emotional impact.

Say it’s late in tax season and the last thing that I want to do is pore over twelve months of bank statements. Here’s what my mind is tempted to think.

Vomit, that sounds horrible. This kind of work is not my strong suit. Filling out that spreadsheet is going to hurt my eyes, and I’ll almost certainly overlook a major expense, confuse and enrage my account, get audited by the government, and have to pay thousands of dollars in back taxes, instead of taking my wife on vacation. Shame will be cast on me like death upon life.

Does your mind ever tell you stories like that? Join the club.

The human brain loves to unreasonably built up an activity as a threat or something that will cause suffering to us. But before the voice of doubt overwhelms me, I talk myself down off the ledge by saying this.

Doing my taxes isn’t hard, in fact, it’s quite easy. It’s not a big deal at all. It’s only two hours of annoying work, and I’ve done it every year of my life for the past two decades. Let me just get started and get over the hump, and it will probably go fast. Like waiting in line outside the best deli in town during brunch rush.

See what I did there? I downplayed the difficulty and convinced myself that doing this thing will be a breeze. I didn’t allow the emotion of resistance to even enter the picture. I simply reframed how I thought about my task in positive ways.

That’s emotional regulation. It’s a skill that I learn and practice.

And the best part is, I don’t have to get better at doing my taxes. I only have to tell myself better story about doing my taxes.

Remember, I have an account whom I pay good money every year to execute this project. She is amazing, and she will work out the details. My job is to get over the emotional hump, so that I feel confident and competent, and I’m not scrambling at the post office on the night before tax day.

Because hard things aren’t always as hard as I think they are. My emotions have just made me believe they are.

How do you talk yourself down off the ledge? What cognitive change that involves reappraising your scenario would alter its emotional impact?

It’s funny, we have always attributed procrastination to causes like poor time management, moral failings, lack of discipline and willpower, general laziness, mood disorders, or mental illness.

But it’s one hundred percent emotional. One hundred percent. All the project management apps in the world the world can’t fix that. There’s no three day productivity retreat that’s going solve that problem.

The reason people procrastinate is because there is something they’re afraid to feel. Guilt, shame, depression, defeat, anxiety, unworthiness, foolishness, that’s what discourages them from even attempting to do their work. They avoid their responsibilities because these difficult feelings associated with them are too painful to face.

They beat themselves up, assuming that they can’t do things like normal people, and continue to not do what they need to do.

That’s the wrong story. It’s a failure of narrative. The whole point of emotional regulation is modifying how we appraises a situation so as to alter its emotional significance. And since our brains are essentially computers that we program to perform functions, then we can do hard things by changing how we think about the situation.

By shifting the story about our capacity to manage the demands it poses. Doing this will counter the resistance and bring us back to a more comfortable place emotionally.

Now, you may be wondering, yeah, but isn’t that just lying to yourself?

Sure. It might be. Kind of. I guess it really depends.

Honestly, it doesn’t matter. Because the human brain processes lies the same way that it processes truths. Reframes don’t need to be accurate or logical, they only need to work to help us achieve our desired goal.

If we declare to ourselves that doing our taxes is easy to do, and the negative emotion we usually have towards the task stays away, then we’ve just won.

If we regulated our emotions about a hard thing before they took hold, then we’ve beaten the resistance this round.

The goal is engaging in a processes that’s responsible for altering our emotional trajectory.

What are you still afraid to feel, and might that be hurting your momentum?