May I teach you something that changed my life permanently two years ago?
Your mind is something called antifragile. Which means it doesn’t just get better under pressure—it needs pressure to continue evolving.
Your Brain Creates Pressure If You Don’t Give It Any
Do you know what happens when your brain doesn’t get what it needs? It will create it.
If it needs pressure and you don’t give it pressure, it will create it out of things that are a lot less fulfilling. That’s why the least stressed people are usually the ones learning guitar, or who know how to change a tire, change their oil, or do handiwork around the house. They’re always putting themselves in positions where they could fail. They’re trying something new. The pressure is high.
The Trap of Avoiding Failure
Meanwhile, a lot of people—myself included—refuse to ever put themselves in a situation that might result in failure. So what does the mind do to compensate? Since you’re not pursuing anything fulfilling or doing anything challenging, it creates synthetic pressure on menial tasks.
Painting your room. Going to the mechanic. Shopping. Deciding what to eat. And you end up being very indecisive—because you don’t do challenging things, and your mind is trying to make the mundane stuff challenging.
Why Small Tasks Feel Like Mountains
That’s why all your little tasks feel like mountains to climb. Because in the rest of your life, you’re not doing enough challenging things to evolve that part of the brain.
The solution? Give your mind the pressure it craves—in places that actually matter. Learn something new. Take a risk. Accept the possibility of failure. Your brain will stop manufacturing stress out of nothing the moment you start feeding it real challenges.
