Nir Eyal: belief

Transcript context

…Absolutely. Well, the carrot is the stick. What do I mean by that? We know that the only reason we do everything in anything from a neurological perspective is not about the pursuit of pleasure. It is all about the desire to escape discomfort. Everything you do, even the pursuit of pleasurable sensations, the carrot is the stick, because even wanting to feel good, craving, lusting, desire, hunger, that desire for something that feels good is itself psychologically destabilizing. The carrot is the stick. So, what that means, I think that's incredibly empowering because what that means is that whenever we don't do something, whenever we procrastinate, it's just a feeling. It's all it is. It's just a feeling. And so, when we learn those tools, it doesn't mean where I think people start intellectualizing it and thinking, "There must be something broken with me. Maybe you need a pill, maybe you need a treatment." Chances are there's a ninety-nine percent chance, there's nothing wrong with you. It's simply that you don't have these tools. So, that's where we have to start, is absolutely understanding and applying these techniques so that when you feel that discomfort, you use that discomfort. What I found in my research writing this book is that high performers in every industry, business, the arts, sports, high performers, they feel the same internal triggers. They also feel lonely. They also feel bored. They also feel stressed. They also feel anxious, but they use that discomfort like a rocket fuel to propel them towards traction. Whereas what distractable people do, as soon as they feel uncomfortable, as soon as they feel bored, as soon as they feel lonesome, as soon as soon as they feel indecisive or stressed, boom, they're escaping it with a drink, with a click, with something to take their mind off of that discomfort. So, that has to be step number one. That is fascinating. Basically, distraction is an emotional regulation problem. It's the way you put it. What else works in helping you manage that discomfort? We've talked about this ten-minute trick, the timer, the surfing of the urge. What else is in that bucket of things I could try when I'm just like, "Nah, I'm just going to go check Twitter. I need to work on this thing, right now."…

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