Why You’re Avoiding The Work You Actually Want To Do

If you’ve ever found yourself procrastinating on something you genuinely want to accomplish, there’s a good chance you’re not simply being lazy. You might be caught in what psychologists call the approach-avoidance conflict: when you’re both drawn to a goal and repelled at the same time. The brain isn’t trying to torture you; it’s trying to keep you alive by weighing the potential rewards against possible risks.

It’s a primitive carry-over that doesn’t really serve us in today’s times. In prehistoric days, it helped us weigh the risk/reward of, say, hunting a wild animal. Nowadays it kicks in if you’re thinking about sending a bold email or taking the business in a new direction.

The Brain Science Behind the Freeze

In 1944, psychologist Neal E. Miller did an experiment with rats to examine how the approach-avoidance conflict plays out. Rats were trained to run toward a box with food. Sometimes they’d get shocked when they reached the box or – as the experiment went on – along the way to the box. This presented a conundrum for the rats: go for the reward or avoid the punishment. What’s fascinating is the rats would speed up as they got closer to the goal but would also slow down, hesitate, or freeze altogether as the risk of the shock loomed larger.

As humans, we do something similar: we may move fast toward opportunity but then freeze at the last second as the potential downsides flood our brain: failure, peer judgment, ridicule, you name it.

A 2014 brain imaging study showed that when we’re caught in the web of approach-avoidance conflict, three areas of the brain light up: the amygdala (threat detection), the ventral striatum (reward processing), and the prefrontal cortex (weighing trade-offs). Your brain is caught in a neurological tug-of-war between threat and reward.

How This Conflict Might Manifest In A Leader’s Life

Now that we know what’s happening in our brain, what might this look like in real life? Well, you might accept an invitation to speak at a conference, and be truly honored to have been invited, yet you keep stalling on writing the talk. The idea of being on the stage, being listened to, respected and admired is appealing, but will the words you say bring that reality to fruition?

You have an idea for how to pivot the company to keep it competitive and potentially more successful than it’s ever been, but you can’t seem to find the right time to pitch it. Will anyone like it? And if they do, what if everyone accepts it and you now have to lead the way into unchartered territory?

Maybe there’s a conversation that needs to happen with your team to resolve an issue, but you keep putting it off, fearing backlash and further conflict. You get the idea.

Psychologist Philip Corr discovered that this internal conflict is intensified for those who suffer from higher levels of anxiety. Their brains respond faster to potential threats, heightening anxiety and hesitation even in situations where the actual danger is minimal.

When it comes to competitive leadership, this can be a major factor. One person might forge ahead and embrace a presented opportunity while another might freeze and stall due to brain wiring.

Though we can’t go inside the brains of past leaders to see why and how they made their decision, there are many examples of one business embracing opportunity while another hesitated.

Barnes & Noble embraced the internet when it first presented itself while Borders Books chose to focus on its brick and mortar stores. Kodak invented the first digital camera, but it was Sony who brought it to market. Netflix offered to partner with Blockbuster but Blockbuster refused. Blackberry didn’t take the iPhone seriously and stuck with its keypad instead of a touch screen.

The approach-avoidant conflict isn’t the only reason these companies (and countless others) chose to stick to their guns. Psychological biases (status quo, loss aversion, sunk cost, to name a few) also played a major role; but there’s no question as they got closer to pulling the trigger, the fear outweighed the potential gain.

How Leaders Can Be More Approach And Less Avoidant

When the leader is approach–avoidant, you can bet it’s going to trickle down to the rest of the team. It will inevitably shape the behavior of the company culture. When this happens, innovation stalls and people are afraid to make decisions. The end result is potential opportunities are missed.

The key to working with the approach-avoidant conflict isn’t through force, but rather through a shift in perspective. Knowing about approach-avoidant thinking is the first step; catching yourself in the act is the second. Once you’ve acknowledged its presence, you can realistically assess the risk/reward factor.

Here are some tips for doing just that:

1. Break the large goal into small, easily achievable goals. The risk factor for the smaller goals won’t be as daunting as the larger one and thus has higher approachability and ultimate achievability. For instance, if writing a keynote is the large goal, start with the bullet points you want to hit, rather than writing the entire thing.
2. Keep the reward front and center in your mind. As you move through the small achievable goals don’t lose sight of the benefits that could come from taking the plunge.
3. Celebrate along the way. Make a point of acknowledging each stage of progress. Acknowledging small wins keeps motivation alive.
4. Reframe the risk. Instead of thinking of it as a “risk” in the first place where you either win or lose, look at it more as an idea you’re exploring. It’s not a test of your abilities, it’s not an ultimate gauge of your worth, it’s just an idea that you’re exploring.

Leaders Set The Tone

When a leader acknowledges their approach-avoidant tendencies and plows forward despite uncertainty, it sends a message to the team that it’s safe to take a risk. When calculated risks are acceptable, it curbs perfectionism, which in turn curbs impostor syndrome; it conveys that hesitation is part of the decision-making process.

Being aware of this inner conflict can help everyone get unstuck quicker, rather than remain indefinitely frozen. Everyone can rest assured that the hesitation to move forward isn’t a sign of not caring enough, but that the brain is weighing risk vs reward.

Understanding the brain science behind the push and pull can hopefully keep you on track so you don’t avoid something you really want.

[studies cited: Miller, N. E. (1944). Experimental studies of conflict. In J. McV. Hunt (Ed.), Personality and the Behavior Disorders(Vol. 1, pp. 431–465). New York: Ronald Press.

Corr, P.J. (2013). Approach and avoidance behaviour: Multiple systems and their interactions. Emotion Review, 5(3), 285–290.]

By Nicole Lipkin, Contributor