FROM OVERWHELM TO MASTERY
ONE BITE-SIZED CHUNK AT A TIME
Have you ever felt so overwhelmed by a task that you felt like just throwing in the towel?
You, me, and the rest of the world, right? If you've never felt that way, you've never pushed yourself.
The last time I felt like that was when I was designing my website. I am not a web developer. This is not my jam.
I also remember feeling that way about the labyrinthine maze of paperwork I had to complete for immigration to Australia. I am allergic to forms.
And when I had to learn how to do a meta-analysis during my PhD. I am not a numbers guy.
Frankly, I also feel like that every winter. I am not built to survive the cold.
But I’ve managed each of these things. One page at a time with the paperwork. One self-taught lesson at a time with the meta-analysis. And one day at a time. Every. Fucking. Winter.
SHRINK THE TASK
Performance coach and author Steve Magness posted something to this effect on his Instagram the other day. I paraphrase slightly for brevity:
If you're deep in the pain cave, don't focus on the finish line; shrink your world to something manageable to reclaim control.
The brain doesn't like uncertainty, you see. And there's a world of uncertainty involved in trying to do hard things. Especially if they're new to you, or if you've tried before and not yet succeeded.
Uncertainty triggers anxiety, self-doubt, and the impulse to quit. So, your brain will do what it can to reduce it.
You can give it a hand with one simple strategy: break the task, project, or mission down into bite-sized chunks. This narrows your focus and adds some structure, reducing uncertainty.
The technical term for this is chunking.
Chunking is a cognitive strategy in which you break down large or complex pieces of information into smaller, meaningful units – or chunks. This makes it a lot easier to process the information.
It's a strategy we apply to teaching and learning, and it works a charm. Chunking works better than cramming because your brain can only hold a few pieces of information in working memory at any one moment.
Think of the working memory as the brain’s processing power, or RAM. It’s a set of systems and processes that do real-time problem-solving much like a computer processes information.
We’re basically all limited to about 4–7 bits of information at a time. Any more than that, and the working memory gets overwhelmed. Your mental gears start to grind. It gets all too easy to bail on the task.
So, when you break a big piece of information down into smaller chunks, it gets a lot easier to process.
This is how athletes learn sequences of movements as repeatable patterns, how musicians learn passages of music that they later stitch together into a whole piece, and how you might learn a recipe as a sequence of steps.
Basically, you can handle a whole load more information when you break it down into bite-sized chunks. Those 4–7 bits of information add up to 40 bits, or 70 bits, or however many bits it takes.
Chunking isn't just a learning lifehack. The same principle applies to doing anything that's potentially overwhelming.
Like finishing a half-marathon, quitting smoking, or getting through the acute stage of grief after learning that a loved one has died.
HEAVY METAL MARATHON
If you're running a half-marathon, and you're in what Steve Magness calls the pain cave, you're going to need to break down the rest of the task to be able to complete it.
You could think in terms of how many kilometres left to go. Or you could break it down into landmarks – like, get past the next tree, or the next lamp post, or whatever landmarks you have along the way.
The first time I ran a half-marathon was on my treadmill at home during Covid lockdown. Probably not anyone’s idea of an ideal run. But I was going stir-crazy. I needed a challenge. I figured I could do it; it would just be hard.
So, I took it one kilometre at a time.
The first twelve or so were no drama, but after that, I had to strategize. Think in different terms.
With my choons cranking, I started to think more in terms of the next song, and the next song, and so on. You don’t have to get through a song like you have to get through a kilometre. You know the length, the rhythm, and the cadence. It’s predictable and enjoyable, and the uncertain mind laps that up.
That way, Iron Maiden saw me across the finish line.
(Yes, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, for the metal-savvy among you.)
CONTROL OVER CRAVING
If you're trying to quit smoking, deciding one day that you're done and are never going to have another cigarette or vape is really hard.
The same goes for any addiction, from alcohol to gambling to shopping. Cold turkey is a hard taskmaster.
Most people who try to quit fall off the wagon multiple times before they succeed. When quitting is hard, we’re inclined to quit quitting.
But folks who don't think of quitting as all-or-nothing are more likely to succeed.
It’s not about whether you’re on or off the wagon. It’s about the road the wagon is on, and the milestones along the way.
By setting small milestones that begin close together and get further and further apart, quitting becomes that much easier to manage psychologically.
The hard work starts when the craving kicks in.
Then it's a matter of getting through the next five minutes, the next hour, until lunchtime, until the end of the day, and so on.
To be clear, it’s not a matter of telling yourself five minutes and then making yourself wait an hour. Check in at the five-minute mark: is the craving still as strong? If yes, then have your cigarette. If not, go another five. And another five.
It’s amazing how the waves of craving ebb and flow, leaving you the grace to gradually seize back control.
SURFING THE WAVES OF GRIEF
Anyone who's ever lost a loved one knows those initial pangs of grief. Grief is physical. Like an injury.
The first time I lost a beloved friend, it hit me like a steel-capped kick to the chest, knocking the air out of my lungs. I couldn't breathe. I'd thought that only happened in movies. And then I cried all the colour out of my face. I didn't know you could do that.
Pain like that needs to be titrated. Taken in small doses.
I've had grief clients begging for Valium to numb them out or knock them out. Just to give them a bit of respite from their pain.
I can’t prescribe Valium, of course.
Instead, I've taught them to surf the waves.
Pain comes in waves, you see. And at its peak, each wave lasts around 1–3 minutes.
Once people understand they only have to get through 1–3 minutes at a time, even the most intolerable pain becomes manageable.
My clients learn the skills to regulate their emotions through the waves of grief. Breathing steadily through it, feeling the full force of each wave until it subsides. It’s exhausting. But it’s also empowering.
They quickly learn that they can handle the pain, surfing one wave at a time.
And they get through their loss, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. And the cracks in their broken heart are gradually filled. Not healed over, but filled with a strong and flexible material known only to those who have survived grief and gone on to live lives that honour both their lost love and their precious future.
CHUNKING THE CHALLENGE
When you break the task in front of you down into bite-sized chunks, your brain breathes a sigh of relief. There's clarity amidst the chaos. The stress, or distress, becomes tolerable.
By chunking the task, you gain a sense of agency. You're in control.
Try it next time you face something hard. It doesn’t have to be as hard as a half-marathon, quitting your vices, or coping with grief. Even just planning a hard day’s work is something that would benefit from chunking.
And if you’re in a phase of life that’s demanding more of you right now, breaking the challenge down into bite-sized pieces will help you rise to it.
And nothing boosts your confidence quite like the sense of mastery you get from achieving something really hard.
I’ll be using my chunking skills this week as I board a plane for my first long-haul flight in a while.
I hate flying. With a passion.
I’m a white-knuckle rider all the way, thoughts and feels cascading at every jolt of turbulence.
The way I get through it? I breathe.
I focus inward, and count my breaths. In for a slow count of four, out for a slow count of four.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Until my heart rate comes down.
Honestly, I suck at meditating. But when it comes to battling the beast of my low-key flying phobia, I am able to turn on the focus like nowhere else. And it takes surprisingly little complexity to flip mode from panic to peace by engaging my prefrontal cortex in focus on one simple action: breathing.
So, think of me as you read this! I’ll have just touched down in San Francisco after 12 hours of very long minutes. And I’ll be wrung out. In need of a hard run to shake off the stress. And then a hot tub to relax me to my core. And then, once I’m fully back in parasympathetic rest-and-digest mode, a feast for the senses in Chinatown, I reckon.
And then I’ll be ready for my US adventure, which I’ll tell you all about in next week’s newsletter.
In the meantime, take care of your mind, your mission, and your meat vehicle.
Thanks for reading Mission Resilient. You could keep this on the down-low… or you could share it with someone it’ll resonate with.