Do It On Your Own Terms

Bring aversion-causing tasks into an environment that you control.

If you’re averse to doing something for emotional reasons, do it as much as possible on your own terms.

Example 1: You have to fill out a government form and you’re averse because you worry about making a mistake. Take the form fields and make a spreadsheet for them. Add fonts, colours, emojis — make it feel personal, like something you designed. Fill it out in the spreadsheet. Then copy the values to the real form and submit.

Example 2: You have an email you’re anxious about replying to. Just opening the email client gives you a bad feeling. Instead, compose the email in a text editor. The change of environment changes the emotional connotation — you’re not replying to an email, you’re writing a text.

This helps because instead of performing the task in an external domain where you feel threatened, you’re performing it in your own domain, on your own terms.