How The Stoics Enjoyed Doing Hard Things

Epictetus's Clever Dopamine Hack

The Stoic philosopher Epictetus said, “First tell yourself what kind of person you want to be, and then act accordingly in all that you do.”  

I think this underexplored idea may be one of Stoicism’s most powerful, and in accord with cutting-edge brain research on motivation. Along with a few other ideas from Epictetus, it codified the approach I used to lose 40 pounds and keep it off for 21 years, to love the exercise I once found miserable, to keep an autoimmune disease in check, and more broadly, to enjoy doing hard things I prefer not to do. 

Epictetus wasn’t issuing life hacks for the general public. He wanted his students to prefer their own good opinion of themselves over the external rewards and praise most people chase. He wanted them to prefer virtue and reason.

But his advice for achieving this aligns with everything scientists have discovered about switching us over from being driven by external rewards to being driven by intrinsic experiences. This is critical if we want to do hard things we’re naturally averse to. And although his approach might help us achieve external goals, if done right, it’ll also make us better people. 

How To Ruin A Child’s Intrinsic Drive

People remark that children are uncorrupted by many of the drives motivating adults. They’re born with self-directed curiosity, and use it to explore our world. They also play without aiming to achieve anything in particular. Their play is its own reward. 

But you can easily erode their desire to play — just prompt them with an extrinsic reward.

In this Stanford University study, researchers put out markers and paper and observed how long preschool children drew during a free play period with many other toys and play options. They recruited 75 of the most avid drawers, divided them into three groups, and brought them into separate rooms one by one. The first group was promised a “good player” certificate with their name on it if they drew. The 2nd was promised no reward, but given the same certificate afterward. The third group was promised nothing and received nothing. 

The kids promised the certificate drew more, but the artistic quality of their art was rated as worse than those of the other two groups, like they were churning it out to fulfill an obligation rather than because they wanted to do it.

But researchers discovered the real outcome two weeks later, when the kids again had a free play period. Those promised a reward for their drawing were less interested in drawing than they’d been before. Those given the surprise reward, and those given nothing, drew just as much as they had in the prior play period.

Our Approach To Hard Things Ensures We Won’t Like Them

Even in adults, extrinsic rewards erode preexisting intrinsic drive. Extrinsic rewards like money or reputation clearly drive us to complete hard tasks, but don’t make us enjoy the work or value it for its own sake.

But the main issue is that extrinsic rewards often backfire on us. Exercising and dieting to look good in a bathing suit this summer might drive some people, but they’ll likely have worse long-term outcomes than those who do the internal work to enjoy exercise and eating healthy food in moderate portions for its own sake, or prefer being the sort of person who does those things. 

People often say they want to write a book. But there’s a saying among writers — most people enjoy the thought of having written, not the act of writing. Most people find writing a book a long, arduous task. But if you want to be a writer, learning to enjoy writing itself will change your life.  

Rewiring For Intrinsic Motivation

That’s all well and good, you might say, but that doesn’t change that there are many things we’re not intrinsically motivated to do, or find too challenging, or outright dislike, that we should be doing. 

Well Epictetus, and modern science, have answers for you. 

First, the pleasure and motivation we experience during an activity is in part determined by how much dopamine we’ve released previously. If we use stimulants and energetic music to spike dopamine to get ourselves revved up to exercise, there’s less left over for the activity itself, reducing the pleasure we experience doing it. 

Second, giving ourselves rewards — or receiving them from others — associates less pleasure with the activity that generated those rewards. Rewards dissociate the neural circuits for dopamine that would normally be active during the activity. 

The more we rev dopamine beforehand, or spike it afterward with rewards, the harder it is to enjoy the activity itself.  

So what should you do instead?

Here’s what neuroscientist Andrew Huberman says about becoming intrinsically motivated: 

“...We need to start to attach the feeling of friction and effort to an internally-generated reward system. You can tell yourself the effort part is the good part. You will find the rewards, meaning the dopamine release, inside effort if you do this. 

…You need to tell yourself, ‘this effort is great!’ 

Do this in the moments of the most intense friction. Tell yourself you are doing this by choice and because you love it. 

Don’t spike dopamine prior to engaging in effort. Don’t spike dopamine after engaging in effort. Learn to spike your dopamine from engaging in effort itself.”

Epictetus’s Self Talk

This sort of self-talk — telling yourself the type of person you are and not letting yourself get carried away seeking external things — is Epictetus’s specialty, and his emphasis was apparently a several millennia ahead of its time, given what we now know about dopamine release. 

Epictetus would have us tell ourselves, “what kind of person you want to be, and then act accordingly in all that you do.”

“You must be either good or bad. You must cultivate either your own reason or else externals, apply yourself either to things within or without you; that is, be a philosopher, or one of the mob.”  

This self talk was how I beat most of the problems that plagued me during my early life. I remember feeling disempowered as a teenager, like life happened to me. I was obese, plagued by colitis (an autoimmune disease,) was a poor student, and I hated to exercise. The way I took my power back was to realize that nothing could stop me from being the type of person I wanted to be inside. That’s where my power was. 

I hated exercise, but I just kept telling myself how great it was that I was the type of person who worked at fitness. Gradually, my external reality mirrored my internal one, and I came to enjoy exercise for its own sake. I told myself I was the type of person who ate moderately and reemphasized how great it felt to have self-control when I wanted to get a 2nd helping of food. Unsurprisingly, weight loss followed, and I didn’t feel particularly hard. 

It took me awhile to figure out the colitis, but once I realized I had to fast and avoid certain foods to keep it at bay, I reordered my mind to align with the type of person who did those things, who took personal responsibility for his health. If I’d decided I needed rewards to take care of myself, I would have failed long ago. 

Epictetus also understood that each time we frame something in our mind — either seeking external pleasures not in our control, or tending to what we can control internally — we’re making a decision that will influence how future iterations of this choice will play out. 

“Remember that the hour of struggle is come,” Epictetus said, “the Olympic contest is here and you may put off no longer, and that one day and one action determines whether the progress you have achieved is lost or maintained.”

Next time you need to do something hard, you have a choice. Amp yourself up with dopamine beforehand and promise yourself a reward after, or refocus on being who you want to be and enjoying the activity. Whenever the struggle is greatest, that’s when you have to tell yourself how great it is that you get to do this, that you’re the type of person who does this and enjoys it, and it’s all great. 

I’ve found that I start to feel slightly better working on a hard activity almost immediately after I begin this self talk/reframing, but the benefits compound as your dopamine system gets rewired. Overtime, your personaliy will gradually change to someone who appreciates challenges and thrives on intrinsic experiences.

Labeling: 

I’ve previously mentioned that labeling is a slippery slope that can lead to cognitive dissonance and stupidity. But Epictetus’s approach sidesteps this. 

Epictetus wants us to live according to reason and virtue. The four Stoic virtues are wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation/self discipline. 

If you’re struggling with something hard and say, “Isn’t it great that this is another opportunity for me to be moderate, just, courageous, or wise,” that’s much different than saying, “isn’t it great that I have another opportunity to reinforce my paleo diet/Political Party identity.”

The virtue approach is more flexible, since what we need may not be static, and the need for virtue is ever-present. It also protects us from extremes at both ends. We can use moderation to turn away from overeating, but we can also use it to recognize that an extreme crash diet is unlikely to be sustainable. So we find a middle path that is sustainable, since that’s what moderate people do. 

And there’s an upside to building your identity around virtue — you’ll be a better person. If we habituate a dopamine response to acting with virtue, it’s pretty hard to avoid being a somewhat better person.