Desirable Difficulty

While reading this guide, you might have thought—numerous times—that it’s all very tough and a lot of work. I’m not here to tell you otherwise. I’m not going to say you can “learn this skill overnight!” or that it’s “easy, just do it!”

It is hard. Learning is a challenge. Without an obstacle to overcome, a gap in your knowledge, no learning can take place.

But just because something is hard, doesn’t mean that it’s bad to do it. Or only for the exceptionally talented or motivated.

Conversely, just because something is hard, doesn’t mean it has to be that way. Or that it teaches you anything.

This is the idea of desirable difficulty that I mentioned before. While learning, constantly seek a challenge that is achievable and educational. Something not too easy, but not too hard. Something that is hard because you miss experience or knowledge, not because it’s just busywork or hard in general.

It can help to tell yourself this. While struggling, while working your ass off, remind yourself. Yes, it is hard, and it takes energy. But that is desirable difficulty. The fruits of my labor will present itself at some point in the future.

Example: the opposite

I had a period in my life where I had that misconception: “oh, it’s so hard, that surely means I’m practicing the wrong way”

The consequence is obvious. You start to challenge yourself less and less. You spend less time on learning and are satisfied with your day too easily.

In that period, I might have written down five ideas for my novel, maybe one paragraph, and I thought myself done. Anything else was “hard” or took “too much energy”.

Unsurprisingly, I grew almost nothing during those 1–2 years. I only did what was already comfortable to me. So even though I did a lot, in total, it was busywork and repetition of what I could already do.

Nowadays, I try to apply the opposite principle. If I work on a novel and everything is just going too smoothly, this means I’m not being experimental enough. I have to invent something new. Try some other structure or storyline, way different than anything I tried before. Get that desirable difficulty back into my process.

This is certainly a mindset. A habit you can build. Yes, be happy that things are going smoothly. Be proud of the skill you already have. But also recognize that this familiarity is the best starting point from which you can experiment and seek new obstacles.

Antifragility

The best term for this, which I honestly find beautiful, is antifragile. We often view ourselves, and certainly our kids, as fragile. In some ways, we are. If I get hit by a truck, I’m not going to benefit from that interaction in any way—if I survive. As I told you before, being treated like a slave my whole youth has not done me many favors, even though it was certainly challenging.

But research shows that, in many ways, we are antifragile. Getting hit, and being broken down, just means we will build back stronger. If you don’t break down enough, or at all, there’s no growing.

This is a scary thing to say, I know. What parent would want their kids to get hurt? Who would want to make mistakes, get fired, or fail in a big way?

At the same time, this is the reassuring thing you can tell yourself (or your kid) after such an event. It already happened. You already failed, or fell, or got hurt.

Now take this as a chance to grow and learn.

Be antifragile.

How do I know?

How do I know what difficulty is desirable? How do I know when to be fragile or antifragile?

That’s a tough question, but I already gave a few pointers.

Difficulty is not desirable if it …

• Is just busywork or a chore. Something anyone could do, regardless of skill or education. Something that just needs to be done, repeatedly, once in a while.
• Is hard because it’s physically hard in general.
• Is hard because you have entirely the wrong tools, environment or mindset for it.
• Is so difficult you wouldn’t even know where to begin and feel overwhelmed
• Could be something used in schools. They function almost entirely on making things hard just to make them hard.

Even in those cases, though, you can change the challenge to be desirable.

• If something is too difficult, break it down into smaller parts and smaller steps.
• If you need to do a chore anyway, find ways to experiment with it and make it different each time. Maybe you even find more optimal ways to do the thing, making it easier or faster.
• Doing something with an inadequate set of tools can actually be a great learning experience. It forces you to think outside of the box and approach problems in a different way.

Remember the previous chapter: it’s all about mindset. If you see issues as merely issues you can’t overcome, you have a fixed mindset and will indeed never overcome the issues. If you see them as learning experiences (or turn them into such), they will be learning experiences.

Just keep this in mind. If you’ve been at something for a long time, but it remains the same (too hard or overwhelming), try something else. The difficulty is probably too big or not desirable.

Example: sorting projects

Like most creatives, my mind churns out ideas daily at an alarming rate. Near the end of high school, I started writing them down and neatly keeping track of them. This led to hundreds of ideas by the time I was done with university.

By that time, I had also tried to do several huge projects (a fantasy book series and a big game), both of which failed and were never even close to finished. Because the challenge was too great. I wasn’t ready. I was uncomfortable with 99% of the project.

Which brought me a conundrum. I had these hundreds of ideas, which one should I pick?

In the end, I learned to sort the projects based on their difficulty. To turn them into a sort of ladder. The safest and least challenging projects first, the biggest and most risky projects at the end.

Since then, I’ve been following this ladder. With some detours, exceptions, hard times—of course. But I mostly stayed true to my course.

And before you know it, a few years later, that project that seemed unfathomable and undesirably difficult … can now be done. Because you overcame each part needed for that project.

Let’s take games as an example. I’ve always wanted to make local multiplayer games. I just love sitting with people on the couch, controller on hand, playing some fun and simple party game. The first time I tried, though? Spectacular failure. After three months of exceptionally hard work, I just gave up. The challenge was too big.

I scaled down the difficulty. I made a project in which I learned how to read controller input properly. I made a project in which I focused entirely on a great menu. (Which allows logging and starting the game as quickly as possible). I made a project focused on the best possible tutorial for such a party game.

Each project was designed to have desirable difficulty. Those projects weren’t easy at all! But they were easy enough that I could do them and learn from it.

At the time of writing, I’m finally creating that full-fledged party game. But because most parts are familiar to me know, the difficulty isn’t overwhelming anymore, but desirable.