When we are pressured, we go back to our defaults. It’s something that we do both physically (such as in sports), and in our daily lives.

When you first begin working on a goal or a habit (both after a break, or if you’re starting a new one), it’s tempting to do a lot. This is true for the beginner (once they have tested their abilities) as well as the veteran (who knows their ability far exceeds their modest comeback). Both want to push their abilities in order to challenge themselves. After all, who wants to be patient throughout a slow buildup when they can jump straight to the difficult things?

If you zoom in on a curve enough, you can convince yourself the line is straight. Similarly, if you only look at the average value of a sine or cosine curve, you may mistake the functions for constant functions going through the horizontal axis, when they are anything but constant.

Think of the last time you did something for fun. Not for work, not because you felt like you “needed” to. Instead, doing an activity with the pure intention of enjoying yourself as much as possible. It may have been a new sport, or a creative pursuit. What mattered was that it was something completely different than your regular schedule, and was just done for the joy and curiosity of trying a new activity.