Once You Stop Caring, Results Come | The Law of Reverse Effect

Once, there was a writer who happened to specialize in crafting thought-provoking essays on various subjects. Through hard work and seemingly endless creativity, she managed to publish numerous pieces that captivated her readers. However, one day, she found herself in a creative slump, unable to find any inspiration for her next writing endeavor; she contemplated different topics, but none seemed to resonate. She scoured her bookshelves and searched the internet but to no avail. A sense of panic crept in, as she feared she had exhausted her ideas or fallen victim to writer’s block.

Yet, after taking a deep breath, she made the conscious choice to let it go for a while and divert her attention to other pursuits. Strangely enough, while strolling through a serene forest without any intention of conjuring up a subject (or even thinking about her writing aspirations), an idea unexpectedly came to mind. And thus, she came to realize that when she ceased trying so hard, what she was looking for arose effortlessly. The writer experienced a curious paradox. She wanted to be productive, but the more she tried, the less she could.

Only when she ceased caring and lifted the enormous pressure of needing to be productive off of her shoulders was she able to write again. So, striving and effort do not always get what we want. Moreover, these things can work against us. What’s going on here? Author Aldous Huxley first described the ‘Law of Reverse Effect,’ saying that, and I quote: “The harder we try with the conscious will to do something, the less we shall succeed.” End quote.

So, could it really be that when we stop consciously trying to succeed, we increase our chances of success? Will results come once we stop caring? This video explores the law of reverse effect, also known as the law of reversed effort. Long ago, in ancient China, a merchant met a sage who, he heard, was one of the wisest people alive. The merchant tried to impress the sage by telling him how much money he had made in his latest trade deal. The sage nodded but didn’t seem too impressed.

Then, he invited the sage to visit him to see his enormous house and all the riches he had accumulated over the years. But the sage still wasn’t impressed. Instead, he asked the merchant why he wants to impress him so much by showing off his stuff. As the merchant didn’t understand the question, the sage reminded him of the words of Lao Tzu, saying: “Those who try to outshine others dim their own light. Those who call themselves righteous can’t know how wrong they are. Those who boast of their accomplishments diminish the things they have done.” End quote.

We’ve been taught accomplishment requires effort. But, with many things in life, ‘effort’ can also be counterproductive. As for the merchant, he wanted to obtain the sage’s approval, but the more he tried, the less he could impress him. The sage reminded us that the more we force our accomplishments upon others, the less we shine. If we accomplished so much, why must we continually remind others?

People grow suspicious of individuals who need to boast, brag, and take the spotlight as much as possible. What are they trying to prove? Are they compensating for something? It seems that they need to convince the world of their value. Paradoxically, the more we feel the need to convince the world how valuable we are, the less value we believe the world thinks we have, which probably shows. If the merchant hadn’t been so eager to impress, he could have let his accomplishments speak for themselves when the moment of their revelation arose, which would have impressed the sage more, not just because of the achievements themselves but also because he doesn’t need to brag about them says something about the merchant’s character: that he’s humble and secure within himself, and also detached, to a certain extent, from external objects like wealth and status.

So, the Law of Reverse Effect struck again: he sabotaged his desired results by caring too much about the sage’s opinion. Regarding our psychological well-being, the Law of Reverse Effect also seems to be at work, as we experience that by trying to control our mental states, we mostly just stand in our own way. In his blog, The Runaway Mind, Professor David Clark shares how too much effort causes difficulties in overcoming emotional distress. He asks the reader if we ever “choked under pressure,” for example, during a contest, exam, or job interview.

He stated: “You may have spent a long time preparing for this moment. You reminded yourself over and over that you had to do your best. You could feel the intense pressure; all your attention and energy was channeled into your performance. With great effort and determination, you stepped forward, but then disaster struck. You blew it! You messed up and experienced one of the most shameful moments in your life.” End quote. According to Clark, this so-called ‘Mental Control Paradox’ also applies to overcoming emotional distress.

Trying too hard to stop negative thinking, for example, often backfires, only increasing our negativity. When we fall prey to the Mental Control Paradox, we experience that the more we try to control our thinking, the less successful we are in doing so, which coincides with the Law of Reverse Effect. Clark points to scientific research showing that humans aren’t good at thought suppression as opposed to thought creation. We’ve explored the experiment of the pink elephant a couple of times on this channel, showing how difficult it is not to think consciously about a pink elephant.

So, when it comes to mental control, we could say: “what you resist persists.” Only when we stop trying, when we stop caring about the presence of the thought of a pink elephant in our minds, it eventually disappears. But the Law of Reverse Effect also seems to work the other way around, referring to the story at the beginning of this video: the flow of creativity and mental control often don’t mix.

Although people are good at generating thoughts, forcing ourselves to evoke a creative solution, idea, or inspiration to progress our creative endeavors further often doesn’t work. And the more we try, the less successful we are. The versatile artist and teacher Julia Cameron wrote in her book ‘The Artist’s Way:’ “All too often we try to push, pull, outline and control our ideas instead of letting them grow organically. The creative process is a process of surrender, not control. Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise.” End quote.

We often experience our creativity blooming when we’re not asking for it, for example, during a relaxing moment in the shower, during a forest walk, and just before bed. During those moments when we have ceased caring about it, the idea we were looking for comes forward spontaneously. The ancient Taoists observed that when we’re too occupied with the outcome, we’re likely to sabotage our performance.

The story in the Taoist scripture Zhuangzi about the nervous archer who shot perfectly during practice but couldn’t perform during a tournament when competing for a prize shows how caring too much about the result works against us. When we care too much about the outcome, whatever we’re doing, we feel tense. Even though we’re usually perfectly able to perform the task, a sense of emergency is involved. Our minds are occupied with the future and may even dwell in the past, contemplating, for example, past mistakes.

We’re not present. We might believe that the more we worry about the task and its consequence, the more control we gain and the more chance we have to succeed. But the opposite is true; the more we worry, the more we try to control, the more likely our performances will suffer. Here’s where the Law of Reverse Effect comes to fruition again: the more we care about achieving success, the more it eludes us.

When we care too much about the outcome, we will likely push ourselves in ways that eventually obstruct our progress. The ancient Taoists knew how people could stand in their own way when striving to achieve something. Instead of striving, they proposed ‘wu wei’ or ‘effortless action.’

Athlete Christopher Bergland explains in an article in Psychology Today how the state of optimal performance, also known as “the zone,” paradoxically emerges when we don’t strive for it. I quote: “It may seem counterintuitive, but a non-striving mindset (also known as wu-wei) increases an athlete’s chances of getting ‘in the zone,’ performing effortlessly, and winning. The paradox of wu-wei is that striving less—not trying harder to win at all costs—often generates more success.” End quote.

When examining the mental state of effortless action, or being “in the zone,” we discover that this state of being (or state of doing, for that matter) is characterized by a lack of discursive thoughts about the past and the future. Even though wu-wei most likely leads to ‘something’ we call results, these results are not the focus. The desired results may be in the back of our minds, but our attention is immersed in the task at hand.

The task even ceases to be a task, as if the pianist becomes the musical piece, the writer becomes the novel, and the soccer player becomes the game. When there’s no worry about one’s future achievements or rumination about one’s failures in the past, then one’s performance won’t be disturbed by these thoughts, which, so it seems, enhances it. Hence, we could say that once we stop caring, results come, as in the mental and physical obstacles we lay in place for ourselves as a consequence of “caring” about the outcome disappear; they don’t obstruct pure and responsive action in the present, meaning, action that effortlessly interplays with present circumstances.

For example, we must be responsive to our environment to drive a car. Everything that happens in the environment is unprecedented and uniquely belongs to that specific moment. There are patterns and generalizations, of course, but when we look at the details, then what’s happening on a particular highway, the cars present, the people in those cars, what these people do and think, and how they react, is a unique, unprecedented symphony that we cannot cognitively predict.

We can only rely on our driving skills and ability to respond well to everything that happens. But instead, our minds tend to try to control the future by creating detailed predictions and then constantly repeating these fantasies and our responses to them. But when the moment we’ve prepared ourselves for arrives, we find out that our detailed blueprints have become pretty useless. Moreover, all these thoughts and mental preparations prevent us from responding to what’s actually happening.

However, if we let go of this firewall of thoughts, we create space to let the environment come in, so we can respond to what happens instead of what we think would happen. Philosopher Dr. Woei-Lien Chong emphasizes the importance of openness regarding wu wei, saying: “No matter if it’s about politics, governance, diplomacy, or any other activity: what Zhuangzi calls wu-wei is this ultimate receptive and responsive way of action, from a crystal clear openness in yourself, one with the breathing of the cosmos.” End quote.

Whether we look at the mental control paradox or the Taoist idea of wu wei, these concepts show how our own thoughts can stand in our way. The more we care about something, the more we tend to worry and ruminate about it, and the more these thoughts obstruct the ability to act in ways that eventually lead to success, which corresponds with the Law of Reverse Effect.

By letting go of worrying about the outcome, it’s more likely that we get the outcome we desire. Results don’t come by repeatedly thinking about them or desiring them fiercely; they come through actions. And the more we let ourselves be carried away by the desired results, the less we tend to act in ways that contribute to achieving them. Caring too much about the results makes the archer in Zhuangzi’s story tremble, a soccer player miss a penalty, and a writer unable to write.

Thank you for watching.