Page 86 - A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science

But there’s something important to note. It was the anticipation that was
painful. When the mathphobes actually did math, the pain disappeared.
Procrastination expert Rita Emmett explains: “The dread of doing a task uses up
more time and energy than doing the task itself.” 6
Avoiding something painful seems sensible. But sadly, the long-term effects
of habitual avoidance can be nasty. You put off studying math, and it becomes
even more painful to think about studying it. You delay practicing for the SAT or

ACT, and on the critical exam day, you choke because you haven’t laid the firm
neural foundations you need to feel comfortable with the material. Your
opportunity for scholarships evaporates.
Perhaps you’d love a career in math and science, but you give up and settle
on a different path. You tell others you couldn’t hack the math, when the reality
was that you had simply let procrastination get the best of you.

Procrastination is a single, monumentally important “keystone” bad
7
habit. A habit, in other words, that influences many important areas of your life.
Change it, and a myriad of other positive changes will gradually begin to unfold.
And there’s something more—something crucially important. It’s easy to
feel distaste for something you’re not good at. But the better you get at
something, the more you’ll find you enjoy it.

How the Brain Procrastinates

Beep beep beep . . . It’s ten A.M. on Saturday, and your alarm clock pulls you
from luscious sleep. An hour later you’re finally up, coffee in hand, poised over
your books and your laptop. You’ve been meaning to put in a solid day of
studying so you can wrap up that math homework that’s due on Monday. You
also plan to get a start on the history essay, and to look at that confusing

chemistry section.
You look at your math textbook. There’s a subtle, barely detectable ouch.
Your brain’s pain centers light up as you anticipate looking at the confusing
graphs and tangle of strange verbiage. You really don’t want to be doing math
homework now. The thought of spending the next several hours studying math,
as you’d planned, makes the idea of opening the book even less pleasant.
You shift your focus from your textbook to your laptop. Hmm, that’s more

like it. No painful feelings there, just a little dollop of pleasure as you flip open