Brakes and accelerators
Brakes and accelerators is a frame which I find useful across domains. Use it when trying to achieve something - anything at all.
One might use the brake and accelerator archetypes lower in the article as checklist for helping a friend overcome procrastination:
- Shoot through and see which feel most live.
- Talk through and/or take action and/or reframe in a helpful way, depending on whether the brakes and accelerators are material or psychological.
You may also, by yourself or in tandem with a friend:
- List brakes present and decide which can be reduced or removed with the effort you have.
- Consider accelerators to add.
- Decide which are most worth your effort.
More acceleration may do nothing if a strong brake is active, so I'd start with brakes.
Below are a few examples picked at random. I think I could have picked almost anything from any domain. It's not just about work.
Persuading someone to do something (inc corporate change management)
Brakes: perceived social judgement from others if they do, they don't like you, perceived scarcity of time or resource or safety
Accelerators: purpose, what they get from it (personal gain, fulfilment of values, positive self image)
Work productivity
Brakes: afraid of failure, unclear what to do next, poor relationships, perceived scarcity of time or resource or safety
Accelerators: purpose, camaraderie, anticipation of success, feeling of confidence
Feeling alive
Brakes: bad TV, exhaustion, phone, excess social media (the latter is insidious as it may feel at least somewhat interesting, but they are numbing one's sense of boredom, which is the stimulus for change one may need), perceived scarcity of time or resource or safety
Accelerators: meditation, exercise, sports, friends, flow, travel... too long to list really
My sense is there are archetypical brakes across domains, including:
- Perceived threat, including all perceived scarcity of time or resource or safety
- Identity incoherence: "this action conflicts with who I believe I am."
- Ambiguity: uncertainty about what specifically to do next.
- Anticipated judgment from others, real or imagined.
- Metabolic: tiredness, exhaustion, caffeine withdrawal
Accelerators are harder to taxonomise. Brakes are convergent as many threats point to only one type of response: stop. Accelerators are more divergent as the inputs map to a broad broad range of responses. That being said, here are some accelerators I see as archetypical:
- Wanting something
- Drive for mastery
- Purpose
- Social reinforcement and camaraderie
- Identity coherence: "this is who I am"
- Metabolic: happy bodymind
- Clarity on what exactly to do next
- Environment: gym clothes laid out, only work in office space, no phone in house
Notice that several of these are the inverse of brakes, but it isn't always so.
A speculation: the political left may attend more to reducing brakes and the right to increasing accelerators. E.g.: on economic policy the left would remove brakes (inequality, access barriers), and the right add accelerators (incentives, deregulation). If this is true, what might the practical implications be? One might be on how messages are framed for different audiences and what ideas and concepts those framings harness.