The Messy Middle: No Prizes, Just Hard Work

Our brains were never built for the messy middle

Three days. Just me, my manuscript, and a list of edits. No meeting. No calls. Just editing. Sounds dreaming doesn’t it?

Well…

Let’s just say that editing is not my ikigai. But I’m an adult, I know every awesome project (like writing a book) comes with some not so awesome parts. So, I filled up the big coffee cup and got to work.

It was all going okay until, on day two, Microsoft Word started dragging and then crashed. And that’s when I lost it. There I was, curled up on the floor, crying, asking myself what on earth made me think I could write a book. It was a beautiful day outside, and I could be out there, doing fun things…I was seriously questioning my life choices.

Somewhere between crying and questioning my life choices, I realized, I’ve been here before.

That is the messy middle moment. That is what being Stuckifyed in the middle feels like.

The One Truth

The hardest part of any meaningful work isn’t the beginning. The beginning is easy to love. There’s energy, ideas, possibility. And the completion of any meaningful work, that’s also great, full of celebration, and that sense of accomplishment.

But the middle? There is no glory in the middle, just mess.

My messy middle moment brought to mind the work of Harvard Professor, Dr Rosebeth Moss Kanter. By observing hundreds of major initiatives in organizations, she noticed that doubt and inertia show up at exactly the same point - the middle. Her key observation is that everything looks like a failure in the middle. This happens because when you arrive at the middle, the excitement of the starting point has faded, and the end is nowhere in sight, or at the very least, very hard to see.

One Insight

Why is the messy middle so difficult? First, our brains weren’t designed for it. The human brain has a preference for conserving energy; some like to say that our brains are lazy, but I think they are efficient. The human brain has many responsibilities, and one it takes very seriously is keeping us alive. So, the brain is always scanning for threats, and the desire to conserve energy is to make sure that if a lion starts charging at us, we have enough energy to run to safety. Yes, I know, in the modern world, most of us are not, on a daily basis, at risk of becoming lion food, but our brains haven’t really caught up to that. Our brains are designed for short bursts of energy because, for much of our existence, that’s what humans have needed to survive. The need for mental endurance (e.g., writing a book) is a relatively new demand for our brains.

Second, the messy middle feels ambiguous. We are no longer anchored to the start, but we also cannot see the finish line. The human brain doesn’t like ambiguity. The brain like certainty and knowing where things are going. The middle offers neither. So, the brain does what it does when it feels threatened: it looks for a way out. Externally, this looks like doubt, drag, and drop in momentum. This isn’t just an individual experience; it shows up in teams, too. That project that kicked off with so much energy feels heavy after a few months. That strategy that felt so right a few months ago now feels like maybe we're not going in the right direction. That is the messy middle doing what it does.

Insight into Action

Success only comes if we can survive the middle, so how do we do that?

Name it out loud

Fatigue, exhaustion, uncertainty, these are all real feels that are felt in the messy middle. Our tendency is to ignore them and keep pushing forward. But the thing about feelings is that ignoring them doesn’t make them go away.

You have to feel the feels to move on.

If feelings are not your thing. I get it. I tend to gloss over my feelings too. I am more of a thinker (read that as overthinker) than a feeler. But I also know that just because I gloss over them doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Feelings only dissipate when we allow ourselves to feel them. The cry I had on the floor, that was, me finally acknowledging my frustration. Feelings don’t always come out in tears. Sometimes it’s disengagement or avoidance. Sometimes it’s showing up and just going through the motions. However it shows up, you need to create the space for them.

This applies to teams, too. When you notice the heaviness of the messy middle setting in - the quiet disengagement, the slowing moment. That’s when leaders need to create space. Name it out loud. “This is hard, isn’t it?” “I’m finding this hard too.” Naming it out loud reminds the team that the middle is actually difficult and that they are not alone.

What’s the smallest next step

We have to feel the feels, but we cannot live in them. So, once you’ve named it out loud and taken your moment, on the floor, in the sun, whatever works for you. Then you’ve got to get moving again. And that can feel overwhelming. So, what we need to do is pick one small next step to focus on and do that. The power of the next small step is dopamine - the motivation hormone. When we finish a task, our brains reward us for it by releasing a hit of dopamine.

And so, I told myself, I’m going to get up and do the most advanced IT troubleshooting ever, then I did it. I rebooted my MacBook. As expected, MS Word started working perfectly fine again. Then I told myself, just one more chapter, and then I will go for a walk. These little micro goals got me moving again.

These might seem a little bit silly, but sometimes our brains are a little bit silly.

Get Unstuckifyed

The messy middle is real. The next time you find yourself in the middle, feel the feels, name them out loud, and pick the smallest step to check off so we can get that dopamine hit to keep going.

Till Next Time

The middle gets no celebration, no accolades. But it does mean you are halfway there…possibly a little further than you think.

Thanks for getting Unstuckifyed with me.

Dr Dani