The Psychological Response to Obstacles | Psychology Today

There is a difference between people in how likely they are to remain engaged with difficult tasks.  This difference is called volatility.  People who are not that volatile tend to engage with a task and stick with it even when it gets difficult.  Those people who are highly volatile tend to skip from task to task to task.  The influence of an obstacle on a later task was observed only for people low in volatility.  Those people who are high in volatility were not more likely to think more globally in general following an obstacle. What does this mean for you?

Your motivation system wants to help you achieve your goals.  One way it does this is to naturally change the way you are thinking about a problem when you reach an obstacle.

via The Psychological Response to Obstacles | Psychology Today.