05 Oct The Upside of Effort
The vanilla cake was four layers of rainbow colors in a tie-dye pattern.
The girls and I began the baking project early on a Saturday morning, carefully following a complex recipe. The vanilla cake batter was spooned into separate bowls. Food coloring was added to create the eight colors of the rainbow. Each layer was baked to perfection.
As the colorful cake layers cooled, we made an Italian meringue buttercream frosting, boiling sugar and water to just the right temperature and mixing it with butter until it was thick and glossy. We stacked each layer with care and decorated the top with a rainbow of frosting colors piped into swirls.
The sun was setting as the girls and I finally placed the finished cake on a stand in the center of the kitchen counter.
The dishwasher was on its third cycle that day, and the sink was still full of whisks and sifters and spatulas and bowls. We had taken two separate trips to the grocery store, first when we needed more vanilla and then for butter and powdered sugar.
Emma had red frosting streaking her hair. My black shirt was covered in powdered sugar. Food coloring had stained Ella’s hands blue.
We were a mess. The kitchen was a mess. But the cake was pure perfection. We stared with smiles at our creation and then sliced into it and each took a bite.
Emma told Ella, “This is the most delicious cake. I bet we could sell these cakes for twenty dollars!”
“Twenty dollars?” Ella questioned in disbelief. “This cake is magnificent. I wouldn’t sell this for one-hundred dollars!”
I thought of the labor of love that had gone into this cake. I couldn’t imagine selling this cake at all. It was priceless.
It reminded me of the study examining the phenomenon psychologists now refer to as the IKEA effect. Researchers discovered that participants who took the time and effort to build a storage box from IKEA (a furniture company known for their complex assembly) were willing to pay a premium to take their creation home compared to participants given the chance to buy an identical box built by experts.
The more effort something takes, the more we tend to value it.
This is the upside to effort. Whether it’s thinking of specific ways to be successful in making a change or assigning value to a rainbow cake we’ve made, we value ideas and efforts and creations more when they are “ours.” This emotional investment helps us feel more engaged and committed to the process and the outcome.
There’s value in making our cake… and, of course, eating it, too.