Enemies of Clear Thinking pt.5
The Inertia Default
Today’s Main Ideas:
Cognitive inertia is our tendency to overestimate the cost of change and underestimate the cost of staying the same
Satisficing Paradox: there is a point of mediocrity at which you’d rather suffer the pain of settling than the pain of change. You’d be better off if your situation was worse.
Cognitive Inertia
If it's not moving and you don’t move it, it’ll continue not moving.
If it’s moving and you don't stop it, it’ll continue moving.
That’s Newton’s Law of Inertia for dummies like me.
The same idea applies to people. It’s called cognitive inertia.
We’ve grown to over-value consistency. We often value consistency over even effectiveness. When we’re not moving, we don’t want to start moving. Whatever state we’re in is the one we tend to stay in. We naturally have big mental barriers around our habits that stop us from changing them.
“It takes a lot of effort to build momentum but far less to maintain it.” (31) -Clear Thinking
It’s hard to accelerate but once we’ve moved to a certain speed, it’s easy to stay there. For example, it’s grueling to start working out 7 days a week, but once you’ve done it for a while it becomes easy. You exert less mental effort to do the same task once you have momentum.
On an ever smaller time-cycle, think about going to the gym just once. The heaviest weight is the front door. Once you overcome the inertia and you get your lazy butt into the gym, the hardest part is over.
(BigNerd Pro tip - if you can’t find motivation to hit the gym, tell yourself to just physically get there. Tell yourself you don’t need to workout but you need to get to the locker room. 90% of the time you’ll end up having a good workout. Do whatever it takes to get the front door open.)
The Satisficing Paradox
The inertia default is the cause of my favorite paradox: the satisficing paradox, coined by economist Herbert Simon.
The idea is that there is a level of badness in a situation at which we decide it is less painful to leave and find a new situation than to stay. That bar is usually not very high. It’s somewhere around “gets the job done”.
It’s a paradox because the person in the worse situation to begin with ends up with a better outcome.
Think about relationships. A person in an obviously unhealthy relationship will end it and look for a new, better partner. A person in a good-enough relationship stays because of inertia. It seems like more work to change (break up) than to stay even though the relationship isn’t great. That person would be better off if his relationship was worse. He would be below the threshold, end the relationship and chase a much better match.
This applies to friendships, jobs, the city you live in, the shoes you wear… everything!
If you find yourself settling into poor unforced situations and living the same day over and over, beware! You may be falling victim to the inertia default.
Brains Gains
Are you stuck in a satisficing paradox somewhere in your life? If your situation got a little worse, could your life get a lot better?
Have a wonderful day, Nerds!
Your Biggest Fan,
Noah “BigNerd”