Flipping The Failure Switch
How Your Mind Creates Equilibrium
There are two forces that rule nature; so much that we have designed many of our innovations to run on these immutable laws.
Most people are unaware of their existence in both their daily lives, and how they drive our behaviors.
This two-part post will cover both pieces and how to harness them for your own success.
When Negative is Positive
Two concepts that define how systems can operate are Negative Feedback Loops and Positive Feedback Loops.
Negative Feedback Loops are correcting, and Positive Feedback Loops are self-reinforcing.
Sometimes we assign a negative connotation to a concept, only because it contains the word “negative,” and vice-versa. If you recall yesterday’s post on failure - this is a logical fallacy that we all fall prey to.
Feedback loops are neutral; they are inherently, neither good nor bad.
If they are neutral, you can use them to your advantage, or they can use you to your disadvantage.
Your Whole Life is a Loop
An important term to keep in mind when learning about Negative Feedback Loops is Homeostasis. Homeostasis is a governing law of the universe, abundant in nearly everything we observe.
Your body must maintain a temperature within a certain range in order to function properly. If your inner thermostat breaks and you become too hot or too cold, your biological processes can no longer function and your body begins to shut down.
Human ingenuity has replicated this effect with a home thermostat. You set the temperature at 75 degrees and if the device senses a temperature higher than that, it activates to cool the air back to 75 degrees. Likewise, in colder weather, it will activate to warm the air back to 75 degrees.
This is a Negative Feedback Loop.
Negative Feedback Loops are Everywhere
In an ecosystem, if prey reproduces quickly and food becomes abundant, predators will become abundant also - due to surplus food. Predators eventually eliminate enough of the prey so that the population drops and, with it, the predator’s population eventually drops as well.
Plants flourish when the soil contains an excess of nutrients. When plants flourish, they consumer more nutrients, driving down levels. When nutrient levels are depletes, the plants thin out again.
Blood glucose levels, osmotic regulation in cells, supply and demand in a free market, a vehicle’s cruise control - everywhere you look, you can find examples of Negative Feedback Loops.
All of nature is a big see-saw: up and down, and up and down again.
Now that you are aware of this phenomenon, how does it make or break your success?
The Self-Perpetuating Perception Loop
Nature, your body, and your tech devices all use Negative Feedback Loops to maintain Homeostasis, and so does the most important piece of your entire existence: your brain.
The echo chamber effect (a Positive Feedback Loop) arises from your need for Confirmation Bias. You believe something to be true, so you seek information to confirm that belief.
When confronted with information that conflicts with your beliefs, you only have two options: evaluate the new information (which leads to a possibility of changing your belief), or reject it immediately.
It is not hard to figure out what most people do in this situation.
One more Psychology term to add to the mix: Naive Realism.
Naive Realism is your tendency to believe that your subjective view of reality is the view that is accurate and objective, while you view every other view as misinformed.
We are quite prideful creatures. Rather than know that you are wrong, you would rather chance being wrong while you continue to believe you are right.
Read that one more time and tell me, how does it make any sense to live this way?
It doesn’t. But logical sense is not why we behave the way we do.
Your Success Depends on This Fact
How much sensation can you handle?
Your body and mind desire to be in a default state. The human body (mind included) is capable of adapting to nearly any state, and as you adapt, that becomes your Equilibrium, or state of optimal balance.
This does not have to be positive. People who are born in poverty or remain in abusive situations are often oppressed of their own will. They are afraid to move beyond their default state. It is unknown, therefore, it is uncomfortable.
If you grew up in Alaska, the first time you visit Southern Florida in the Summer you will be choked out by the humidity and exhausted by the heat. However, live there for a Summer and your body will adapt, and perhaps even come to enjoy the swamp air.
Most people dream of leaving their 9-5 (or become a superstar within their 9-5), running a marathon and getting in the best shape of their life, eating healthy for a long life well-lived. You know this because every year these are the things on the New Year’s Resolution lists. Year, after year, after year.
Why don’t they do it?
Because it upsets the Equilibrium.
When you lose weight, at some point you plateau because your body is fighting for Homeostasis - to remain at your old weight. When you’re used to working for someone else at a 9-5, your mind craves that predictability and it is difficult to take commands from yourself. One step further, the office environment you work in, itself, is a mini ecosystem with social dynamics and balance. Becoming a high performer means upsetting that balance.
Side note: Most people seek “life balance.” You can usually feel when things are out of sorts, but most don’t know how to correct it. This is the key idea behind the Wheel of Life: awareness of the state of your balance so that you can intentionally self-correct from week to week.
The Smaller Picture: Your entire life is governed by the mechanism of Homeostasis - that desire to return to its default state. The reason you cannot stick to your goals, the reason you feel stuck, the reason “things don’t go right for you,” is entirely due to this principle.
The bright shining star against this dark, dark night, is that you have complete power to change it.
The rules that govern society are not rules at all, they are social agreements.
Did you know (spoiler alert) that humans artificially direct the Homeostasis of animal habitats? This is the reason there is a hunting season - so that Equilibrium is maintained. This is why it becomes legal (and incentivized) for certain animals to be hunted; when invasive species are accidentally introduced to an ecosystem and begin to upset the balance.
If the rules do not exist, except in the agreements we make with each other and that exist solely in our mind, why don’t you create rules that enable your success and follow those rules?
It turns out, that is exactly what you need to do.
I am not usually one for cliffhangers, but that is the topic I will cover, in-depth, in the next post, From Positive To Negative: How You Hack the Status Quo.
I hope you got some value from this, and as always, thanks for reading.
Oliver
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