I’m sure all of us would like for our lives to be better. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over time, is that improving your life isn’t always a straightforward and linear process. Paradoxically, having your life turn for the worse can make it better in the long run. I know this might sound silly, but let me explain. When going to a certain destination, many people will choose to walk, if the distance is short enough. But when the destination is farther away they might choose to cycle or even drive It’s a common preference, but one that also creates a paradox. Let’s take a fictional character and call him Bob. Bob has to commute to work every single day. Luckily for him, his office is not far, a mere 1 mile away. Because the destination is close, he chooses to walk there. With the average walking speed of 3 miles per hour, it takes him about 20 minutes to get to his office. Of course Bob also has to do his grocery shopping every once in a while. But the nearest store is 2 miles away from home. If he were to walk, it would take him a whole 40 minutes just to get there. So because of that, he cycles instead. With the average cycling speed of 15 miles per hour, that trip takes him around 8 minutes. This means that Bob actually gets to the grocery store significantly faster than he gets to his workplace, even though the grocery store is farther away. So paradoxically, if Bob’s workplace was 2 miles away, instead of just 1 mile, he would get there faster than he does now. But because it’s within walking distance, it takes him longer. This is known as the region beta paradox and it originates from the research paper by Daniel Gilbert, who introduced the paradox. If we put everything we’ve just observed in graph form, this is what it looks like. You can see that the points in region beta will be reached faster than most points in region alpha. Hence the name. Ok, but how is this information relevant to you? Well, sometimes things that are “worse” can be better. Imagine someone stuck at a dead end job, where the pay isn’t great and the boss is kind of an asshole. But the job is fairly easy and at least the benefits are ok. That person also lives in a shitty apartment where there’s a leaky pipe and mold forming, and the landlord doesn’t do anything about it. But it’s in a good location and the neighbors are nice. That same person also has a girlfriend whom he argues with a lot, and they don’t have much in common. But at least her cooking is good and they both have a lot of mutual friends. And finally this person has some unidentified health problems, as he’s often exhausted and sometimes he’s experiencing lower back pain. But it’s not all too bad, as he just powers through and he can still enjoy his hobbies like he did before, just with less energy and sometimes in pain. This person would be better off if his circumstances were worse. If the job wasn’t as easy and the benefits weren’t as great, that would propel him to find a better job. If the apartment wasn’t in a good location and the neighbors weren’t nice, that would make him more likely to find a new place to stay. If the girlfriend’s cooking wasn’t as good, and if they didn’t have any mutual friends, that would make him more likely to find a better partner. And if he wasn’t able to do things in his own way, he might actually go seek some medical attention and see if he could find a solution for his health problems. Sometimes in life, things need to get bad enough for us to make the necessary change, instead of sticking it out. But change is difficult. Even though we know it would be better for us, we’re often reluctant to take action, because change requires a certain amount of activation energy, which we might not have. This is where psychological pain comes in. When we cross a certain pain threshold, we trigger an emotional response that makes us take massive action. But if the pain that we feel isn’t as intense, those same mechanisms might not activate. Instead, we might adapt to the shitty situation and just tolerate it. Even though we know it’s far from optimal. The point I’m trying to make is that we need to be frustrated and annoyed enough with our current situation, or the change might not happen, since we won’t have that activation energy. Only when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change, is when we’re bound to take action. In other words, a person will remain in a state of mild discomfort and only act when that discomfort becomes intense enough. Where that line, or breaking point is, differs from person to person. For Bob, the pain of having to walk for 40 minutes, just to get to the grocery store, would be too much. For someone else it might be less, or it might be more. But no matter where that line is, once it’s crossed it propels you to make a change, just like it did with Bob. Another good analogy here is a frog in a pot. If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it’s going to jump out right away. But if you slowly heat up the water, the frog will boil to death without even noticing. And I believe this is even more true for humans than it is for frogs. We’re often better off when things are worse, because then we actually do something about it. Instead of sticking with what we know and whatever feels familiar. And this is the exact reason why the region beta paradox even happens. We’re creatures of habit and we love the comfort of what we know. Venturing into the unknown can be scary. If we make a change, we may lose what we already have. And the psychological pain of losing something is much greater compared to the potential benefits we could gain. That’s why it’s so difficult to let go of certain things, even though we’re far from happy with them, and we know we could do better. But this causes us to get stuck in this weird middle ground where things are just about passable. Making us comfortably numb. And being stuck in this paradox for too long, can and will have plenty of negative consequences for your mental health. Such as constant feelings of frustration, hopelessness and even depression. It becomes incredibly discouraging to feel like you’re not living up to your full potential. And often it leads to a midlife crisis, where you suddenly wake up and realize you’ve spent 10 years in the wrong job, city, or relationship. So what can you do about it? How can you overcome this comfortably numb state? While the paradox might suggest that worse things could be better, I’m not suggesting to deliberately make your situation worse. Rather you should first examine the areas in your life that you know are sub-optimal. It’s important to recognize that you’re stuck in this weird middle ground. Often we convince ourselves that things are fine and could be worse. And sometimes we simply don’t believe we deserve better and hold limiting beliefs about ourselves. But you need to be honest with yourself and acknowledge that you’re not feeling completely satisfied and that things could in fact, be better. Then, once you’ve fully embraced that you’re ready to make a change, you should do an exercise that was pioneered by Tim Ferriss, called fear setting. This exercise is intended to help you start new projects, end projects, start relationships, end relationships, and make any of those difficult decisions for which the timing is never quite right. We’re going to go through the exercise together, through the lens of someone who’s unsatisfied with his job he’s not sure if he wants to quit or not. It’s a quick 5 step process, where the 5th step is the most important one. The exercise looks like this: First you need to define your fear. Write down all the things that could go wrong if you take a particular action. Here are a few fears that our job dissatisfied friend has. I won’t be able to find another job and will run out of savings. I will lose my professional network and industry connections. I will regret leaving the stability and security of my current job. Think of the worst case scenarios for your situation. Make sure to be specific and detailed. Then once the fears have been defined, make a list of steps that you could take to prevent or at least decrease the likelihood of these things from happening. So our friend’s solutions were: I can save enough money to cover living expenses for at least 6 months, and start looking for new job opportunities while still employed. I can maintain professional relationships through regular networking and using social media to keep in touch with colleagues. I can find if there are alternative ways to achieve financial stability, and reflect on what I actually want from my career. However sometimes in life, even if we try to prevent things from happening, there are other unknowns that we’re not aware of, and the worst case scenario can still happen. That is why the third step involves listing all the possible ways you could repair the damage, if the worst does come to fruition. For our friend this means: I could take on freelance or contract work temporarily, while moving to a less expensive living situation if necessary, so I don’t go broke. I could reach out to old colleagues and make new connections, to rebuild my network . I could reevaluate my decision after a set period and be open to returning to a similar role to regain stability. Oftentimes, the worst case scenario isn’t even that bad and there’s always a way to at least remedy the situation. Now for the fourth step, you want to look for benefits of doing what you want to do, even if you only achieve partial success. Meaning if things don’t go as planned, what do you still gain from it? So for our friend this might be: I will gain new experiences and learn new skills that enhance my career. I will improve my mental health and lower my stress by leaving an unfulfilling job. I will have more time to focus on personal growth, hobbies, and passions. Consider how those benefits could impact your life and outweigh the risks that come along with taking the plunge, even if things don’t happen exactly the way you planned them. And finally, the most important step, reflect on the cost of not taking action. Consider the potential negative consequences that might occur in the next 6 months, 1 year, or 3 years, if you don’t change anything. What if you stay where you are? What if you don’t make this change? What is the actual cost? More often than not, you’ll realize that inaction is the worst thing you can do. Because think about this: do you really want to be stuck in that sub-optimal situation that leaves you frustrated and annoyed, for the next 10 years or maybe even for the rest of your life? No, you absolutely don’t. But things won’t suddenly change on their own. It’s up to you to change them. So don’t just sit there and accept things as they are. Yes, when things are going great, that’s perfect, you don’t need to make a change. And when things are really bad, that can be useful too, as activation energy will kick in and propel you to make them better. But when you endure situations that are “not so bad”, not only do you prevent yourself from getting into better ones, you also become just like the frog in the pot of water. You slowly boil to death, instead of jumping out. That’s why you should do the fear setting exercise for things in your life that you know are sub-optimal. It will help you take charge and make the changes you need to live your best life. Once you actually highlight and become aware of all the negatives, you realize how bad the situation is, and you just might find yourself in the region beta, which will hopefully light a fire under you. Resulting in you taking massive action, and making yourself better than yesterday in the process. That’s it for this video. If you learned something new, hit that like button. And I’ll see you in the next one.