It Begins At The End - Part 1

They say “well begun is half done”

They also say “All is well that ends well”

I’ve always been more inclined toward the latter statement.?

Imagine having a delicious meal at a fancy restaurant, a place you have always wanted to visit. You get through various courses of the meal and they’re all nothing short of perfection. Your taste buds are having the time of their life. However, as you’re about to end this meal with a delectable milk-based dessert, you find a rotten taste filling your mouth. The milk used to make the dish was spoiled & it completely ruins your palette. In the end, would you say you had a great time or would you file this experience in the ‘not good’ folder??

Most often, our judgment of an experience being good or bad is determined by how well it ends. But there’s more.?

Allow me to introduce you to the ‘Peak-End Rule’

Peak-End Rule is a psychological shortcut we use to judge an experience based on how it felt at its peak & at its end. Contrary to the logical approach of judging it basis the average of all moments, we tend to often rely on only 2 of them - the most intense moment (peak) & the final impression (end).

Let’s dig deeper.

Daniel Kahneman talks about this brilliant concept of memory & experience. He suggests the presence of 2 distinct selves - The Experiencing Self & The Remembering Self. The former is the part of us that’s actively experiencing each moment. It is present only in the present. On the other hand, the latter recalls & evaluates these experiences, thereby constructing memories. It is the self that helps re-live and/or tell stories.?

However, the remembering self is more influential in our lives than the experiencing self. We don’t retain the experience while experiencing it. We retain it in our memories. Daniel says "We don't choose between experiences, we choose between memories of experiences & future choices are not about experiences, they are about anticipated memories".?

But it gets more interesting. Memories can be so fallible that we can often remember events quite differently from how they actually occurred. Daniel conducted an experiment - participants were asked to rate the pleasantness of two different experiences: one in which they held their hand in a bucket of cold water for 60 seconds, and another in which they held their hand in the same bucket of cold water for 60 seconds, but then kept it there for an additional 30 seconds while the water was slowly heated taking it to a pleasant temperature.?

Logically, the second experience lasted longer & should have been least preferred. But, the participants rated it less unpleasant than the first (shorter) experience. Why? Because the second scenario had a relatively positive ending. This means in certain conditions, all you have to do is make the end positive & people will endure the experience.

So, what's the practical takeaway here?

It's that if memories are how we judge an experience & the peak-end rule helps shape that memory, then it is possible to proactively engineer the peak+end which can lead to great memories & by definition, great experiences.?

But which real-world scenarios, be it personal, professional or business, can these learnings be applied to? Could it be that we have been doing a lot of these things already without realising them? And what are the most common gap areas in our everyday life?

More to come in Part 2.