Nonlinearity (Why Success Isn't A Straight Line)
Does everything feel harder than it seems? You may be trying to live a linear life in a nonlinear world.
Humans are not built to intuitively understand nonlinearities. Have you ever put a lot of resources (time, money, effort) into something and been demoralised by the results? Or perhaps you bumped into a friend you haven’t seen in a year, only to find that they have suddenly become incredibly successful. What does their journey look like in your mind?
Chances are this is what you expect. You imagine your friend riding a straight line to the top.
But in reality, few things in life follow a linear model. In reality, they probably experienced many ups and downs to get to where they are.
Simplifying things makes understanding and navigating life much easier. Drawing a line from A to B is easy. Thus, if you believe that 2 variables are causally linked, your expectation should be that it follows a somewhat linear path. The problem is, the natural world doesn’t contain straight lines. Don’t believe me? Go outside and try to find one in nature.
THE 3 BODY PROBLEM
When Isaac Newton came up with his 3 laws of motion he found that you could relatively easily predict the movement of 2 objects using his equations (eg the Earth orbiting the sun). However, add an additional body to the problem (such as the moon) and suddenly it was impossible to predict their paths accurately. Continuing to add objects only makes the predictions more and more unreliable.
If we extrapolate this to our lives we can see that it becomes incredibly difficult to predict the results as complexity increases. Any number of variables can drastically impact the outcomes.
THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
The Butterfly Effect (or Chaos Theory), is the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings in India might cause a hurricane halfway across the world. It describes how minor actions can cause dramatic, unpredictable outcomes, ie, the relationship is nonlinear.
The idiom “the straw that broke the camel’s back” explains it quite well. As you load the first 10,000 pieces of straw onto the camel, nothing happens. Add one more and suddenly the 10,001st straw proves to be too much and the camel collapses. Each action was identical, but the result was not.
We experience these nonlinear relationships in our lives everyday. For example, the lightbulb moment you suddenly get after spending 10 hours stuck on a problem. The effort you put forth in the second you figured it out is no different to the 10 hours you previously spent, but that one second was responsible for the entire result. You didn’t solve 10% of the problem per hour.
THE TRUTH ABOUT SUCCESS
Now that we understand the 3 Body Problem and the Butterfly Effect, let’s see how we can take advantage of these concepts to maximise our lives.
LOW COMPLEXITY GOALS
Let’s say you want to start hitting the gym. This can be described as a low complexity (low variables) activity which should be pretty easy to map out in your head. The 3 main components, training, nutrition and recovery cover almost every aspect you need to worry about. If you take care of each component on a consistent basis, your results will probably look something like this.
When you first start, results come easily. But as time goes on, your progress will stall as you approach your genetic limit. Given the low number of variables, you can maintain a high level of control over the results. Also, note that the butterfly effect is unlikely to make an appearance here. Your 10000th squat is unlikely to account for all of your gains. Improvements will be incremental as long as you can be consistent.
There may also be some types of low complexity goals that start off slow before accelerating. Don’t be discouraged if you find yourself in this type of situation. If you can control the variables, know that your results will tend to trend up and to the right.
HIGH COMPLEXITY GOALS
Contrast this with something like trying to create a successful YouTube channel. There is no guarantee that each video you post will give you the results you are looking for. But, when something goes viral, you might see something like this:
There are many variables that can influence how many views you may get and you could produce 100 videos before one finally goes viral. For example, someone with a big following might reference your channel in one of their videos, piquing the curiosity of their fanbase.
DIMINISHING RETURNS
This concept is another example of nonlinearity, but one in which the relationship between variables is more predictable. It generally applies to lower complexity things. The?line?representing your workout progression begins to taper off as it moves along the X-axis. This is because the closer we get to the upper limit (in this case your genetic limit), the slower the results will come. This means that you can put additional units of resources in but have very little to show for it. The good news is that you can reap a lot of the benefits of certain activities without having to do much. The bad news is that if you want to get into the top percentiles of these activities, it means you have to understand that the incremental improvements will not be proportional to the amount of resources you allocate to it.
Take skincare as an example. If you get any old cleanser and moisturiser and use them twice a day, you can probably get 80% of the way there. But if you want to improve your skin even more, you will likely have to start buying higher-end products and spend more time each day on your routine.
Cardio is also a good example. If you do 150 minutes of steady state cardio per week, you can capture the majority of the health benefits. Would it be better if you did more? Sure. But each additional minute of cardio you do beyond that gives you decreasing benefits.
领英推荐
However, the law of diminishing returns does not apply to the higher complexity parts of your life in the same way. If you start a YouTube channel, nothing may happen for a long time. But each video you post has the potential to be exponentially better than your others. And there is no ceiling to how big your success can be. This means that the more resources you pour into your channel, the more opportunities you have for the stars to align. It’s a higher risk allocation as there is no guarantee that anything will happen, but that’s something for you to decide. Do note that this does not mean you can blindly pour everything in and expect incremental returns. You still need to be smart with where you put your time and effort.
ASYMMETRICAL RESULTS
Now that we understand diminishing returns, we can have a look at the idea of asymmetry.
We know that depending on the type of goal you choose, the additional resources you allocate to it will have wildly different payouts. We also know that as a species, we have trouble accepting nonlinear relationships. Thus, we are more inclined to pick the low complexity activities because they are more predictable.
Now, that’s not to say there’s nothing wrong with favouring incremental gains. Being able to see your strength increasing week by week or your bank account growing week by week can be motivating. Just know that if you opt for this type of life, you are severely limiting the potential upside because nothing you can do will give you exponential returns.
It also doesn’t have to be either or. You can do both together. I’m not saying don’t exercise because the results are predictable, you definitely should. But you can sprinkle in a little bit of risk here and there and venture into the unknown. However, most of us are so afraid of taking risks because of loss aversion. You are more likely to fixate on what you can potentially lose from a situation rather than what you can gain.
In a world of asymmetry, a predictable, low-variance life might make you feel more ‘secure’, but is the trade-off worth it? Let’s look at some examples.
Want to ask your crush on a date? Fear of rejection stops most people in their tracks. They might say no! How embarrassing. But those feelings will only last for a few days, maybe weeks if you fixate long enough. Then you’ll get over it until the next person comes along. But what are you giving up? You could be looking at the love of your life, don’t let them get away.
Thinking about buying some investments with your savings? What happens if you lose money? Maybe it’s better to just leave it sitting in the bank account (or under the bed). But, play your cards right and you could 10x your money.
Scared of pursuing a business idea? Fear of failure rears its ugly head. What happens if you don’t succeed? Maybe you wasted some time and money. But even then, you likely learned more than you otherwise would have. On the off chance you find success? All of your dreams could come true.
If you make decisions with capped downsides and unlimited upsides, at some point one of those decisions will play out for you and it could make all the difference.
Don’t end your life regretting the actions you never took.
GIVE UP THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL?
If there’s one thing you should take away from this article, it’s that relinquishing your ‘control’ over your life is not only recommended but necessary. Life is unpredictable. Think back a year, 5 years, 10 years. How does your life look compared to what you imagined? Think of the unexpected events that changed its trajectory. How many of them did you foresee?
If you asked me even 6 months ago, I would probably have laughed if you told me I would be starting over as a blogger and coach.
There are just too many variables to account for and each of these variables can have a big impact on how things turn out (butterfly effect). Knowing this, what purpose does it serve for you to be anxious over every little thing that you can ‘imagine’ happening?
Even for the low complexity parts of your life, there are things you simply cannot account for. You can eat, sleep and train perfectly, but what happens when you tear a muscle? What happens if you fell down the stairs? Get into a car accident? All of these will give you setbacks.
Instead of spending all of your efforts trying to have absolute control over every aspect of your life, understand that the only things you can control are your actions. It’s not that you shouldn’t plan at all, but there’s a fine line between having a direction to move in and stressing so much you don’t move at all. Learn to go with the flow and embrace change. Learn how to react appropriately to unexpected events, not to predict them.
PROCESS OVER RESULTS
The general rule should be as follows. The more control you have over the results, the more result-oriented you can be.
For example, if you eat, sleep and train properly, chances are you can expect your strength to increase over time. You can use these as metrics to measure your performance.
However, if you start that YouTube channel, the quality of your work can only get you so far. There are plenty of people that are very smart, creative, and hardworking, they have the whole package and never make it big in these types of industries. So the metrics you use to measure ‘success’ should be based on the outcomes that you can personally control.
You can’t control how many views you get. Some of the variables are outside of your control. So forget about it.
You can control how many videos you produce. So maybe you measure based on quantity.
That isn’t to say you shouldn’t care about the results, after all, you want to have some form of external reward for your work. But don’t be too attached. Everyone wants to know how much other people value them. We will always rush to check the views/clicks/sales/reviews.
Just know that where ‘luck’ plays a major role, you could be waiting a long time for anything to happen. This makes it all the more important to pick things you enjoy.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
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