āYou are receiving this email because you subscribed to Ness Labs by Anne-Laure Le Cunff, a weekly newsletter to achieve more without sacrificing your mental health.
\n\n
\nWould you want to watch the same play with the same actors repeating the same lines over and over again, with just some small variations in their tone each time? Youād probably get bored pretty quickly. And yet, thatās what we often unconsciously do when making career and life decisions.
\nIf you ever applied for a job, you probably did the little retrospective dance of editing your resume so it followed a consistent narrative. When you get a job interview, you may get asked: āWhere do you see yourself in five years?ā and youāre supposed to have a coherent vision thatās aligned with your current self.
\nThis is the self-consistency fallacy at play: the misguided assumption that āI have always acted in a certain way; therefore, I must continue to act in this way.ā Itās an invisible yet powerful force that affects our path whenever we find ourselves at a crossroads.
\nWhile itās undeniable that our past influences our future, we tend to place more rigid limits on ourselves than actually exist. This phenomenon is so widespread that it has many names. Psychologists refer to it as the ācontinuation biasā, economists talk of āpath dependenceā, and philosophers might frame it as a battle against determinism. I call it the self-consistency fallacy.
\nThe self-consistency fallacy is why you may choose a new job based on your past roles and why you may stay within your field of study even when your interests have evolved. Itās also why we maintain the same roles and behaviors in our relationships, such as always being the āquiet oneā in our circle of friends even when we feel a desire to express ourselves more openly.
\nThe same goes for our health choices. You may stick to your running routine and miss out on the potential benefits of other activities like swimming, yoga, or weight training. Or you may hold onto dietary habits because itās āwhat Iāve always doneāāsuch as a meat-eater automatically disregarding plant-based diets.
\nSome of these may seem unimportant, but when you add up all of the ways the self-consistency fallacy affects your decisions, it all adds up to the equivalent of a monorail guiding the overall direction of your life. Fortunately, we donāt have to stay slaves to these mental shackles.
\nWe canāt deny that our previous choices and current beliefs form an important part of our identity, but they should not become an artificial boundary that guides our choices.
\nAs John Maynard Keynes puts it: āThe difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.ā You are a dynamic being capable of change and growth. You are a verb, not a noun. When exploring potential paths forward, you can ask yourself the following questions to let go of preconceived expectations and allow yourself to expand your horizons beyond who you have been so far:
\nThe role of these questions is not to make you abandon your current path. Rather, itās to make you more open to opportunities that are not obviously aligned with your present priorities: the āweirdā projects that pique your curiosity, the fun ideas that present no clear professional benefits, the collaboration with a long-time friend that has nothing to do with your career.
\nāWe donāt know what we donāt know, so it is often from those tangents that arise the best opportunities for learning and growth. The stories we will share in the future may be squiggly, and strange, but at least they wonāt be boring.
\n⢠Meco is a distraction-free space for reading newsletters outside the inbox. The app is completely free and packed with features designed to supercharge your learnings from your favourite writers. Become a more productive reader and cut out the noise with Meco today. Try Meco.
\n⢠Circle is the all-in-one community platform for creators and brands to bring together engaging discussions, members, live streams, chat, events, and memberships. Try Circle.
\nLots of amazing events happening soon in the community:
⢠Creative Purpose Workshop: Your Childhood Creativity hosted by Mariela (Fri, Jun 2 2023)
⢠Our Relationship to Ambition hosted by Gosia (Mon, Jun 5 2023)
⢠Workshop: Flipping Self-Development on its Head hosted by Anita (Fri, Jun 9 2023)
⢠Rethinking Change: How to Own Change in your Life hosted by Eleanor (Mon, Jun 19 2023)
⢠Two co-working sessions covering all timezones so you can make progress on your projects, hosted by Lukas and Javier
All of these and future workshops are included in the price of the membership ($49 per year), as well as access to the recordings of all our previous sessions and past cohort-based courses.
\n\nIf you enjoyed this edition, please share the love with fellow curious minds on Twitter or Whatsapp, or simply forward them this email.
\nUntil next week, take care!
\nP.S. Don't forget to send me a picture of your Plus Minus Next if you use it regularly :)
\nEdition #191 ā June 1st, 2023
āYou are receiving this email because you subscribed to Ness Labs by Anne-Laure Le Cunff, a weekly newsletter to achieve more without sacrificing your mental health.
Would you want to watch the same play with the same actors repeating the same lines over and over again, with just some small variations in their tone each time? Youād probably get bored pretty quickly. And yet, thatās what we often unconsciously do when making career and life decisions.
If you ever applied for a job, you probably did the little retrospective dance of editing your resume so it followed a consistent narrative. When you get a job interview, you may get asked: āWhere do you see yourself in five years?ā and youāre supposed to have a coherent vision thatās aligned with your current self.
This is the self-consistency fallacy at play: the misguided assumption that āI have always acted in a certain way; therefore, I must continue to act in this way.ā Itās an invisible yet powerful force that affects our path whenever we find ourselves at a crossroads.
While itās undeniable that our past influences our future, we tend to place more rigid limits on ourselves than actually exist. This phenomenon is so widespread that it has many names. Psychologists refer to it as the ācontinuation biasā, economists talk of āpath dependenceā, and philosophers might frame it as a battle against determinism. I call it the self-consistency fallacy.
The self-consistency fallacy is why you may choose a new job based on your past roles and why you may stay within your field of study even when your interests have evolved. Itās also why we maintain the same roles and behaviors in our relationships, such as always being the āquiet oneā in our circle of friends even when we feel a desire to express ourselves more openly.
The same goes for our health choices. You may stick to your running routine and miss out on the potential benefits of other activities like swimming, yoga, or weight training. Or you may hold onto dietary habits because itās āwhat Iāve always doneāāsuch as a meat-eater automatically disregarding plant-based diets.
Some of these may seem unimportant, but when you add up all of the ways the self-consistency fallacy affects your decisions, it all adds up to the equivalent of a monorail guiding the overall direction of your life. Fortunately, we donāt have to stay slaves to these mental shackles.
We canāt deny that our previous choices and current beliefs form an important part of our identity, but they should not become an artificial boundary that guides our choices.
As John Maynard Keynes puts it: āThe difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.ā You are a dynamic being capable of change and growth. You are a verb, not a noun. When exploring potential paths forward, you can ask yourself the following questions to let go of preconceived expectations and allow yourself to expand your horizons beyond who you have been so far:
The role of these questions is not to make you abandon your current path. Rather, itās to make you more open to opportunities that are not obviously aligned with your present priorities: the āweirdā projects that pique your curiosity, the fun ideas that present no clear professional benefits, the collaboration with a long-time friend that has nothing to do with your career.
āWe donāt know what we donāt know, so it is often from those tangents that arise the best opportunities for learning and growth. The stories we will share in the future may be squiggly, and strange, but at least they wonāt be boring.
⢠Meco is a distraction-free space for reading newsletters outside the inbox. The app is completely free and packed with features designed to supercharge your learnings from your favourite writers. Become a more productive reader and cut out the noise with Meco today. Try Meco.
⢠Circle is the all-in-one community platform for creators and brands to bring together engaging discussions, members, live streams, chat, events, and memberships. Try Circle.
Lots of amazing events happening soon in the community:
⢠Creative Purpose Workshop: Your Childhood Creativity hosted by Mariela (Fri, Jun 2 2023)
⢠Our Relationship to Ambition hosted by Gosia (Mon, Jun 5 2023)
⢠Workshop: Flipping Self-Development on its Head hosted by Anita (Fri, Jun 9 2023)
⢠Rethinking Change: How to Own Change in your Life hosted by Eleanor (Mon, Jun 19 2023)
⢠Two co-working sessions covering all timezones so you can make progress on your projects, hosted by Lukas and Javier
All of these and future workshops are included in the price of the membership ($49 per year), as well as access to the recordings of all our previous sessions and past cohort-based courses.
If you enjoyed this edition, please share the love with fellow curious minds on Twitter or Whatsapp, or simply forward them this email.
Until next week, take care!
P.S. Don't forget to send me a picture of your Plus Minus Next if you use it regularly :)
A weekly newsletter with science-based insights on creativity, mindful productivity, better thinking and lifelong learning.
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