Let me start by defining two terms that represent different states of mind:
Flow: the feeling that you have a clear path toward your objective.
Gridlock: the feeling that you cannot take any positive steps toward an objective because multiple factors prevent each other from resolution.
Note that I am defining these as states of mind, not as aspects of physical reality. Certainly the feeling of gridlock might indicate some kind of physical obstacles, but for the purposes of this post I am more interested in the feeling itself. For example, recently I have been contemplating a big change in my life. It is a complicated thing that involves many moving parts and complications.
Sometimes I wish I could just force it to happen — that I could cut the Gordian Knot, so to speak.
So why don’t I?
Well, here’s where I want to make a somewhat counter-intuitive claim:
You need to respect psychological gridlock
In other words, when you feel gridlock, don’t act. Gridlock is your subconscious mind’s way of telling you that there are no good opportunities for action. If you do not trust your gut feeling you will end up acting in a way that is counterproductive.
Most people that talk about gridlock and flow often fall into the trap of encouraging us to always seek the flow state. But I want to focus this post on appreciating gridlock.
This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pursue goals. But we should distinguish between the preparation phase and the action phase. When you feel gridlock, it is an indicator that you should remain in the preparation phase. It doesn’t mean you should abandon your goal — if you don’t have a vision, you are more likely to miss opportunities when they come. But if the opportunities aren’t there, don’t take them.
Know when to tread water
My brother Richard came up with an analogy that I really like: surfing. When we think of surfing, most people think of this:
But before you can do that, you need to do this:
That is, you need to swim out into the ocean, tread water and watch for a wave.
If you want to catch a wave, you need to be able to distinguish between when the wave is coming, and when it is not. If you ignore the water and just try to get up on the board because you are bored or anxious, you will probably miss your opportunity.
Gridlock is your mind telling you to tread water. But when you are treading water you need to have your eyes open.
Type I and type II errors
In statistics there are two well known types of errors. A type I error is a “false positive”: thinking that something exists when it doesn’t. A type II error is a “false negative”: thinking something doesn’t exist when it actually does.
Being uncomfortable with gridlock can cause both of these errors. For our purposes, the thing that either exists or not is an opportunity to make progress toward a goal. We don’t want to miss opportunities.
It should be pretty obvious that being uncomfortable with the absence of opportunity (i.e., gridlock) can cause type I errors. If we are desperate for opportunities we will see them whether they exist or not. Or at least we will agonize over whether we see them or not.
But I would argue that being uncomfortable with gridlock can also cause type II errors. The main way that this happens is that we have limited attention. If we trust our sense of gridlock, we can avoid focusing for too long on false opportunities. If we are focused on an “opportunity” that doesn’t really exist, we will miss the ones that do.
The Good Salesman
There are few things more important for a business than a good salesman. And what makes a good salesman? I remember once hearing (on NPR, I think) about research showing that the best salesmen are always overconfident about their chances of success.
This is evidence against my model. I should make that clear. What I am saying is that you should trust your gut about when opportunities exist and when they don’t. One alternative model is to try and manipulate ourselves into feeling a sense of flow. This can be called the Tony Robbins model.
I claim the Tony Robbins model is wrong. I think our society is dominated by this pervasive sense that we should all adopt a Growth Mindset by taking risks and learning from them (except when it comes to ending the lockdown).
So how do I refute evidence that confident salesmen do better than timid ones? Are people more prone to type I errors, so they should suppress their sense of risk to take advantage of opportunities that are all around them?
My answer is that life is not like sales. Many salesman are in very strange circumstances where they are repeatedly put in situations where there is an opportunity to make a sale, and very little risk of losing a meaningful long-term relationship. This is not normal.
Most of life is more complicated than that. All a salesman really has to lose is time, and they are going to lose that anyway. But most of us have a lot to lose. If we put ourselves in these artificial circumstances where there are only opportunities, and no costs, our intuition is likely to get in the way because our gut feelings evolved under more complicated circumstances.
That is, our subconscious is good at doing a cost-benefit analysis in normal circumstances that involve both costs and benefits. If we remove one side of the equation, our intuition will be out of whack.
Now, you could argue that our whole society consists of a series of interconnected unnatural circumstances. I think there is some truth to that. This is one of the reasons I advocate building smaller, more manageable “tribes” or communities with deeper interconnections. I don’t think humans are really suited to being individual nodes in a global economy.
So my strategy of trusting your instincts should be considered in the context of a lifestyle where we are striving to develop communities of people in committed, long term relationships. If your interactions with other people look more like those of a door-to-door salesman, you might be better off ignoring your instincts.
