HOW TO FIND A GAME WHERE THE ODDS ARE IN YOUR
FAVOR
Learning to play a game where the odds are in your favor is critical for
maintaining motivation and feeling successful. In theory, you can enjoy
almost anything. In practice, you are more likely to enjoy the things that
come easily to you. People who are talented in a particular area tend to be
more competent at that task and are then praised for doing a good job. They
stay energized because they are making progress where others have failed,
and because they get rewarded with better pay and bigger opportunities,
which not only makes them happier but also propels them to produce even
higher-quality work. It’s a virtuous cycle.
Pick the right habit and progress is easy. Pick the wrong habit and life is
a struggle.
How do you pick the right habit? The first step is something we covered
in the 3rd Law: make it easy. In many cases, when people pick the wrong
habit, it simply means they picked a habit that was too difficult. When a
habit is easy, you are more likely to be successful. When you are successful,
you are more likely to feel satisfied. However, there is another level to
consider. In the long-run, if you continue to advance and improve, any area
can become challenging. At some point, you need to make sure you’re
playing the right game for your skillset. How do you figure that out?
The most common approach is trial and error. Of course, there’s a
problem with this strategy: life is short. You don’t have time to try every
career, date every eligible bachelor, or play every musical instrument.
Thankfully, there is an effective way to manage this conundrum, and it is
known as the explore/exploit trade-off.
In the beginning of a new activity, there should be a period of
exploration. In relationships, it’s called dating. In college, it’s called the
liberal arts. In business, it’s called split testing. The goal is to try out many
possibilities, research a broad range of ideas, and cast a wide net.
After this initial period of exploration, shift your focus to the best
solution you’ve found—but keep experimenting occasionally. The proper
balance depends on whether you’re winning or losing. If you are currently
winning, you exploit, exploit, exploit. If you are currently losing, you
continue to explore, explore, explore.
In the long-run it is probably most effective to work on the strategy that
seems to deliver the best results about 80 to 90 percent of the time and keep
exploring with the remaining 10 to 20 percent. Google famously asks
employees to spend 80 percent of the workweek on their official job and 20
percent on projects of their choice, which has led to the creation of
blockbuster products like AdWords and Gmail.
The optimal approach also depends on how much time you have. If you
have a lot of time—like someone at the beginning of their career—it makes
more sense to explore because once you find the right thing, you still have a
good amount of time to exploit it. If you’re pressed for time—say, as you
come up on the deadline for a project—you should implement the best
solution you’ve found so far and get some results.
As you explore different options, there are a series of questions you can
ask yourself to continually narrow in on the habits and areas that will be
most satisfying to you:
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