"Don't Let Adaptive Bias Hinder Your Growth"

This article is Lu Canwei's 63rd original piece.

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I have always been following Teacher Liu Run's public account and community, but I have only listened to part of the "Five-Minute Business School" course from the platform. Recently, I started to fulfill the flag I set during the Spring Festival and catch up on the things I needed to complete earlier.

Today, I heard about a concept called adaptive bias, which refers to the phenomenon where people's responses to external environmental stimuli gradually weaken over time.

For example, we often hear news about people who win the lottery and then squander their winnings, ultimately ending up worse off than before. Such examples illustrate that after winning the lottery, the happiness derived from spending diminishes over time. After a while, the joy of winning the lottery fades, and large expenditures become a habit, leading to a situation where they end up with less and less money.

Another example is when we buy a new phone; during the first month, we are worried about damaging it, but after a month, we might not even care if we drop it. Adaptive bias continuously increases our desires. Many people would say that although their income was lower when they first started working, they were genuinely happier back then...

Adaptive bias is not only present in our material lives but also in our personal growth. Many people self-deprecatingly claim that their peak intelligence was when they graduated from high school.

We often say not to stay in our comfort zone and to bravely break through it to face new challenges. This is also a form of adaptive bias. For instance, when we first enter a new industry, everything is a new challenge for us. After overcoming various challenges and becoming proficient in our work, it becomes a habit, and we may stop growing.

Some people die at twenty but are buried at eighty.

Many people's life trajectories follow this pattern: they start working for a few years, get promoted and receive raises, and whenever their income increases, they upgrade their lifestyle. For example, they might move to a more comfortable place, buy better items for themselves, and later purchase a small car, which leads to monthly loan repayments, with the extra money used to improve their quality of life.

Eventually, the benefits from increased income are exhausted. Although their salary has risen compared to before, the happiness has faded, and habits become their way of life.

For us, both growth and earning money are lifelong pursuits. How can we avoid falling into adaptive bias?

Teacher Liu Run provided three methods:

1. Extend happiness. After receiving a year-end bonus, don’t buy everything in your shopping cart at once; instead, purchase items one by one, fully enjoying each before buying the next.

2. Unexpected happiness. For example, an unexpected red envelope is a great example of income that comes as a surprise.

3. Comparative happiness. For instance, if your ranking on WeChat sports varies daily, this dynamic fluctuation is hard to "adapt" to.

So how can we apply this to growth and earning money?

Taking the previous example, when we first start working, we tackle issues one by one and continuously grow. Once all issues are resolved and we become accustomed to the job, we can explore various dimensions to enhance our growth path. For instance, if I am a technical person, can I delve deeper into designing high-concurrency technical architectures, writing lower-level frameworks, and becoming a technical expert? Or can I horizontally expand from backend to frontend and mobile, learning different programming languages, AI, machine learning, etc., to become a full-stack expert? Or can I jump out of the technical field and expand into product, operations, marketing, or business?

In this way, we extend the benefits gained from our growth, and we do not merely fall into adaptive bias within our current field.

For example, I update my public account daily, and the content I produce is different each day, as is my input. This dynamic fluctuation in benefits due to comparison will never be "adapted" to.

Through continuous output and connections, I have met some amazing friends whose knowledge and perspectives sometimes enlighten me, helping me understand many things that I previously found confusing. These are unexpected gains for me.

What about earning money? How can we avoid adaptive bias in earning money? That is an assignment for everyone; feel free to leave comments with your insights.

Finally, I hope everyone can avoid falling into adaptive bias and live a life of confusion.

Recommendations:

Long-termism: Focus, persist, and think long-term.

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