what do you need to lose, to win?
don't worry you're just in your matt healey era.
Recently, I lost something that I had poured a lot of effort into, and I was beating myself up over it. Maybe you’re in the thick of it too. Perhaps it’s a relationship, or a job that didn’t pan out the way you thought it would, and you’re blaming yourself too.
But I had a shocking epiphany mid-mopping session: Taylor Swift had to lose Matt Healy in order to find Travis Kelce. EVEN OUR LORD SAVIOR TAYLOR SWIFT HAD TO LOSE SO THAT SHE COULD WIN. And in fact she wouldn’t have been able to get what she deserved unless she forfeited what wasn’t worthy of her. So if this resonates, take this as your sign not to worry. You haven’t screwed up anything, you’re just in your Matt Healy era. Take a deep breath. There’s no need to resist or even analyze it. In fact, embracing the unexpected direction that’s pulling you towards the unknown, only means that your allegorical Travis Kelce can finally be on his way.
But while reframing loss, as a triumph in disguise is valuable, it’s also laborious. We don’t always get excited about new beginnings because our brains are primed to pay attention to loss. This unfortunate human phenomenon is caused by negativity bias and loss aversion. It’s our tendency to assign greater importance to something being taken away from us, than something that we already have. It’s why we rarely hear about someone dwelling on what’s going right with their life. The negative sticks with us more, unless we deliberately create strategies for it not to be so.
That’s why I’m a big fan of overthinking our wins. When we work hard towards a goal, we often imagine the gratification that we will feel once we finally get it. But often, what ends up happening is that we get the thing, and then we quickly adjust to our baseline and move the goal post.
But what if you savored your success on purpose? Devoting a few minutes every day to focus on what’s going right in your life can be a great way to ensure that you’re not falling prey to your own cognitive biases. In order for you to survive, your brain lies to you A LOT. So don’t believe everything it tells you.
An effective exercise to help you relish in your ingenuity is to use Adam Grant’s time machine trick where he recommends reconnecting with your former self to recall how a previous version of you would react to your life now. In one of his newsletters, he described the process as going back five years to assess his present life.
“I started using an amazing time machine called the human brain. We have a remarkable capacity for mental time travel—to imagine the thoughts and feelings of our past selves. I turned the dial back five years. If I had known then that I would write a second book, would I have been happy? No, I would've been delirious. So get acquainted with your former self. Compare your current accomplishments to your past expectations. And for a few minutes, before you're jolted back to the present, you'll feel content. Maybe even proud.”
And if you’re stuck in a rut, just remember that Taylor Swift (and most of the people that you admire) get stuck in them too. Heck, they might be in one as we speak too. I don’t know what just ended for you, but what I do know is that it means that something new is about to begin. Your next era is still unwritten, and how glorious is that?
Before I go, I wanted to remind you that our next sharing circle will be taking place this SUNDAY at 9AMPT/12ET. Thank you to all the stunning souls who showed up last weekend. As anyone who was in the room can attest, our first time gathering was pretty freaking magical, which makes me even more giddy for what’s to come. If we nailed it on the first try, imagine how good this can get! You must to be a paid subscriber to get access to the link every week so please remember to subscribe now so that you don’t miss out. Your subscription helps me pay our monthly rent for zoom, and cover the cost of the overhead it takes to run our sharing circles. I greatly appreciate you support. I tell you all the time, but this community truly wouldn’t exist without you. Thanks so much for being here.
x
Liz
Wow, this feels like divine timing -- I guess the universe knew I needed this. I just got back home from what I'm referring to as a "breakup breakfast" with my husband, as we finally landed on the decision to get divorced after 15 years together and 12 years of marriage. Love your work, and love (and hate) when it hits so close to home.
during the recruiting process i reframed rejection as a finite number of rejections/no/ghosting before i found the right one - just because i didn’t know in that present moment how many applications it would take for the right opportunity, didn’t mean the nos weren’t serving me!