What are you thinking about?

The focusing illusion

His work changed how we think about thinking. Daniel Kahneman, one of the greatest minds in psychology, passed away yesterday. Before he published the book Thinking, Fast and Slow in 2011, discussions about human behavior, decision-making, and cognitive biases were limited to psychology classrooms and academic papers. Today's edition of 10x your mind is all about focusing illusion, a mental rule he developed.

Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you're thinking about it. — Good to go on a fortune cookie, Daniel Kahneman developed this mental rule.

When you think about something, you make it important. So just by thinking a lot about something, we exaggerate its importance. 🤔 ⏫

• I'll be happier if I get my dream job.

• I'll be happier if I move to another country.

• I'll be happier if I get X number of subscribers.

Of course, you’d be thrilled to get $$$ in your bank account, move to a bigger house, or buy a better car. But the excitement will be short-lived.

Why?

People confuse life satisfaction with happiness.

What is life satisfaction? We set goals for ourselves (like the list above).

We feel dissatisfied if we are unable to fulfill those goals. We feel satisfied when we fulfill those goals.

Let’s say when you were 18, you told yourself that you want to be earning $200,000 a year by the time you're 40.

When you turn 40, if you start minting $200,000, you’ll be satisfied. If you don’t, you won’t be satisfied.

But happiness doesn’t depend on whether you are satisfied or not.

So what does happiness depend on?

Social life and health – those are the biggies for happiness. Sure, money helps, but once you're comfortable, it might not be the happiness booster it seems.

Where does thinking come in all of this?

When we think about how our life could be different if we took that job or married (or not married) someone, we exaggerate the importance of taking that job or marrying (or not marrying) that someone.

We start to think, I’d have been happier if I took that job or if I invested there.

In thinking so, we ignore the other factors that play a major role in our life today.

You’re happy because you have a loving family, not because you work for a big company or because you live in a developed country.

Through thinking, we create our reasons for being unhappy or happy.

How to break free from the focusing illusion?

Most of us assume that this rule doesn’t apply to us — I know I’ll be happier for sure if I get that 30% raise. 🤑

The first step in breaking free from focusing illusion is to accept that it applies to us.

The second step is to employ slow thinking.

Most of our thinking is fast. We see someone for the first time and already start assuming things about them based on how they look, what are they wearing, their facial expressions, etc.

Our brain wants to conserve energy and as a result, we tend to rush to conclusions.

Slow thinking is deliberate. You need to take a step back and ask yourself, does my happiness depend on this one thing bothering me? What are the other things that are truly important in my life?

Expressing gratitude for the important aspects of life – relationships, health, experiences – helps us zoom out and prevents happiness from being tied to one achievement. 🙏😇

Just by thinking about something, we make it important.

Question for you:

What is the first thing you want to think about when you wake up?