You buy a concert ticket for $100 but then get really sick the night before. You can’t get a refund. What do you do?

You should stay home and rest, but this is your one shot to see the band.

You might even be sick for longer, but the memories will be worth it.

And so you go.

How Valuable is Waste? #

Did you make the right decision to go? Not going to the concert would’ve felt like dropping $100 on the ground.

Who cares!

My point here is that there exists such a powerful function programmed into your brain that overrides all rationality. The innate need to avoid waste overrode all other sensibilities.¹

So instead of fighting it, let’s use it for good.

Strategic Loss Aversion #

Forming new habits requires a lot of willpower. For example, even if you know you want to become a runner, you still need to get over the hump of actually getting off the couch at an inconvenient time, to do something seemingly torturous, for nearly an hour, multiple times per week.

The only difference between that and deciding to go to the concert is putting down money first.

It takes a lot less willpower to buy and book a 5-pack of workout classes from the safety of your computer. When the time rolls around to go to the class, that part of your brain that forced you to go to the concert will activate.

What Works #

For me, this has worked best with a single, premium purchase.

After starting and losing my journaling habit many times, what made it eventually stick was buying a titanium machined pen² that is as much of a work of art as it is a writing instrument. I’m drawn to pick up it whenever I’m sitting at my desk.

Similarly, I had wanted to stop eating cereal or protein bars for breakfast, but nothing was beating the convenience… until I bought a Hexclad pan that lives on top of the stove. Cooking eggs for breakfast is now a daily joy.³

What Doesn’t #

I’ve had trouble sticking to a regular meditation practice despite having a Headspace subscription. It’s intangible and not expensive enough to be a forcing function, so it ends up being easy to ignore.

Conclusion #

Rather than exhausting ourselves by constantly fighting our innate psychology, we can strategically channel it. A few well-placed investments have changed my habits.

Footnotes #

¹ I’m kind of generalizing the use of “sunk cost fallacy” in this post. The examples given are actually leveraging a combination of loss aversion, the endowment effect, and commitment devices - all psychological principles that describe tendencies to value what we own and avoid waste.

² The pen in question: a Billetspin CamPen.

³ Sure, the quality of the pan removes some friction in the cooking and cleaning process, but the activity is otherwise largely the same, so I’m theorizing the habit is formed mostly due to the existence of the purchase itself rather than the experience of using it.