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Sometimes the things we want are in conflict, and we apparently have to choose.
??A picture, which shows an archetypical example of that pattern
Longer paragraphs discussing the problem.
Sometimes we find ourselves facing apparently zero-sum conflict between two (or more) things that we want. For example, imagine that you are sitting at home at the end of a long, hard week, preparing to make plans for the evening. One of your friends is throwing a party, and has urged you to come. At the same time, there are delicious leftovers in the fridge and a movie you’ve been hoping to watch, and you’re feeling pretty lethargic.
When making this sort of decision, most people do some form of weighing—whether explicitly, with System 2, or viscerally/intuitively, with System 1—comparing the pros and cons of each option and selecting the one with the highest net “goodness.” You may consider things like who is likely to be at the party, or whether your friend would be offended if you didn’t show up; you may do some internal measuring of your energy levels, to see if you’re in dire need of some rest and relaxation. The decision might come from balancing a bunch of little things, or be based on one crucial factor.
Most people end up picking one or the other—we either go out, or stay in. Occasionally, we might come up with a sort of compromise option—such as going to the party for half an hour and then coming back home—but we rarely reach outside of the A, B, or A&B framework. The goal factoring technique asks that we approach these sorts of problems a little differently. Instead of simply comparing one choice to another, goal factoring encourages us to adopt a “third path” mentality—to assume, for the sake of argument, that there might be a way to get everything we want, and achieve all of the good with none of the bad.
Sometimes, of course, there is no way to get everything. Sometimes, we really are constrained, and have to make tradeoffs and compromises. But we tend to feel constrained more often than we really are, thanks to social imperatives and longstanding habits and assumed entanglements between various obligations. Often, there’s a lot of wiggle room that we aren’t aware of, especially if it’s been a while since we stepped back and took a fresh look from a broader perspective.
To uncover this wiggle room, the Goal Factoring technique asks you to list out, separately, the benefits or goals that contribute to making a solution or plan attractive. Then do the same for the costs or detractors from that plan. For example, if two people both reach for the last orange at the farmer's market, they might assume that they're in a zero-sum conflict. But if they each explain what the orange is for, it might turn out that one wants to eat the orange, and so is interested in the pulpy flesh, and the other wants to make mulled wine, and so is interested in the peel. In that case, it's possible for both parties to get all of what they want—and they can only see such solutions after they've factored out their goals.
Goal factoring algorithm: 1. Choose an action
- Something you already do, or are considering starting
- Something that happens frequently, or is costly in other ways
- Something that seems like it could be optimized, or that you aren’t really sure why you’re doing in the first place
2. Prepare to accept all worlds
- Try to release any hesitation you might have about achieving victory without doing the action itself. Remember that if you do encounter hesitation, it can be used to uncover an unacknowledged hidden goal of the action, which you can address separately.
- Remind yourself that you are interested in the true best answer, whatever it may happen to be.
- Remember that you are not committing yourself to doing something that “feels wrong.” If all of the answers you come up with feel wrong, you simply won’t do any of them—don’t let that stop you from running the search properly in the first place.
3. Factor the action out into goals
- Remember that there is a difference between wanting to do/be X, and wanting to appear to do/be X, and write down the one you actually want.
- Don’t forget about goals pertaining to things like social standing, interpersonal connection, and your own sense of self.
- Query your System 1 (e.g. with a button test) to confirm that you haven’t missed anything important.
4. Brainstorm possible replacement actions
- Focus on your goals one at a time (i.e. don’t expect yourself to come up with a complete strategy in one step).
- After you have finished brainstorming for all goals, look for ways to combine them, whether through a single streamlined plan or through a combination of lots of little plans.
5. Reality check
- Vividly imagine instituting your new plan. Are you satisfied? Do you notice unmet goals that need to be addressed?
- Run the Murphyjitsu algorithm or some other similar process. Do you expect you will actually follow your new plan? Which parts of it seem unpleasant, aversive, duty-flavored, or otherwise hard to motivate yourself to do? What revisions can you put into place to improve the odds of success?
Therefore:
Factor your desires into the goals and costs that motivate them in order to see if there are more efficient ways to get more of what you actually care about.
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