When you listlessly browse online, are you drawn to lists of purported “life hacks?” Are you saving them up to share at all those parties you will attend once we’re out of this pandemic? (Unless you’re one of THOSE people still attending parties and ruining it for the rest of us.)
Without trying to sound too much like Morpheus from The Matrix, what if I told you there is another way?
Let’s explore optimization versus transformation!
This post relies heavily on an analogy to one of my favorite childhood cartoons and toy-lines (is that a word?) growing up: Transformers. For those who lived deprived childhoods, Transformers were sentient robots who could transform from their standard humanoid appearances into objects, mainly vehicles.
It sounds silly as I type it out, but they were pretty awesome in their day. I mean before someone handed over the creative reins to the likes of Michael Bay and Mark Wahlberg (sigh).
Note: This post will refer to certain people as Transformers which will not be italicized, while references to the aforementioned robot Transformers will be.
Life Hacking?
The term life hack was coined in 2004, and since then has become standard fare in our vernacular. Surfing the web, you can find countless sites touting compilations of hacks, from how to actually roll up a MacBook charger to cooling a room temp bottle of anything in minutes (I don’t recall the former, but I remember the latter!).
Many people—let’s call them Optimizers—chase these hacks, cobbling together these often quirky improvements in areas of their lives not particularly in need of improvement.
Or Life Slacking?
I find these hacks are frequently solutions to problems I didn’t know I had…because they’re not actually meaningful problems.
Moreover, these benefits are in the margins or so on the fringe that they don’t really move the needle in our lives much at all.
These in and of themselves are not my main issue with Optimizers. After all, I believe in the aggregation of small gains as I touched upon in All That Effort for…Nothing? Albeit gains in things we actually mean to strive for.
No, my contention with Optimizers is this: they focus so much on optimizing that they miss the power of true change.
How do I know this? I am a recovering optimizer. (Gasp!)
Hold On, It's Still Buffering
Personally, the appeal of life hacks is the quick win nature of it. Most are simple and easy to implement. This feeds into our brain’s dopamine reward pathway and makes us feel good. After all, we are making progress in some form, no?
Not really. This is a form of buffering, or using external things to change how we feel emotionally as a way to avoid something uncomfortable. Buffering serves as a placeholder. It fills a space with something “active” that results in pleasure, even if we are not moving closer towards the actual goals in our lives. It’s sneaky deception.
So what is the true change to which I referred earlier?
Ooh Ooh, Let Me Guess!
Transformation.
If this were a typical blog post, I’d share the definition of transformation. Lucky for you, this is a typical blog post, so here goes:
Transformation – a thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance.
This is the definition that our Google overlords offer directly in the search results. It is attributed to Oxford Languages. (Honestly, I was too lazy to click on any links).
A Pause for Nerding Out
To continue the Transformers analogy, Optimizers are like Decepticons (the bad guys) and my Transformers are like Autobots (the good guys). The comparison of Decepticons with Optimizers is apropos since you can view optimizing as self-deception, as I suggested above.
I can’t offer a similar comparison for my Transformers and the Autobots, unless I say that like the Autobots my Transformers are in a life and death battle to save planet earth! That sounds a little dramatic for my taste, but maybe there’s a hint of truth to it…. Just kidding.
And Now Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Broadcast:
I like to look at transformation through the lens of evolution.
We often think of evolution as a slow process, and it often is. For example, in a living organism, changes often occur as the result of random mutations of which the more favorable are selected for based on environmental pressures.
Over generations, these mutations add up to alter a genotype (the genetic composition) enough to meaningfully alter the phenotype (the physical manifestation of the genotype) to be better suited to the environment. This happens at glacial pace.
Wait For It. Wait For It....GO!
But evolution can also be a (relatively) rapid phenomenon. Maybe not as fast as engineered in the movie Prometheus (I spared you all gifs from that movie since they’re fairly grotesque—you’re welcome), but still fast enough.
One evolutionary biology theory called “punctuated equilibrium” posits that extended periods of little or no change are interrupted (punctuated) by episodes of very rapid development. There is fossil evidence involving trilobites and snails that demonstrate such an evolution process [see the prior link].
I find it helpful to consider the example of a small population facing a new environment. In such a scenario (climate change, anyone?), the rate of evolution will be high as members of the population adapt or perish. Survivors go on to continue adapting until finally adequately suited to the environment at which time environmental pressures abate. (Or they all perish, I guess…climate change, anyone?).
This car evolved during a traffic jam! Most impressive!
Market Microcosm of Evolution
The stock market offers a parallel to all of this evolution talk. If you look at the intra-day changes of a given index fund, for example, it will fluctuate wildly.
Now zoom out and look at the same fund from the perspective of a week and the price starts to smooth out and appear more stable. Zoom out yet further to a year and it generally appears very stable. Unless it’s 2020.
The stock market also offers an example of punctuated equilibrium. The market tends to trend up over time interrupted by periodic drawdowns (see 2000, 2008, & 2020 for impressive examples).
Your Comfort Zone = Your Environmental Pressures
I want to go back to my example of a small population facing a new environment leading to a high rate of evolutionary changes. This is akin to stepping out of your comfort zone—forcible changing the environmental pressures around you to force yourself to develop and grow. This is where transformation occurs.
Oops, not what I was going for.
No, that’s definitely not it!
Ahh, there we go.
Get out there. Get out of your comfort zone. Reshape your environment to challenge your evolution. And, for goodness’ sake, stop looking up life hacks and dabbling in optimization. Instead, focus on transformation.
For those staunch Optimizers unwilling to part with their ways, I have a life hack for you: transformation! A little too heavy-handed? Fine….
Honestly, I am not opposed to optimization as long as you 1) understand that optimization occurs at the margins, and, 2) continue to work on transformation!
Modifying the infamous words of the wise (though also often naïve) and immortal (literally, he and his nemesis Megatron have died countless times over) leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime: Transformers, roll out!
I hope you found this post insightful and maybe even got a chuckle out of it. If you’re so inclined, let me know your thoughts below in the comments section.
If I piqued your interest but you’re not sure where to begin, look into coaching resources like the Life Coach School Podcast. You can also reach out and ask me! You could even enlist the help of a life coach such as myself. Click here to book a free consult call to see how professional coaching can help you!
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