Why Is Success Easier For Others?
Other people seem to have advantages that help them to stand out while we have more difficulties even though we are competing in the same terrain. Is this always true?
Have you ever had moments where you felt like things were incredibly easier for others but really difficult for you? Yeah, me too.
Have you ever successfully done something and felt you had to go through more pain than is necessary (and than other people) before you got the thing done? Yeah, me too.
And you are not alone in this line of thinking.
In a context that is perhaps more familiar to a lot of millennials/Gen-Z Africans (Nigerians, anyway), have your parents ever told you how difficult it was for them to go to school? The long distances they walked? The hardships they encountered as they slowly built their way to the top?
Question: if everyone (and their parents) had everything happen to them under difficult circumstances, whose children (and parents) then do we typically use as examples of a softer, easier, and more enjoyable life than our own?
Why do we always have these kinds of people as points of reference at every bend of our lives? Why do we always seem to face more difficulties than ease than these other people?
The simple answer is ‘bias’. But there is a bigger reason.
Headwinds/Tailwinds Asymmetry
In the new footballing world of Video Assistant Referee (VAR), football fans —especially among top clubs— on a weekly basis have one or two major moments where they believe their teams should have won if not for a VAR decision.
You will see rival fans rename a club; Barcelona becomes VARcelona, Real Madrid is VARdrid/R VARdrid, Liverpool becomes LiVARpool, and so on, based on VAR decisions. If you ever have the patience to go back to the games where fans have complained the most about referee unfairness, you will realise that typically, those referee errors happen to both sides, or that the side suffering from ref-VAR incompetence had also had a silly decision overlooked for them previously.
This looking back and seeing them differently is typically associated with hindsight bias. But have you heard about Headwinds/Tailwinds Asymmetry?
Shai Davidai and Tom Gilovich coined the term when they explained that obstacles tend to stand out in our minds than benefits. We are more likely to remember all the things that worked against us than the things that worked in our favour.
Matt Coleman, psychology buff, explains further that “akin to riding a bike, we are often unable to ignore a gust of wind blowing in our face slowing us down (i.e., headwinds), while hardly acknowledging when the wind is blowing at our back propelling us forward (i.e., tailwinds).”
When we use this frame to examine other people’s successes, we tend to see their benefits and ease and not their difficulties. In fact, when we spot those difficulties in others, we have a tendency to list them as a privilege/benefit.
This is why you may lose out on an application and your response will be that someone had it easier because they followed a system, or because they knew someone, or they were favoured for their looks. Considering how expansive biases are, some of these things might be true. We do know that people can be favoured for looks. But sometimes, we are only sh*tposting our mind to detract ourselves from our individual lack of tact, or skill, instead of seeking ways to improve.
Overcoming
The typical recommendations are to acknowledge our difference and uniqueness and to work with what we have. But in times of great discomfort, we often forget the privileges of our lives. Sometimes when we remember, it is to suppress actual genuine concerns that we may be feeling.
Matt Coleman also recommends that “First, we can leverage this knowledge of the asymmetry by intentionally taking stock of our tailwinds (“the benefits”) and foster gratitude for them, a practice which has been found to have a host of psychological benefits. Doing so may in turn help our social relationships by minimising feelings of resentment towards others who we may feel have it easier than us.
“Second, we can use this knowledge to improve our humility. By appreciating the factors over which we have had little control but benefited from (e.g., technological advancement, aspects of our physical health, educational opportunities, etc.), we can better recognize that our personal successes are a result of collective influences. Moreover, this humbling insight may inspire us to pay it forward, where our positive impact can become someone else’s tailwinds down the road.”
On a final note, it is a gruelling world and one of our coping mechanisms is absconding from responsibilities that we believe reduces our perfect stories. But it is to our ‘ease’ that we acknowledge and utilise our benefits so that they may make our difficulties easier too.
TEA
I know what you’re thinking; why the h*ck is NAN coming on a Tuesday morning? Is this the end of the world? The long explanation will have me focusing on my headwinds and less on my tailwinds. So, today, I will say instead that I am grateful to be healthier, have a saner mind, a clearer headspace now than I did two nights ago, or even yesterday morning.
I hope that in the future, #NAN will not miss a typical #NANDay.
Meanwhile, thank you for sharing your thoughts on the #NANfit:
We are currently trying to produce more samples that will be given to some top #NAN supporters. When we have standardised our fit, we will discuss distribution for everyone who wants one. And oh, each person’s #NANfit will have unique customisations.
How this will happen is a secret I am keeping close to my heart for now.
BABA how body? I dey expect my NAN fit o😂👊🏽