daniel kahneman, one of the best behavioral psychologists of the 20th century with the nobel prize in economics won in 2002, said this was the best idea he’s ever heard. it was from lewin, one of the first psychologists to actually explore how people live in the real world, not just from a separated academic research. the idea is:

there is more opportunity in cultivating human potential in removing blockers than adding more force to a situation.

let me explain.

let’s say there’s a kid who doesn’t clean their room. like ever. laundry on the floor. moldy leftovers growing specimens that are better than their science fair experiment. dirt in random places that would even make pigpen from charlie brown feel uncomfortable.

a common reaction to this situation from supportive parents is getting frustrated. frustration can lead to yelling at that kid. that’s an additive force to the situation trying to drive a change in behavior.

imagine the situation as a two point spring. the yelling is adding a driving force (left side), the spring is the kid, and the intended end point of a clean room is a change in position for the end of the spring (right side).

by adding in yelling as an input to the situation, the spring tightens up against it’s current endpoint, blocking it from shifting direction.

with enough force, the end point may temporarily shift over to clean room, but remove the added pressure from yelling, and equilibrium will be a messy room.

a different way to look at this situation is to understand what’s blocking the kid from cleaning their room in the first place. usually, this is harder to identify because blocking forces can be below the surface of any situation. the messy room is a symptom not the root cause.

to get to the root cause of the blocker usually 3-5 “whys” do the trick.

in this scenario asking why could look something like this:

there’s a messy room.

why a messy room?

because no time.

why no time?

because of a dozen extracurriculars.

why so many?

because of pressure of keeping up in college apps.

why is that important?

society presents college as the life or death situation for future opportunity. even spiderman no way home seemed like one big advocate for this societal myth. yet, i digress.

and so, by asking why the messy room, it’s really not about the surface level symptom, but the underlying blocker. the pressure to get into the perfect school leads to too many extracurriculars which leads to that kid being too exhausted and stressed to clean their room.

rather than add more stress to the system, removing the right blocking force can lead to change.

so then, it’s about being honest about why so many extracurriculars:

• piano? if the only reason to continue piano is because of 10 years of prior lessons and there’s no personal enjoyment or future goals of continuing performing, then it’s time for a switch up. life is too short for pursuits that don’t make sense.
• volleyball? if not applying to a d1 school or there is no intentional of going pro, maybe practice 15 hours a week doesn’t make sense. play once every two weeks at the park with friends. reduce the time and commitment by 80% but bump enjoyment of the sport.
• five ap classes. is that really important? in the age of ai, spend more time working on projects and building skills than taking outdated tests for out dated assessments.

having kids spend time on things they don’t particularly like doing with people they don’t particularly like to get into a school they may not particularly enjoy is a weird game to play. a bit of intentionality can go a long way for finding what makes sense in a situation and removing what doesn’t.

the above helps with one angle of lowering the impact of the blocking force by tactically simplifying commitments. another way to remove the blocking force is to challenge the conventional wisdom that over emphasises college in the first place.