Welcome back to the newsletter. You’ll notice some changes to the format. The Substack analytics tell me that less than 20% of people who read these emails click on any of the links, so I’m dropping the “Quick Links” section. It takes me a disproportionate amount of time to write those little blurbs about the links, so instead I’m just going to focus on one major topic with each post. There will still be links to other resources though; they will just be more closely related to the topic that I’m discussing. Same goes for the “Quote Out of Context” section.
Reflecting on my strengths and weaknesses in writing, and creative expression in general, I’ve realized that I waste a lot of time and effort on trying to create these complex structural organizations. Not that the previous newsletters were necessarily complex, just that I tend to give too much weight to the contextual categorizations when I should be focusing more on the actual content.
So now I’m not sure what actually distinguishes these newsletter emails from regular blog posts, but it probably doesn’t matter. I just want to share valuable insights with people so we can all make better decisions and live better lives.
With that, let’s dive into this week’s mental model.
Feedback Loops
Positive feedback loops are the mechanism underlying the best, and the worst, of all of us. People who are extremely disciplined have learned to tap into the power of positive feedback loops, allowing them to turn difficult and uncomfortable tasks into automatic behaviors. Those of us who fall into the quicksand of poor habits are unknowingly being pulled down by the action of positive feedback loops as well.
Definitions
Before we explore specific examples and applications of positive feedback loops, first I need to clear up some of the terminology. There are 3 major terms that are often confused with each other:
Positive feedback loops
Negative feedback loops
Vicious circles
A positive feedback loop describes an interaction in which more of A produces more of B, and more of B produces more of A. This model is used to describe a variety of physical phenomenon studied in sciences such as chemistry, biology, and ecology.
Here’s the example from the wikipedia page on positive feedback loops:
For some reason I find this to be a bit humorous.
A negative feedback loop describes an interaction in which more of A produces less of B. These types of feedback loops are particularly relevant in engineering applications where the goal is to keep certain variables within pre-set conditions. It is also one of the primary mechanisms for homeostasis, and is also seen in ecological systems as well.
A vicious circle is a term that is used to describe a positive feedback loop that has negative or undesirable consequences. Most forms of addiction would be considered a vicious circle, but it can also take the form of more mundane things like over-sleeping.
*Note that the terms positive feedback loop and negative feedback loop do not technically have anything to do with a positive or negative outcome. They describe different types of systems in which the variables have different effects on each other.
If the distinction is still unclear and you’d like more specific examples of both positive and negative feedback loops, check out this short article that explains 15 feedback loops involved in climate change: https://earthhow.com/climate-feedback-loops/
For the rest of this newsletter, assume that the term '“feedback loop” is referring to positive feedback loops.
Applications
When it comes to personal behavior change and habit formation, feedback loops often lead to automaticity (good) or dependency (usually not good). So it’s vital that we learn to recognize where these feedback loops are occurring in our lives and use them to build a lifestyle that we desire.
“Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”
- Warren Buffet
^ That’s profound, isn’t it? I love a good metaphor.
If you haven’t realized it yet, your habits make up the majority of your life. We don’t really make that many conscious decisions each day. It’s always easier to keep a habit going than it is to break it or start a new one. All of our behaviors come with a kind of inertia.
In certain types of systems, positive feedback loops lead to divergence from stable conditions (like the cattle stampede example in the picture above). If we’re talking about lifestyle habits, this isn’t always a real possibility. If you develop a feedback loop around the habit of reading, you don’t just read exponentially more and more every day for the rest of your life. But what does happen is that these feedback loops exhibit a certain kind of “stickiness”. The habit just gets easier, and eventually it’s part of your life for good.
Here are some examples of common feedback loops, both desirable and undesirable, simplified for your convenience:
Eat healthy food, feel good, eat more healthy food.
Get 4 hours of sleep, drink 3 cups of coffee throughout the day, get 4 hours of sleep again.
Exercise, feel good, exercise again, feel good and start to look different, keep exercising.
Monday sucks, drink 2 glasses of wine at night, Tuesday morning sucks so the whole day sucks, drink 3 glasses of wine, Wednesday morning…
Meditate for 2 minutes, experience a substantial amount of stress relief, meditate again the next day.
Most feedback loops are a little more complex than a simple A/B system. I’m not necessarily invoking the Butterfly Effect here, but all of our behaviors have at least some influence on each other. It’s not too difficult to see how the 5 examples from the list above could interact with each other; not to mention various psychological factors related to self-image, self-worth, guilt, pride, etc.
Feedback loops are even present on a more subconscious level as well. Your thoughts and emotions can have a great influence on the way that you perceive the world around you, and of course your perceptions will in turn influence your thoughts and emotions.
For more on this phenomenon, you can check out this 4-minute video on the Reticular Activating System. I wanted to write more about this myself but it feels like this article is getting a bit long for an email. And I didn’t even get to talk about Nexus Causality either. I’ll save that for another time; let’s wrap things up…
If there’s one thing to take away from all this, it’s the recognition that all of our choices have far-reaching and long-lasting consequences. If you’ve been struggling with making a positive lifestyle change, it might not be as far away as you think. All it takes is one choice. And then the next time you’re faced with that choice, it becomes a little bit easier to keep going.
I’ll leave you with one more link on how to design positive feedback into your habits and routines so you can make lasting change in your life: https://zenhabits.net/positive-feedback/