Chasing Perfection is Ruining Your Life - Maximizing vs Satisficing - FutureIQ

6,824 views Wait, is this logic right? • Jan 31, 2025

Slog Reference: Maximizing vs Satisficing

Description

In this video, we discuss two types of people: maximizers and satisficers. Maximizers always try to get the very best, like the highest salary or the perfect job, but it might make them unhappy and stressed. Satisficers, on the other hand, are okay with good enough and feel happier because they don’t stress about being perfect. We’ll show you how making better choices can help you feel more satisfied with life!

More Videos For You:
Opportunity Cost: https://youtu.be/fgtiC6RkRwg
Jeff Bezos Decision Making: https://youtu.be/aQg7dAJWqyk
The Science Of Being Happy: https://youtu.be/reYUf2nkcQg
Easy Life Will Lead To Failure: https://youtu.be/2T1lADkGtZY

Hope you enjoyed FutureIQ by Navin Kabra and Shrikant Joshi. Do hit us up on Twitter:
@ngkabra http://twitter.com/ngkabra
@shrikant https://twitter.com/shrikant

Listen it on the podcast provider of your choice: https://tapthe.link/FutureIQRSS

Sources:
Find out if you're a maximizer of satisficer: https://pierrettedesrosiers.com/documents/QUEST_maximization_scale_JG_001.pdf
Maximizing Versus Satisficing: Happiness Is a Matter of Choice: https://sonjalyubomirsky.com/wp-content/themes/sonjalyubomirsky/papers/SWMLWL2002.pdf
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01677.x: Students with maximizing tendencies got jobs with 20% higher starting salary, but
https://sonjalyubomirsky.com/wp-content/themes/sonjalyubomirsky/papers/SWMLWL2002.pdf: were less satisfied with the job they got (and were less happy during the entire job search)
Replace JEE with a Lottery: https://www.nitinpai.in/2023/08/21/replace-jee-with-a-lottery-for-iit-admissions
Why we should run elite college admissions like a lottery : https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/4/19/23689402/college-admissions-lottery-ivy-league
Psychology Today Article: https://pierrettedesrosiers.com/documents/QUEST_maximization_scale_JG_001.pdf
Good enough parenting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_enough_parent
Are you maximizing or satisficing in your relationship: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/between-you-and-me/202109/are-you-satisficing-or-maximizing-in-your-relationship
Do 'maximisers' or 'satisficers' make better decisions: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210329-do-maximisers-or-satisficers-make-better-decisions

00:00 Higher salary is BAD for you
01:02 How can wanting more be a bad thing?
03:05 Be satisfied is settling for less?
05:08 Be aware but not stressed
05:30 Are you maximizer or satisficer?
06:38 Best advice
08:21 Examples in daily life
14:00 When to Maximize or Satisfice?

#futureiq #maximizinglife #satisficing

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Maximizing vs Satisficing

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Transcript

- did you know that getting a higher salary might be bad for you what this research followed final year students who were looking for jobs okay and they divided the students into two groups right one set of students were the ones who like wanted the best possible job and another set was like the first decent job they got they stopped they didn't worry about anything else okay and what they found was that the maximiz ERS the ones who wanted the best job got salaries that were 20% higher right and they still thought it was bad well they were less satisfied with the job they got because they wanted something even better and throughout the process of

0m 44s looking for a job they were like stressed and unhappy throughout whereas the chilled people were chilled throughout and they got something which was 20% less and they said this is good the chill people seem like my kind of people so whole but how can wanting more be bad right so the problem really is with the makeup of the people who want more okay so there is research where what they did was they asked a lot of questions to a lot of people about their attitude towards life right are they the kind of people who try to maximize things or are they chilled and just satisfied with something okay and another another set of questions were related to how happy

1m 32s you are and so on okay and what these researchers found that maximizers usually are less happy with life they are less optimistic about anything they have lower self-esteem they have lower life satisfaction and usually they have more Depression more regret okay basically these perfectionists were unhappy right but they got 20% more right so the problem H isn't with the 20% more the problem is what did that make them feel okay they didn't go and compare themselves huh to the others saying oh I got for 20% more than that person they compared themselves to the best possible job that they did not get yeah right so the maximizers and this seems to be a little bit genetic right

2m 29s so the maxim ERS are generally less satisfied with their decisions because there's always something better they're more likely to compare yeah with inappropriate ones right so these are the ones who will more likely to try to keep up with the Joneses they are more negatively affected by comparison the chilled people somebody Compares and they say yeah so what so what and of course that once they have done something and once they have gotten something they are more sensitive to regret oh if I had done that maybe I would have gotten better if I done that maybe I would have been in a better situation ah makes sense but you know there is there is an argument to be

3m 08s made that uh satisfying yourself or being satisfied which is called satisficing um is is kind of like settling for something less sometimes okay but first let's look at the advantages of satisficing okay okay one is that you have faster decision making right when you're not trying to get the best in every situation you can make decisions much faster this is good enough move on absolutely yeah second is that how do you do I want the best in this situation when the situation is unclear ambiguous there's a fast changing situation like what is happening with say AI right now nobody knows what's going to happen so trying to maximize things doesn't make sense because you don't know what the

3m 57s maximum is yeah yeah so the maximizers are under the impression that if I just collect enough information then I will be able to get the best possible option reality might not be like that often it is not like that right the other thing that they don't consider is that there is a cost to all of this analysis also right just because you got 20% higher but what did you give up in return right that is not happening true usually it means you gave up a lot of mental peace and it's not necessarily about just settling for the first thing right you can be a little bit of a maximizer without being an actual maximizer right you can this is

4m 43s what is called Epsilon optimal for example if I get an option which is within Epsilon of the best that is good enough for me right so yeah I'm not settling for like something low quality but I'm not trying to achieve absolutely the best I'm seeing this much lower than the best is good enough right right yeah be aware of high standards but don't stress about it yeah that's that's actually a good life lesson in general so I think your original complaint was that satisfiers have low standards so I just want to say no I mean they have high standards but not highest just higher yeah higher and highest good good good good difference there oh you did mention that

5m 32s people are either maximizers or satisficers there seems to be some research okay indicating that lot of people are born with this right that you want either there are people who are maximizers or people who are uh satisficers in fact there is a link we have put called the maximization scale so you can go through it and it will tell you whether you are a maximizer or a satisficer right okay okay uh makes sense because I um what happens with me is I am a maximizer when it comes to electronic Goods like laptops like phones like uh gadgets and gizmos but with clothes I'm like going I like this pick it up don't even think about I

6m 16s think that you know you can be a maximizer for certain areas of your life and a satisficer for other areas of your life and what you will notice is that areas where you're a satisfy sir your ched and happy and in areas where you're a maximizer you're regretful and unsatisfied and always like wanting to do more all right that does uh hit very close to home so what is your advice for me guruji so first of all you can train yourself to be something other than what you are okay so you can if you are a satisficer you can train yourself to be a maximizer and if you're a maximizer you can train yourself to be a satisfies

7m 00s sir right okay so um most important thing is to have awareness right okay of which one you are second is that you can get training on how to make decisions right you can get training on when you're just better of satisficing or when you should just do Epsilon maximization instead of full maximization when you should just go ahead and make a decision on imperfect knowledge right in fact a lot of coaching of Business Leaders is in this area okay okay but more specifically if you find that you are more of a maximizer and you want to learn to be satisficer one is recognize the costs of maximizing and over analysis set limits for yourself that you're allowed to do

7m 53s your analysis for this much time and then at the end of that you have to take a decision we have spoken about this uh in another episode on opportunity cost correct exactly uh understand that there are opportunity costs and embrace something that is good enough even if it is not the best focus on gratitude being happy for what you got as opposed to being sad for what you uh didn't get right yeah it makes sense to me in theory but what I would really like is some examples of day-to-day life where I can practice this sort of switch from maximizing to satisficing or good example right um a lot of people and I used to be in that are like when you're

8m 38s trying to go somewhere maybe a restaurant you try to find the closest spot for parking near the restaurant and you get very stressed about parking right and my friend doc bushan had once told me start looking for parking about half a kilometer away as soon as you get it stop walk half a kilometer you will have less stress and you will get some exercise done right so in fact do buhan who's a child psychiatrist he says this about schools we try to put our child in the best possible school and we just go nuts trying to make that happen and you are probably better off going to the nearest school which reduces the commute time in fact this is true of all of

9m 25s parenting right the one of the most important books in parenting which again do bushan does uh suggest is called good enough parenting you don't have to be the best parent just have to be good enough satisficing right listen this goes against the advice that we gave students while choosing College because there you said don't find a college close to home go away from home so this goes against that advice no no so see school and college is different right in school kids have to be with parents by the time they're 17 being with parents is a negative you have to be away from parents you have to learn things other than fine fine so maximize for college satisfies for

10m 08s school so I want to give a couple of personal stories about how I switched from maximizing to satisficing go for it go for it so after I got a good rank in J right until then I had studied quite a lot for that and all of that I decided that from now on I'm no longer trying to maximize my academics after getting into IIT yeah so I decided I don't want to like try to be the topper anymore I just want decent marks okay and then I'll spend time doing a whole lot of other things cultural events and friends and this because regardless of what score you get at it you're still an IT graduate satisficing okay satisficing

10m 48s right in fact then I went on to do a PhD in the US and again there I took a decision that you know in my job and my career I don't want to try to climb the corporate ladder and like number one I want to have a decent career where I work on interesting things I solve interesting problems work with interesting people and make a reasonable amount of money but I'm not trying to maximize either the money or the achievements right okay so yeah I mean the the money and achievements and all of them have been less than what I would have otherwise expected but I much much happier and I like completely stress free okay that you can absolutely Ely

11m 29s see completely stress free I have another very interesting example of how now this is not for you and me but for like governments and uh colleges right okay there are a lot of proposals that for example J should be replaced with a lottery as in have a test which makes sure that you are some minimum qualification but after that there is no Advanced J no rank right if you are above the minimum qual qualification there's a random lottery for the top 5,000 who get into iits same thing uh in the US universities there are people who are saying that have some basic cut off of say SAT scores or gr scores and anybody who applies with that score have

12m 20s a lottery because there is no real data saying that trying to have the highest rank actually makes a big difference you know you look at the results of the last 40 years and do you think people with J rank one have performed far better than the people with J rank 3,000 no not at all okay yeah no what you're saying makes sense logically in a way but also it makes me and um I'm sure a lot of other people uncomfortable out there because you have put in that effort to be better than the you have maximized yourself so you and every maximizer will obviously expect a reward for their maximization which is why this proposal

13m 08s uh will make some people uncomfortable I agree except I just remembered there is a episode of revisionist History a podcast by Malcolm Gladwell who wrote blink and uh Tipping Point and he uh came up with something similar and I think it was implemented in some uh historically black college I I I don't remember the episode but I'll definitely link to it and the series in the description where this concept of random selection was applied and it yielded some interesting results so I know that what you're proposing does have significant utility and impact No in fact two links are there uh about one is replace J with a lottery and second is uh same thing for us universities those

13m 55s are well argued posts by people who actually know what they're talking about take a look at that but also I don't want to say that this is how you should run your entire life right sometimes for some things you should be maximizing right so I think for big important life decisions you should maximize and it is required uh right and if you are kind of a satisficer then the way to get into maximization is to again teach yourself to raise your standards right not just be satisfied with average to think of the opportunities carefully don't rush into decisions take your time with the decisions right so for example I would say do this with close relationships

14m 42s true choice of your career maybe buying your first house having a kid things like that yeah big life decisions like you said in fact that was one of the questions I wanted to ask how do you choose when to be a satisficer and when to be a maximizer so I think existential choices maximize day-to-day decisions you should satisfies right also keep in mind that good heart's law might apply right so if you are a maximizer make sure you're maximizing the right thing and not just some number that you came up with for example you maximizing money is probably not the right thing right money is just a proxy for things you want to do things you want to buy so

15m 25s focus on that instead of just the number in the bank right correct correct but I want to come back to one of my rules which is the 973 rule yeah it's a fantastic rule which is that 97% of the things in your life aren't that important and there you should satisfies only a tiny fraction 3% should be the things that you maximize okay and focus only on those one of the ways to think about that is is this a one-way door or a two-way door right if you can quickly undo something no need to maximize that just quick quick decisions and undo if necessary the Bezos way Bezos uh way yeah and also keep in mind that most stress in life is

16m 15s caused because you are maximizing from the 97% where you should have been satisficing H very interesting oh the Bezos Ways by the way uh a very interesting episode we did about uh decision making according to Jeff Bezos the Amazon Jeff Bezos and you should definitely check that out we'll line that up for you next uh but yeah maximize and satisfies figure out which parts of your life need maximizing figure out which parts of your uh life can do with satisficing and work on it Shri Kant naen future IQ