How Accurate are your Maps of Reality?

How did people get around without Google Maps?

NEW: Find me talking about this on YouTube, link at the end of the post.

In Principles, Ray Dalio lays out the simple formula for success:

“Success = Dreams + Reality + Determination”

He says it works regardless of whether you want to run an ironman, make a billion dollars, become an enlightened zen monk, be an amazing mom or live the chill life of a couch potato.

Expanding on this, I believe the following to be true long-term, at least for my life.

• Struggling (to a manageable level) is good.
• Struggling for important goals is better.
• Struggling well for important goals is best.

What is manageable and what is important is something you get to find out and define over the course of your life.

Struggling (Determination) for an important goal (Dreams) is part of what gives our lives meaning and purpose.

This is what I would call taking responsibility for your life and for the world.

For this post, I will assume you know what your dreams are and that you have determination. I am planning to look at both determination and goals to maximize long-term satisfaction in future posts.

If you can struggle well (Reality-driven Effort) for something that you find deeply meaningful, I believe you will feel a sense of purpose. Research shows that people who report a sense of purpose and direction in their life will are likely to report more feelings of well-being, be more resilient and less depressed, as well as live healthier and longer than those who don’t.

So how do you struggle well?

By having an accurate map of reality.

Humans have built cell phones because engineers built an accurate map of mathematics, physics, chemistry, electronics and electromagnetism amongst many other areas.

Once they understood these maps, they were able to develop techniques to arrange atoms in such a way that you can read this text on your phone right now.

An accurate map of yourself and the world will be beneficial in arranging the atoms inside and outside of you to achieve your dreams.

On a personal level, reality includes

• your biology, such as your health, your gender and your genes
• your psychology, such as your tastes, likes and dislikes, and your personality
• your intelligence in various areas such as Mathematics and social and emotional intelligence, the languages you speak, the hard and soft skills you’ve learned and your ability to learn new skills
• the relationships with family and friends you have
• where you live and the amount of money you have

It is important to note that some of those are more fixed (such as your gender) and others more malleable (such as your skills in various areas).

On an external level, reality includes

• the workings of the world, such as biology, chemistry and physics
• the workings of humans, such as the psychology of everyone around you, their likes, dislikes, needs, wants and fears.
• the workings of organizations such as how they hire and fire people, how they develop and sell products, services, ideologies and policies, how and why they purchase products and how they raise money

Now it is impossible to know everything about yourself and the world. You don’t need to. You only need to know the things relevant to the goals you’re trying to achieve.

Example: Learning a Language

If your dream is to learn a new language, you will need both determination and an accurate map of reality to succeed. In this case, the map of reality includes

The language itself:

• The grammar of the language: how to decline nouns, how to conjugate verbs, the position of subjects, verbs and objects in sentences?
• The vocabulary of the language: which words in the new language mean what in your native language and vice versa? Which words are most frequently used and should I learn first?

Most people understand this part of reality is important to learn. You can learn it from others through classes, books and apps.

But equally important is the reality of the learning process itself.

You may find it useful to think about those things before you begin and as you move along.

• How do you best learn? What is most likely to make you learn this language quickly and correctly? What is most likely to throw you off or slow your progress? Which classes, books, websites and apps will work with your psychology to keep you on track? How do you track your progress?
• How do you stay on track? Which people can you surround yourself with that will force you to speak this language? What accountability system can you create to build the habit of learning? What positive feedback loops can you create to stay engaged?

On a practical level, you can google things like “Best app to learn French”, “Best way to build a language learning habit” or “Best French Teacher in London” to start getting some insights.

Pro Tip: Build maps of reality faster by googling everything you can.

Does that mean I should spend hours asking myself and Google those questions before starting to learn the language?

No.

Asking those questions can be very helpful because it allows you to draw upon experiences of past learning you and others have done.

But it will still only give you hypotheses about what could work for you.

You’ve got to put those hypotheses to the test as quickly as possible.

A quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln reads

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

I’d say this is correct if you are sure that what you are cutting down is a big tree and what you have is an axe.

But maybe you can’t be sure at first.

If you’ve never seen the tree and how it responds to an axe (reality!), you sharpening the blade of a huge axe for four hours may be waste of time. If the tree turns out to be tiny and bendable, maybe a saw is the more appropriate tool.

So the fastest way to build an accurate map of reality and cut down the tree is to have a combination of sharpening and cutting going on.

More generally, ask yourself

“What is the fastest way of building an accurate map of reality?”

There are various interesting techniques on how to build good maps of reality. We are going to tackle those in future blog posts. So stay tuned and follow me here on medium.

Let’s summarize

• Struggling well for an important goal is key for a meaningful and satisfying life
• The ability to struggle well comes from an accurate map of reality
• The map of reality must include both an accurate understanding of what you are trying to accomplish (the grammar and the vocabulary) as well as your own psychology and the obstacles in the way (how you best learn)
• The way to build the map is a combination of research by learning from others as well as working towards your goal to get feedback from reality on your activities
• We will look at more ways to build good maps in future blog posts

NEW: watch me talk about this concept on YouTube

How are you building maps of reality?

If you found this helpful and want me to know and others to benefit as well, send me a few claps!

I also appreciate any feedbacks or questions of course.

If you want to learn about mental models and techniques with concrete examples on how to apply them to your own life, follow me here on medium.

Thanks to Vera, Claudio, Luca and Martin Y. Welzl for reading drafts of this.