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How to Think More Effectively by Identifying What Pushes You Forward
Why your brain is hardwired to obsess about headwinds (and forget about tailwinds)
Most of us can easily name our obstacles — the persistent headwinds pushing against our progress.
The daily frictions in our work, relationships, and creative lives. They show up in various recognizable forms, like:
- not enough time
- projects that peter out
- energy flagging at the wrong time
- great opportunities somehow slipping through our fingers.
We feel headwinds acutely. We dwell on them. Sometimes, we build our identities around our struggles, convincing ourselves resistance defines our lives.
But a quiet and equally influential force shapes our journeys — a force we rarely pause to identify, let alone acknowledge. The tailwinds. The silent aids pushing us forward, enabling growth, creativity, and well-being.
This imbalance in awareness has a name: Headwinds/Tailwinds Asymmetry. It was coined by psychologists Tom Gilovich and Shai Davidai in 2016*.
It’s a powerful cognitive bias.
