This post discusses the concept of consequences. Our actions (or inactions) have results, and these results might not always be what we expect. Learn to study behaviors and prepare for the unexpected so that you can do more of what you plan.

If you grab a hot pan, you could get burned.

The things we do have consequences. If we choose to act in one way, something will happen. The most impactful results are not always what we had expected, and we often see major results from doing nothing.

This post seeks to consider the basic concept of consequences so that we can recognize typical outcomes, prepare for outliers, and supplement decision-making with potential consequences we have ourselves created.

Recognizing Consequences

While not all is clear to us, we can often recognize major implications associated with our choices. For example, if we are considering insulting someone, we are reasonable to conclude that the insult will likely hurt that person’s feelings. Similarly, if we compliment a new haircut, we are generally safe to assume we’ll get a smile and some sort of gratitude in return.

We are most successful in our fumbling through existence when we pay attention to our actions and develop an understanding of the typical results we see.

Beyond recognizing that being nice generally results in niceness returned, we have to spend time considering what constitutes nice and how our expression, demeanor, and delivery impact the reception of our desired messages.

Learning to Recognize Consequences Through Experience

Recognizing consequences is a learned skill that often comes through experience.

Many will offer to aid you in your quest for knowledge, but sometimes lessons are best received first-hand. It is wise to surround ourselves with good teachers and mentors (which is also a learned process), and we should not be hard on ourselves if we make a mistake. After all, what’s a mistake if not an opportunity to learn? In the words of Henry Ford, “the only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.”

Many consequences have likely outcomes, but these forecasted futures are not certain. We each carry a unique bundle of experiences and circumstances that influence how we respond.

Indirect Consequences

It is common to think of actions and consequences in an A:B manner. We do something (A), and something else happens (B). However, we are not confined to a simple closed economy¹, and our decisions may have impacts that far outstretch our intended results.

Imagine you’re visiting your two young cousins and decide to play catch outside. They’re both about the same age and look up to you (as younger cousins tend to do). You want to be a supportive older cousin, so you decide to compliment one of them on a good catch. He or she takes it well and appreciates the compliment. You only deliver the one compliment.

While you’ve achieved your intended result of making the one cousin feel good, you may have also gotten yourself into a pickle. It was a nice gesture to deliver a compliment, but your choice indirectly made the other cousin feel bad about their catching ability. Why weren’t they complimented?

Increase Knowledge to Avoid Negative Indirect Consequences

A better understanding of the situation and your cousins might have helped you avoid the unintended slight. Had you considered the age of your cousins, their similar desire to impress you, and their personalities, you may have better recognized that complimenting them both would have made them feel uniquely proud and happy.

It is important that we recognize the patterns and typical outcomes that surround our lives. We benefit from learning about our usual actions and interactions because we develop a better understanding of all the factors impacting potential outcomes. The better we understand the places and people that surround us, the more carefully we can navigate them.

We mustn’t be hard on ourselves when the unexpected consequences occur because we may now have to respond to them (and might need to do so in short order!). These unexpected consequences also provide more information about our decision-making, allowing us to make more informed decisions in the future.

Time spent gathering information can help mitigate the risk of negative consequences (direct and indirect), but we cannot control for the unexpected altogether.

¹In introductory studies to economics, examples typically utilize the concept of a simple, closed economy, which refers to an imaginary economic system devoid of government intervention and external market influences (think of it kind of like SimCity before you start toying with taxes and whatnot). A simple, closed economy is a useful way to understand how diverse stimuli impact a market (ex. If you produce more of something in a closed economy, supply goes up and price goes down. This isn’t always the case in an open economy, where international demand could limit the price impacts. The same is true with government intervention, as a government could artificially prop prices to sustain an industry, like the U.S. and corn).

Inadvertent Consequences

Have you ever complimented someone only to receive a negative response in return? Similarly, have you ever chosen what you thought was the safe route only to have it backfire? We are trained to recognize the typical, but the typical does not always dictate what will occur.

It’s possible that the person we sought to compliment was having a bad day or was sensitive to the thing we complimented, resulting in distrust of your compliment and frustration.

Maybe we had incomplete information about the task we were completing, and had we known more, we would have seen that the safe route was actually a trap.

Maybe still the result we expected occurred, yet had cascading effects for which we had not yet prepared.

Uncertainty is Everywhere

We cannot control everything, and there are consequences beyond what we may have intended or expected. This does not mean that we should not act, but instead that we should be mindful of the potential for unexpected results. If we pay attention and act carefully, we can more effectively choose what we do, respond to actions down the line, and mitigate impacts from inadvertent consequences.

Actions are made to produce or avoid a consequence. Consequences are what force us to move, and sometimes we benefit from adding additional consequences to our circumstances to further incentivize action.

Adding Consequences

It’s easy to find motivation to do something you want to do. For example, it’s much easier to get up early in the morning if it’s for a ski trip and you love skiing. Unfortunately for us, however, we aren’t always going skiing.

I find that adding consequences to an action can make it easier for me to complete.

Adding consequences to something we don’t want to do helps us shift the incentives in favor of its completion. An example:

I really hate sending letters, but I had to after my wedding. I kept delaying and delaying until one day I went to my wife and promised that I would complete the task on Sunday. I sealed the promise with a handshake.

Sunday came, and I still didn’t want to complete the letters. I looked all around for an excuse, but the handshake stuck to my brain and I went and knocked the letters out of the park.

Make the Consequences Reasonable

When I add consequences, I make sure that they are small stakes. These are consequences that, while I want to avoid them, I will not be crushed if they arise. In the presented example, I made a handshake deal with my wife, staking the value of my promise.

Would my wife have left me had I not followed through? Doubtful. Would the world have imploded? Doubtful still. However, I would have felt a personal jab to my honor, which was just enough to motivate me to get the job done.

The goal with adding consequences to is to add a little bit more pressure or a time crunch to prompt completion of a task. This pressure can be a great motivator, but adding too much can stop us from doing work altogether. If we add pressure to the point that we overwhelm ourselves, the pressure can result in strain to our mental health, productivity, and confidence in completing the initial task.

Our honor does not have to be at stake to get the job done. Sometimes, people make small wagers with each other to incentivize decisions or rewards. When I was little, my dad bet my brother $20 he couldn’t learn to solve the Rubik’s cube. He learned to get it done in under a minute that weekend.

Conclusion

Consequences are everywhere, and we don’t need to add them to make sure we get things done. At the same time, you should feel free to tinker with what you do and how you do it. Who knows, maybe small added consequences are what you need to get the annoying things done quickly!

Questions? Any consequences for me putting this out there? Let me know!

-G

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