1st May 2025
There’s an old story that goes something like this:
A drunk man is searching for his lost keys under a streetlight. A cop walks by and asks what he’s doing.
“Looking for my keys,” the man replies.
“Did you lose them here?”
“No, but this is where the light is.”
This story is the basis for something called ‘The Streetlight Effect,’ which is the tendency to search for answers where it’s easiest to look, not where the truth actually lies.
As with most fables, it’s exaggerated to the point of sounding incredible. But what it’s describing – the tendency to keep our searches convenient and comfortable, even if it’s clearly not in our best interests – is highly relatable.
Who hasn’t bought what turned out to be an inferior product because it was the first one we saw in the shop?
Or the one we best remember from the ads?
Or because a friend with completely different tastes to us recommended it?
We can all identify with the regret that comes upon realising, “Oh no. I should have done some more research.”
The streetlight effect is a cognitive bias, an error in thinking that can lead us to make incorrect or irrational decisions and it affects all of us in all sorts of different areas of our lives, including in our work.
It’s easy to default to what’s comfortable:
The assumptions we’ve always believed,
The routines we’ve always maintained,
The strategy we’ve always followed,
The measures we’ve always tracked,
But sometimes that desire for comfort can lead you further from the actual goal.
Sometimes we’re just the drunk man searching for his keys under the streetlight.
It takes courage to leave the safety of the streetlight,
To stumble around in the dark,
To tolerate the uncertainty,
To embrace what you’ve avoided,
To leave the safe shores,
To travel beyond our comfort zone,
But that’s where the change happens & our transformation begins.
Let’s ask ourself: What truths am I missing for fear of leaving the safety of the streetlight?
The answers we seek are found in the questions we avoid.
Move beyond the comfort zone & stay blessed forever.