“No pain, no gain”: I always understood this proverb to refer to the hard work inherent in development or improvement. It captured the idea, I thought, that the process of improvement requires dedicated application. No doubt the proverb does speak to this idea, but I think it’s also susceptible of a slightly different interpretation.

What got me thinking about it was The Undoing Project, a book about the beginnings of behavioural economics. For me, it once again brought to the foreground the concept of heuristics, the simplified rules that people use to facilitate judgements and decision-making. Since first encountering this concept, I began toying with idea of developing new heuristics for myself. So I’ve been trying to contrive rules that I could use to guide my thought and behaviour.

The ‘gain’ in “no pain, no gain” could be taken as referring to the solution to a problem. And what the proverb hints at is that solutions, real solutions, the ones that actually address and ideally eliminate the problem, are by nature painful. If the supposed solution to a problem isn’t painful, chances are that it’s not a real solution. Instead, it’s a sort of placating measure that provides a mere gratifying illusion of addressing the problem.

It’s sometimes possible to solve a problem without any cost; things termed “hacks” could be considered to fall into this category. Hacks are relatively small, unintrusive adjustments that make a substantial difference. These are, however, rare. Accordingly, it’s inherently suspicious when a proposed solution to a problem seemingly has no downside. It might indeed be a genuine hack, but it’s more probably a relatively ineffective distraction. The reason that true solutions are inherently painful is that substantial change is generally only possible through some form of elimination. Whatever problem is at stake has a real cause of some kind, and it’s only by eliminating, or at least mitigating, this cause that the problem can be solved. Elimination is painful because it entails some form of sacrifice or deprivation.

This has led me to adopt the following practical heuristic: unless my proposed solution to an issue is painful for me, it probably isn’t a real solution. Flying less or forgoing unnecessary flights entirely is the painful alternative to buying carbon offsets. Limiting drinking is the painful alternative to spiked seltzers. Ultimately, it’s a matter of giving up, either entirely or in part, something that you’re attached to and committing to something else instead. I ask myself: Does it hurt?