It was Christmas Eve. I was climbing the stairs to my office when I found myself huffing and puffing. Not running or carrying anything particularly heavy. Just climbing a flight of stairs.

I remember thinking, how the hell did I get here?

I weighed around 105 kilograms. Several years earlier, I’d been around 86. Nineteen kilograms heavier, and the strange thing was that none of it came as a surprise. I’d watched it happen.

For much of my corporate career, I travelled extensively. Different cities, hotels, customer meetings and business dinners. I enjoyed meeting people, discovering new places and, particularly, the food. Somewhere along the way, my weight started increasing. My suits needed upsizing, I was becoming less energetic, and physically I wasn’t feeling particularly good.

I noticed all of it. But life carried on. There were meetings to attend, flights to catch and customers to meet. And on most days, nothing seemed particularly urgent.

Until that Christmas Eve.

What bothered me wasn’t that I hadn’t recognised the problem.

It was that I’d watched it happen and done very little about it.

The things we learn to live with

Years later, while building my startup, I found myself in a similar situation. This time, it wasn’t my health. It was the business.

We were acquiring customers, largely through my professional network. Former colleagues, relationships and introductions. But I knew there was a limit to how far that approach would take us. We needed to consistently reach people who didn’t know us, which meant prospecting, cold calls, emails and dealing with rejection.

I hated cold calling. Rather ironic, considering I’d spent decades in enterprise sales.

There was always something else that needed attention. Product development, existing customers, partnerships, fundraising. All legitimate activities. And because we were still acquiring customers, things weren’t exactly falling apart.

But I could see the pipeline slowing. I knew we weren’t building enough new opportunities to sustain the business. Yet I continued.

Eventually, we needed more customers and more capital, and I was looking at a pipeline that should have been considerably stronger. Once again, I found myself asking how I’d allowed things to reach that point.

Two very different experiences. In both cases, I could see the warning signs. Neither situation deteriorated overnight. There were hundreds of ordinary decisions in between, and each one seemed reasonable enough at the time.

So why do we sometimes wait until things become painful before making changes we already know are necessary?

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What science tells us

One explanation lies in our remarkable ability to adapt.

Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky and other researchers have studied hedonic adaptation, the tendency for our emotional responses to changed circumstances to diminish over time. We become accustomed to things. That’s usually a strength. It helps us cope with new environments, unfamiliar experiences and changing circumstances.

But familiarity can also influence how we experience situations that aren’t necessarily good for us.

Think about gaining weight. Your trousers become tight, so you buy a larger pair. Problem solved, at least temporarily. The new size becomes normal. Eventually, those trousers become tight too. Each adjustment is small enough to accommodate, but over time, the cumulative change can be considerable.

Now, hedonic adaptation doesn’t directly explain why someone ignores deteriorating health. But it does help us understand how our emotional responses to changed circumstances can become less pronounced.

There’s another concept I find particularly interesting: normalisation of deviance.

Sociologist Diane Vaughan explored this phenomenon in her investigation of NASA’s Challenger space shuttle disaster. Engineers had previously observed problems with seals in the shuttle’s rocket boosters. Yet earlier missions had succeeded despite evidence of damage. Over time, these warning signs became increasingly accepted within organisational decision-making. The absence of an immediate catastrophe contributed to a growing acceptance of risk.

I’m certainly not comparing gaining weight or a weakening sales pipeline with a space shuttle disaster. But the underlying organisational principle offers an interesting parallel.

When something repeatedly goes wrong without an immediate serious consequence, we can begin treating it as normal.

In my startup, the warning signs were there. But we were still winning customers. The business was still operating. There were other things demanding attention. Every month that passed without an obvious crisis made the situation a little easier to tolerate.

Perhaps that’s what makes gradual change so difficult to recognise. We experience our lives one day at a time. The difference between today and yesterday may be insignificant, but the difference between today and five years ago can be enormous.

I didn’t gain nineteen kilograms overnight. There were hundreds of ordinary days in between, and on most of those days, nothing felt particularly urgent.

Until Christmas Eve.

One Thing Worth Trying

I’ve been thinking about how to recognise these changes before they become problems we can no longer ignore.

Here’s a simple reflection worth trying:

What am I tolerating today that I wouldn't have accepted a year ago?

It could be something physical. Perhaps you’re more tired than you used to be, or something you once did comfortably has become difficult. It might be professional. You’re working longer hours but achieving less, a customer relationship is deteriorating, or you’ve stopped doing something that was once essential to your success.

Or perhaps it’s personal. You’re spending less time with people who matter to you, and somewhere along the way, that became normal.

Find an earlier reference point. Not yesterday. Not last week. Go back a year or two. Compare where you are today with where you were then. Not just how you feel about it, but something concrete that tells you whether things have changed.

And ask yourself:

If this continues for another year, am I comfortable with where I’ll end up?

That’s the experiment. Not to immediately fix everything, but to recognise the direction in which things are moving.

Sometimes, the answer might be that you’re perfectly comfortable with the changes. Your priorities have evolved, and you’ve made conscious choices. But sometimes, you might discover something you’ve gradually learned to live with without ever really deciding that you wanted to.

The cost of waiting

There’s one part of these experiences that has stayed with me. The regret.

I remember how angry I was with myself that Christmas Eve. And I remember the frustration of looking at my startup’s pipeline, knowing I’d recognised the problem months earlier. It’s tempting to look back and reconstruct every opportunity we had to make a different decision. I should have exercised. I should have paid attention to the warning signs. I should have made those calls.

But hindsight has a way of making yesterday’s choices look simpler than they really were.

We constantly make trade-offs. Our time, energy and attention are limited. Sometimes we prioritise work over health, family over career, or immediate responsibilities over longer-term ambitions. Those aren’t necessarily bad decisions.

What concerns me is when we gradually accept a situation without consciously deciding that we’re willing to live with its consequences.

I suppose that’s what bothers me most about my two experiences.

The frightening thing wasn’t that I didn’t see the problems coming. It was that I did.

And yet, I allowed them to continue.

I can’t anticipate every problem in my life. None of us can. And I don’t want to spend my days worrying about everything that might go wrong. But I’d like to get better at recognising the difference between making a conscious choice and simply drifting into a situation.

Because sometimes, the things that change our lives aren’t dramatic decisions. They’re the hundreds of ordinary decisions we barely notice making.

Until one day, we look around and wonder, how did I get here?

And perhaps the time to ask that question is while we still have room to change direction.

Listen to Built, Not Born

15 minutes. One problem. What science tells us. One thing worth trying.

This reflection accompanies Season 1, Episode 4: How Did I Get Here?

🎧 Listen to Built, Not Born on Spotify, or on other platforms here.

Understand Yourself. Live Better.

THE SCIENCE BEHIND THIS EPISODE

1. Hedonic Adaptation | Sonja Lyubomirsky

Research on hedonic adaptation examines how people’s emotional responses to changing circumstances can diminish over time. It offers a perspective on how once-unusual circumstances can gradually become familiar.

Research: Hedonic Adaptation to Positive and Negative Experiences

2. Normalisation of Deviance | Diane Vaughan

Through her analysis of NASA’s Challenger disaster, sociologist Diane Vaughan described how organisations can gradually accept warning signs and departures from established standards, particularly when previous decisions have not resulted in catastrophic consequences.

Research: The Challenger Launch Decision