What can I do to fail?

What can I do to get better grades? What can I do to lose weight? What can I do to become fit?

We ask ourselves these kinds of questions all the time. And rarely do we come up with good answers. We feel a lack of knowledge - if I could only find the answer, then I could change.

But maybe we know the answers already. We're just not asking the right questions. What if we considered the opposite?

What can I do to get better grades? -> What can I do to get worse grades?

What can I do to lose weight? -> What can I do to gain weight?

What can I do to become fit? -> What can I do to become less fit?

We all know the answers to these questions. No reading required.

This is the idea of inversion. We take the problem we're currently facing and we consider the opposite. Sometimes, this can be an incredibly effective way to reveal our blind spots and find new solutions.

Let's use studying as an example.

We're going to pretend it is our job to make sure a person gets worse grades. What barriers would we create for the worst possible grades?

1. The person should not study at all. Zero time put towards studying. If they breach that barrier, what's next?

2. Take away their studying materials. Make sure they have the worst possible sources to study. Messy incomplete lectures, bad textbooks. No contact with classmates that are doing well, to learn what they're using to study.

3. Then we make sure they don't have a place to work. Cramped desk in a noisy environment, full of tempting distractions.

That takes care of the basics. If I did that, I'm confident the person would have a hard time studying. The grades would go down. But just in case they could breach all of these barriers, I'll add some other difficulties.

4. I would not let them know what is going to be on the test. If they can't know what to study, they'll be lost in an ocean of material with no sense of where to go. That means no talking to classmates, people a year above them or teachers. And definitely no old tests!

And for the final nail in the coffin in their grades, if they managed to overcome all of these barriers;

5. I would only allow them to read their notes over and over again. That way I could make sure every minute spent is used in the most inefficient way possible.

That's my recipe for the worst possible grades. Now we can use it to create a path towards better grades. We just invert the answers.

No studying at all -> Time put into studying

Bad studying materials -> Good sources, preferably the ones successful classmates use

No place to work -> Dedicated space for studying

No information about the contents of the test -> Prioritize studying based on previous tests

Only reread notes -> Don't reread notes, use better studying methods

We have just created a checklist that will most likely result in the improvement of grades.

I've noticed something when using inversion - the answers I come up with are mostly focused on the fundamentals. The basic principles. Lets look at another example, that will be familiar to most people.

If our job was to make sure someone gains weight, what would we do?

Two things immediately pop up in my mind - feed them too much and make sure they never move. I would be willing to bet I can get a person to gain weight if only these two things are true.

But when thinking about weight loss we hear about all sorts of ways to reach our goal. Magical teas, ratios of protein/carb/fat, diet pills, cleanses etc. When in reality eating less and moving more will almost certainly work.

Recently I've fallen into the rabbit hole of ideal grams of protein per kilogram of body weight when eating to become more fit. But when inverting the problem I realized I just need to exercise more. The other things start mattering once I've mastered the basics.

Inversion is a useful tool for finding new solutions. But don't be surprised if the new solutions are often just the basics done well.