Our mind totally thinks so. We’ve evolved to think that losses loom larger than gains. “The brains of humans and other animals contain a mechanism that is designed to give priority to bad news.” (Loc 5431)

The paper “Bad Is Stronger Than Good” states “bad emotions, bad parents, and bad feedback have more impact than good ones, and bad information is processed more thoroughly than good. The self is more motivated to avoid bad self-definitions than to pursue good ones. Bad impressions and bad stereotypes are quicker to form and more resistant to disconfirmation than good ones.” (Loc 5444)

We are primed to pay more attention to the bad things versus the good things. In the early days of human history, this seems to make sense. The caveman who paid more attention to dangers lived longer.

Is this why some of us could be focused much more on the negatives of life? Our instincts say to avoid losses, keep an eye out for dangers. Due to that, some of us may start to see only the negatives in life to avoid them and easily dismiss any of the positives.

Even when we do see positives, it doesn’t impact our minds as much as a negative event. A single negative event could ruin an overall great day, but a single positive event can’t uplift an overall bad day. How could we make a mental switch to this behavior? Is this why many people work on being grateful? As a gentle reminder that in our day to days, there will always be bad, but there will always be good.

We could also set a good reference point for goals to empower our positive selves. “The aversion to the failure of not reaching the goal is much stronger than the desire to exceed it.” (Loc 5460) With the right goal and reference point setting, we could reach our goals because of our aversion to fail versus actually exceeding the goal.

“Loss aversion refers to the relative strength of two motives: we are driven more strongly to avoid losses than to achieve gains. A reference point is sometimes the status quo, but it can also be a goal in the future: not achieving a goal is a loss, exceeding the goal is a gain.” (Loc 5460)

We should set our days so that we could achieve and maybe exceed our goals, to feel that we’re gaining something everyday.

When it comes to golf, golfers are much more accurate when putting for par versus for birdie. Economists Devin Pope and Maurice Schweitzer use loss aversion theory to explain that players were more successful when putting for par than for a birdie. Players tried harder when putting for par because missing par would be a loss. However, missing a birdie putt is a forgone gain, and not actually a loss (assuming they make par). Would there be a way to switch our mindset to concentrate on every swing? Even a single stroke saved is a huge difference in the pro golf world.

Is there a way we could apply this type of thinking to our day to day?