The IKEA Effect: Do Hard Things
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Everyone tells you to do hard things, but no one tells you why it's so important.
First, it's because life is hard. And when you take on voluntary struggle, you're better prepared for the involuntary struggle that inevitably enters your world.
But I think there's a deeper reason that goes beyond that...
Here's the truth: We don’t value what’s easy. We value what we earn.
The more effort we put in, the more meaning we extract. The struggle is important because it provides a texture to our lives.
As it turns out, this is more than just a personal musing, there's science to it:
Welcome to The IKEA Effect.
In 2011, behavioral scientists Michael Norton, Dan Ariely, and Daniel Mochon coined the term IKEA Effect to refer to a cognitive bias where people place significantly more value on things they put effort into creating.
The researchers cited the example of the legendary Betty Crocker food brand, which saw sales of a new “just add water” line of cake mixes flop in the 1950s. Evidently, the process was too easy, which meant consumers felt disconnected from the process and valued the output less than before. When the recipe was adjusted to require adding an egg—a tiny bit of incremental effort—sales skyrocketed.
The effort created perceived value. The cake now had meaning to the baker. They had invested energy into making it.
The IKEA Effect extends far beyond the kitchen...
We ascribe value and meaning to the things we work hard for:
- The business built from the ground up
- The promotion earned after years of focus
- The deep relationship shaped through shared struggle
- The healthy body carved through challenging workouts
- The peaceful mind forged through solitude
The effort required to earn these things increases their value.
Your entire life will change the moment you realize it’s not supposed to be easy. The most valuable things in life are hard to earn. That’s precisely why they’re so valuable.
So, why do hard things?
Because nothing feels better than a hard-earned win. Nothing. The pain. The struggle. The resilience. The grit. And then, the reward. The thrill of knowing that you paid the cost of entry for the thing you wanted to achieve.
Hard things are good for the soul.
P.S. For a laugh going into the weekend, here's a very different idea IKEA effect: I call it the IKEA Marriage Test...
