People pursuing goals often receive conflicting advice about not settling and not chasing the unachievable. A mathematical model of ambition indicates better typical outcomes when targets are set above average but not infinitely high. Agents in the model search for rewards and have a satisfaction threshold, rejecting offers below the threshold and accepting offers that meet it. Varying the rarity of high rewards and adjusting thresholds changes performance, and the model supports a strategy of stopping short of extreme aspirations. The principle applies to decisions such as salary expectations, housing choices, parking selection, and potentially dating, providing a mathematical basis for conventional guidance with modifications.
"Instead of shooting for the moon when pursuing life's goals, researchers say people should be advised to aim a little lower if they want the best outcome. The tip may lack the punch of uncompromising drive, but aiming for merely above average tends to work out better, according to a mathematical model the team created to explore how ambition pans out."
"The core insight from our work is that you're going to be best off, typically, if you try to do better than average, but not infinitely well. Burgess and his colleagues delved into the mechanics of ambition after earlier work found that fisheries performed best when boats stopped searching for more fish once they reached higher-than-average catches."
"In the model, agents represent people who are searching for a particular reward and have a threshold for what will satisfy them. An example would be hunting for a job with a particular salary. As the model runs, agents reject offers that are below their threshold and accept those that clear the bar."
"To explore different scenarios, the researchers played around with the thresholds and offers agents received. In some cases, high rewards were rare mimicking the odds, for example, of an entre"
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