There’s been an idea swirling around in my head for a
long time, and I’ve discussed it with a few friends and close ones. I’ve been thinking about sharing this topic with you in a post for quite some time now, and I think the time has come. In this post, I want to both share the topic and explore it a bit—to, so to speak, try to challenge my own perspective.
Because, to be honest, I’m not even sure myself if it’s correct. It sounds logical, but not everything that sounds logical is actually logical. So first, I’ll explain the idea, then I’ll look at its philosophical and scientific aspects, and finally, I’ll return to the idea to see if it still holds up.
Let me say this up front: by the end of this post, my opinion hasn’t remained exactly the same.
The idea, in short, is this: throughout their lives, people drop certain anchors at specific points in time. Then they spend their lives circling around those anchors. But the strange part is that most of the time, they don’t know where the anchor is. They might not even realize they have an anchor at all.
They spin around and around like a propeller, yet remain completely unaware of the anchor at the center.
The easiest type to understand is the anchor cast out of pain.
Let’s say a child is physically punished by a teacher when he gives the wrong answer. At that moment, an anchor is cast.
Years go by. The child grows up, gets a job, and builds a life. But every time they have to present something at a meeting, they feel an unexplainable tension. Their hands and feet tremble, and their voice changes.
How does he explain this to himself? “I’m just an excitable person.” “Crowds make me nervous.” “I don’t like giving presentations.”
Yet that anchor remains there, and for thirty years, that person has been circling around it. But they never touch that point, because touching it hurts.
Now I’m getting to the part that’s even more interesting to me.
Anchors don’t have to be triggered by bad events.
Let’s say a child does something one day and everyone praises him. They say, “Good job,” “What a smart kid,” and his face lights up.
That’s when an anchor is dropped there, too.
Years later, that person is still chasing the same thing. They’re looking for the same kind of praise, waiting for the same kind of approval. Sometimes they go so overboard that everyone around them can see it—except themselves.
And here’s the crucial point: this anchor isn’t a trauma. It was a beautiful memory. No one did anything bad to them.
But its function is exactly the same. It holds them just the same, spins them around just the same, and remains invisible just the same.
I think this is the most overlooked aspect of the issue. We question our bad memories but not our good ones. Because they make us feel good.
There’s also a third type—let me explain that using my own experience.
For about two years now, I’ve been publishing a blog post every Sunday. No one asked me to do this. I didn’t start because of a trauma, nor is it something that stems from my childhood. I sat down, made a decision, and I’m doing it.
But when it looks like I won’t be able to publish on a Sunday, I feel a sense of tension building inside me. If the post isn’t ready, I get restless; I even feel uneasy just thinking, “Should I skip this week?”
So it turns out that the seed isn’t necessarily planted in childhood. We plant it as adults, too—knowingly and willingly.
That’s my take on it so far. Now let’s take a look at whether this is actually the case.
Let’s start with the scientific side, because it’s important to know whether what I call “an anchor” has a physical counterpart.
One of the best-known principles of neuroscience comes from Donald Hebb: neurons that fire together wire together. (1*)
In other words, the more intensely an experience is felt and the more it is repeated, the deeper the path it carves in the brain. Then, when a similar situation arises, the brain takes that path most easily, because the path is already open.
This made me realize: an “anchor” isn’t just a metaphor after all. It actually occupies a specific space.
The brain of the man who trembles while giving a presentation isn’t making a decision. The path is already open; the car is just driving along it.
So why is the “praise anchor” so powerful?
The work of B. F. Skinner, one of the founders of behavioral psychology, on reinforcement fits perfectly here. (2*)
One of Skinner’s findings is this: rewarded behavior is repeated. So far, so good—we all know that.
But here’s the really interesting part: the most powerful reinforcement isn’t the regular kind—it’s the irregular kind. In other words, if the reward comes every time, the behavior doesn’t become quite as persistent. If it comes sometimes and not others—that’s when people can’t stop.
Slot machines work on this principle. And a child’s praise works exactly the same way. Sometimes they’re praised; sometimes no one notices.
So the praise hook isn’t any weaker than the pain hook. Maybe it’s even stronger.
Now let’s move on to the philosophical side, because things have shifted a bit for me here.
There’s a study by the British psychiatrist John Bowlby called attachment theory. (3*) It examines the bond a child forms with their caregiver.
What he found is this: a child with a secure base ventures farther.
Notice how this goes against our intuition. You’d expect a child who is attached to stay closer. Yet the opposite happens. When a child knows there’s a solid anchor behind them, they set out to explore. If that anchor isn’t there, they either can’t venture out at all or never come back.
When I read this, I paused for a moment.
Because there was an implicit assumption underlying my thinking—one I hadn’t even admitted to myself.
That assumption was this: the anchor is a problem, and the solution is to remove it.
That was the conclusion I had in mind when I started writing this. Find your anchors, remove them, and set yourself free.
But after Bowlby, this idea doesn’t hold up.
Because a ship without an anchor isn’t a free ship—it’s a ship adrift.
An anchor ties you to a place, yes, but it also makes you belong somewhere. It gives you a point to which you can go and return. It’s what keeps you from being swept away in a storm.
So half of my idea was right, and half was missing.
So what’s holding things back, and what’s been fixed?
The part that remains is this: there are anchors. They’re cast without us realizing it. We revolve around them. And they make no distinction between good and bad; those cast with praise hold just as firmly as those cast with pain. This part is solid; it aligns with both observation and science.
The part that’s been corrected, however, is the solution. The issue isn’t about removing the anchor.
In my opinion, the issue involves two things.
First: knowing where the anchor is.
Because if you’re circling around an anchor you don’t know about, that anchor is controlling you. You think you’re making your own decisions, but the path has already been laid out—the car is just following it.
But when you know, the equation changes. The anchor no longer controls you; you decide what to do with it.
Second: the length of the chain.
This was the most useful part of the article for me.
The anchor can stay in the same place. But if the chain is short, your range of motion is one meter; if it’s long, it’s one mile. In both cases, the anchor stays in the same place, but the life you live is completely different.
And extending the length of the chain is far more feasible than removing the anchor altogether.
Coming back to my own market anchor.
Would I want to remove it? No. Without that anchor, I probably wouldn’t have written this much, done this much research, learned so much—I wouldn’t even be writing this article. It’s something that’s good for me.
But how long the chain is—that’s a different question.
What would happen if I didn’t publish a post? My honest answer is: nothing would happen. Maybe a few people would notice; most wouldn’t. Life would go on.
But knowing this doesn’t ease my unease. So the chain is shorter than I thought.
Maybe that’s the real issue. We choose the anchor, but we don’t realize whether we’ve chosen the length of the chain. Yet the key to that lies with us, too.
Once again, I’d like to share these practices I’ve developed for myself with you:
Think about what has stressed you out the most in the past month. Could there be an anchor behind that stress—one you’ve been circling around without realizing it?
When you receive praise, what aspect of it brings you the most joy? Do you remember when that anchor was cast?
Find something you do constantly but have never questioned why you do it. Do you do it because you haven’t questioned it, or do you not question it because you do it?
Choose one of your anchors and extend its chain just once. Make a small deviation and see what happens. Most likely, nothing will happen.
Notice someone else’s anchor but don’t mention it. Then look for your own with the same perspective.
If there’s an anchor you’ve set intentionally, stand by it. Not every anchor is something to be cast off.
When I started writing this, I thought I needed to remove my anchors.
Now that I think about it, some of the things I planned to remove were actually what kept me standing. The problem isn’t the anchor’s existence—it’s that I don’t see it and don’t realize how much room it gives me to move.
So the issue isn’t about not dropping an anchor. It’s about knowing where you’ve dropped it—and giving the chain a little slack.
I’d like to ask you, too: Do you have any anchors? If so, where are they? And are you just circling around those anchors, or are you drawing strength from them to evolve into a better version of yourself?
See you in the next post. Until then, stay well.
(1*) Donald O. Hebb, The Organization of Behavior (1949)
(2*) B. F. Skinner, Science and Human Behavior (1953)
(3*) John Bowlby, A Secure Base (1988)
