The Spiral Trap is Real

Hello!

It’s Thursday, 2^nd October 2025. Welcome back to Bold Efforts, where we look at the forces shaping how we work and live. This week, we turn to a pattern that quietly shapes both careers and lives more than we notice: the spiral.

You know the feeling. A meeting goes poorly. You forget a detail in front of your boss. A client call doesn’t land the way you hoped. At first, it is just a small stumble. But then your mind gets involved. You replay the scene, rewrite what you should have said, imagine how others are judging you. What began as one moment of discomfort grows into hours of self-doubt. The spiral feeds itself.

The core mistake is confusing reflection with rehearsal. Healthy reflection looks at what happened and extracts one lesson. A spiral is different. It loops endlessly, convincing you that if you think hard enough, you will regain control. In truth, the more you think inside the spiral, the less connected you are to reality.

Work is fertile ground for spirals. A missed promotion can spiral into a story that your career is off track. One harsh email from a manager can spiral into the belief that you are failing. Even success can trigger spirals. Closing a big deal might spiral into anxiety about whether you can repeat the performance. Each time, the spiral takes something real and stretches it far beyond its actual weight.

Not all spirals are negative. Not all spirals need to be doom spirals. There are positive spirals too. Learning one new skill can build confidence that encourages you to take on more. Delivering one strong presentation can spiral into being trusted with bigger opportunities.

The same mechanism that drags you down can also lift you up when you learn to spot the difference and choose where to feed your attention.

Spirals feel fast. One thought catches another and suddenly you are lost in a vortex. They also feel convincing. The longer you stay inside, the more the spiral feels like truth. That is why they are so hard to escape. You mistake their speed for clarity.

The way out begins with awareness. Ask yourself a core question: Am I still thinking about reality, or am I now imagining outcomes that may never happen? Naming the spiral separates you from it. Then, instead of feeding it, take a single action. Send the draft. Schedule the follow-up call. Go for a walk. The action itself is less important than breaking the loop.

Leaders face spirals too. A CEO who overanalyzes every market shift can spiral into paralysis, delaying bold moves until opportunities vanish. But the same leader who learns to recognize positive spirals can harness them to build momentum, turning one small win into a narrative of progress that rallies the whole company.

This is not about suppressing your mind. Our brains evolved to simulate, anticipate, and prepare. That ability keeps us alive. But the same machinery that protects us can also trap us. The spiral is a misfire of a useful system. You cannot stop the system from existing, but you can learn to see when it has gone off course.

In the end, spirals raise a deeper question: How much of your life do you want to spend rehearsing possibilities that never arrive? Every loop costs you energy that could have been spent building, creating, or connecting. The real danger is not the one mistake at work, but the days of momentum lost to the spiral that followed.

The biggest battles are rarely the ones outside in the market or the competition. They are the ones inside, where your own thoughts can work against you. The spiral wins when you mistake it for truth. You win when you recognize the spin, redirect it, and choose action over loops.

Thank you for reading. See you next week!

Best,
Kartik

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Who am I?
I’m Kartik, founder of Polynomial Studio, a holding company and product studio building AI-driven businesses for the future of work. The way we work and live is being rewritten. AI, remote work, and shifting economic forces are reshaping careers, businesses, and entire industries. The big question is where it’s all heading.

For the past eight years, I’ve been at the forefront of these shifts, working across real estate, technology, startups, and corporate strategy. I’ve helped businesses navigate change and stay ahead of what’s next, always focused on understanding the forces shaping our future and how we can use them to build something better. Click here to know more about me.

Why Bold Efforts?
I started Bold Efforts because I believe work should fit into life, not the other way around. Too many people are stuck in outdated systems that don’t serve them. This newsletter is about challenging the status quo and making the effort to design work around life. It brings together bold ideas and actionable insights to help you build a healthier, more balanced relationship with work, leading to greater purpose and fulfillment. If you’re looking for fresh perspectives on how to work and live better, you’re in the right place.

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