Zoom out from the single loss to the aggregate

A loss looks catastrophic in isolation and trivial across the whole portfolio of your life.

Why it works

Loss aversion is amplified by narrow framing — evaluating each outcome on its own. Widening the frame to the aggregate (many decisions, a long horizon, the full picture) makes any one loss proportionate. The same loss that feels unbearable as a single event becomes a routine cost of doing business across the set.

How to do it

1. When a loss stings, deliberately place it inside the larger set: all such decisions over a year, your whole situation.
2. Ask whether, across that aggregate, this outcome is survivable and expected.
3. Decide based on the policy you want for the whole set, not the one painful instance.

Evidence

Benartzi & Thaler’s work on "myopic loss aversion" shows that evaluating outcomes too frequently and too narrowly increases loss-averse behavior; broader, less frequent evaluation reduces it. (observational)

This draws on financial-market evidence and modeling; the broad principle of frame-widening is well supported, the exact magnitude is context-specific.

Sources

• Benartzi & Thaler (1995), "Myopic Loss Aversion and the Equity Premium Puzzle", Quarterly J. Economics

Common mistake

Checking and re-evaluating constantly. The more often you look at a single position, the more losses you experience and the more loss aversion compounds.