Why small problems are worse than big ones

The patterns that hold us back, and a few simple ways to break them

Apr 01, 2025

“If you avoid conflict to keep the peace, you start a war inside yourself."
— Cheryl Richardson

Last Friday, as my buddy and I sat in the Williamsburg bathhouse catching up on why his recent 7-year relationship didn’t work out, a thought came to me that I felt compelled to share…size does matter.

Meaning that small problems often threaten our quality of life more than big ones.

The why is simple: The problem with small problems is we ignore them. We make excuses for dealing with them. Sometimes, we even gaslight ourselves into questioning whether they’re problems at all.

The bigger the problem, the more we’re motivated to take action to resolve it so that the distress doesn’t last.

If you and your partner have a big and “loud” fight, you likely sit down afterwards, apologize, and talk about it together. Often growing from it and ending up in a better place. But if you don’t have an obvious argument because something your partner is doing doesn’t feel worth bringing up and talking about…something “silly”…,then conflict often gets avoided for the sake of keeping the peace and it often finds it’s way out in more more subtle aggressions. Frustration mounts over time, and one day you wake up and you’re walking away from a long-term relationship without clear words as to why.

Or, say you get fired and lose your income steam—that’s a big problem. So, you focus completely on getting a new job.

But if you’re increasingly unhappy in your current job—could be burnout, a micro manager, not being comped fairly—that’s a smaller problem. At least at face value. You’re still getting paid after all, and your days are still busy working.

That’s why these problems—for the sake of short term comfort—get swept under the rug and avoided. Except they compound, wear us down, build resentment, and eventually, come demanding answers and action from us.

A handy analogy about small problems is that they are like a dangerous and silent plaque building up in the arteries. Nothing happens for years while we make sure to solve the obvious problems, then suddenly one day, that accumulation is the cause of biggest problem imaginable.

If heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US, I’d argue that “small problems” are the leading cause of failed relationships and dissatisfaction in life.

That’s why we’re going to spend the next few minutes talking about:

Noticing small problems
The patterns that camouflage small problems
A few easy ways to cut them at the stem

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Noticing small problems

As Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert writes, ‘The paradoxical consequence is that people may recover more quickly from truly distressing experiences than from slightly distressing ones.”

That’s because the more intense and blatant the distress, the more it prompts a clear protective psychological response or behavior.

This is exactly like the frog in hot water: Problems that start with lower temperatures are the most likely to cook us alive.

In personal relationships, complacency becomes resentment.
In careers, it becomes stagnation.
In teams, it becomes culture rot.
In life, it becomes apathy and regret.

So, what are some clues that a small problem is actually a ticking time bomb?

It’s the third or fourth time it’s happened, and you still haven’t said anything. If you’re noticing something, be careful not to talk yourself out if mattering.
You think about it more than you’d like to admit. If you’ve replayed it in your head multiple times, it’s not small.
It creates tiny moments of dread. If you subtly avoid something because of it—dodging a conversation, procrastinating a task—it’s a sign it’s affecting you more than you think.

The good (and ironic) news is that the smaller the problem, the easier it is to fix. You just have to catch it early.

So, how do we go from “This situation isn’t that bad” to “How the fuck did I end up here?”. Before answering the how, it’s worth asking why.

The patterns that camouflage small problems

We don’t ignore small problems because we’re lazy or careless—we ignore them because we’re wired to fear conflicts, hurting feelings, or just rocking the boat.

Isn’t it always fun when there’s some evidence-based reasons explaining why we do what we do? Here are some answers from psychology.

1. The Comfort Conspiracy

People often struggle to grow because we avoid discomfort at all costs. That avoidance is our default mode. Calling out a small issue feels awkward. So we don’t. But avoiding discomfort now almost always only creates greater discomfort later. Saying “I just let things go.” may sound mature, but it’s worth asking whether you’re actually letting it go. Remember that our instincts to seek safety and security can easily become the greatest barrier to our personal growth, success, and fulfillment.

2. The Perceived Cost of Action

We generally assume fixing small issues requires a lot more effort than it does. “I don’t want to make a big deal out of this,” or “Why stir the boat? Things are good now,” we reassure ourselves. But small problems are the easiest to fix when they’re still small. This is decision inertia—the tendency to continue to do nothing because not acting doesn’t incur any immediate costs. For example, assuming that staying at your job or staying in the apartment you don’t like will be less costly than making a more drastic choice.

3. The Region Beta Paradox

This principle describes a common error we make in predicting how long distress will last in response to a scenario. We all put up with mild annoyances, be them at our jobs, with our families, habits, living environments, or our bodies. We like to brush them off, thinking: this isn’t so bad, so it can’t affect me for very long.

The result is we fail to improve our lives simply because things don't get bad enough. The paradox is that these more mild discomforts can end up lasting much longer and cause far more upset or damage than a situation, person, or event that is more acutely upsetting.

4. The Status Quo Bias

We all have a knack for discounting the future and prioritizing the present. Doing something now, such as changing your job or relationship, has an immediate cost, and the benefits of making the change are located far off in the future. The risk of a painful breakup or the discomfort of killing a habit like smoking can act as a powerful deterrent in the moment, compared with the distant promise of a future where you’re in a new, more functional relationship, or don’t rely on nicotine anymore.

5. The Identity Trap

Over time, consistently avoiding these small problems leads us to internalize that behavior as part of our identity. If you don’t speak up about things that bother you, you become someone who tolerates too much. If you skip small workouts, you become someone who doesn’t exercise. So, instead of someone who proactively addresses issues, you slowly become someone who tolerates dissatisfaction, discomfort, or resentment. This is like a bad-habit flywheel for why we end up accepting small annoyances.

How to cut “small problems” at the stem

I’m not suggesting you should jump away from your current situation at the first sign of discomfort. None of us would have relationships or hobbies or jobs if we did. Not every small annoying event will, in the long run, accrue more harm—but there’s wisdom in recognizing that some might and having a mental toolkit for how we can fix small problems early.

Below are some of these tools that don’t require a life overhaul—just some simple-but-not-always-easy habits.

1. Assume the future will make it worse

It’s worth trying to fight the desire to react intuitively, to always respond mildly to mild situations. One way to do this is to try to make the future consequences more explicit to yourself by imagining them to be as important as what’s happening in the present. Ask yourself: If I don’t deal with this now, how bad will it be in a year? What would happen if this problem multiplied? How would that make you feel? Take time to list out the potential benefits of making a change, even if it feels more disruptive than letting things stay as they are.

I’ve found that exaggerating my predictions about what a small problem could become is one of the lowest effort things I can do that pushes me to do something now.

2. If you see something, say something

If you notice something that bothers you, and it’s the second or third time it’s happened, count down from five and bring it up. The goal is to train yourself to not overthink helpful feedback, to lean into discomfort, and to bring the issue up as close to the moment as possible.

My old boss showed me what this looked like and I learned a lot from how he gave me instant feedback. I remember being in a roadmap presentation to the CEO, and right after he called me to give direct personal feedback. He didn’t wait until a 1:1 or a performance review, if he had something constructive to share (even if difficult feedback), it happened fresh. When he first did it, he prefaced by telling me that was his feedback style—that the discomfort of bringing it up is temporary, but the damage of ignoring it could be permanent.

Obviously you need to balance honesty with empathy, respect, and tact. Burying feedback in ambiguity for the sake of trying to be nice isn’t kind, as you don’t get to the crux of the problem. But by being straightforward and timely, it actually builds trust and respect.

And because having difficult conversations sits at the solution of solving so many small problems—often with others but sometimes with ourselves too—I thought I’d share some helpful ways to prevent yourself from talking yourself out of having them. As with many things, it’s an exercise in reframing…

Instead of thinking → Try thinking

This will create conflict. → This can lead to understanding.
They’ll take it personally. → I can be respectful and clear.
It’s not my place. → I have a responsibility to address this.
They’re a difficult person. → This is a challenging situation.
This will make things worse. → This can improve our relationship.
I might say something wrong. → I can prepare and speak thoughtfully.
They won’t listen. → I can communicate effectively.
It’s too hard to talk about. → Open conversations solve problems.
They should know better. → I can help them understand.

3. Simple and frequent check-ins in relationships

My wife and I are trying to build a Sunday habit of asking each other: “Is there anything small that’s been bugging you?”

Almost always it’s something tiny—“I feel like you’ve been on your phone a lot.” “I’d love a little more help with dinner.” “I’d appreciate it if you did the litter box more.”

But asking the question routinely keeps things clean. No festering. No pent-up resentment.

Try do something like this in any important relationship—partners, friends, coworkers. Tiny check-ins let the pressure out of the cooker and prevent a big blowup. Plus you usually get valuable feedback for your own growth.

4. Do it or delete it

Often we let small problems fester because we’re waiting for the perfect solution. As I wrote last time, there’s no such thing.

Fix it at 70%. It doesn’t need to be perfect—it just needs to be better. And if you can’t fix it quickly and it’s not a priority, see if you can just delete it from your plate. Nothing feels more liberating than just deleting something.

To give you an example, I started a new job 2 weeks ago and as I was ramping up and building context, my list of shit to do or look into was quickly piling up. Within a few days there was so much on the list, just looking at it started overwhelming me. So I scanned it and pretty much deleted all the stuff at the bottom. The goal was to create focus and to cut a growing backlog (a small problem) from accumulating into an always-procrastinated-on-and-source-of-stress task list (a big problem).

And that’s how you stop your future self from waking up one day and wondering how things got so bad—by knowing that small problems seldom stay small.

Our relationships.
Our careers.
Our health.
Our happiness.

They’re all just a collection of small decisions, repeated.
It’s on us to choose wisely.

Good Times is a biased, but researched, guide to improving ourselves. Practical letters on self-discovery, psychology, work, life, philosophy, and other learnings about living a good life. If this was forwarded to you, sign up here for some Good Times in your inbox.