When sellers and buyers are evenly matched, pushing for win-lose rarely leads to a win for anyone—and often ends in lose-lose.

Numerous studies show that we process negative and positive information differently. You might say we’re saddled with a “negativity bias.” We take in “bad” information, including small mistakes and failures, more readily than “good” information. We have more trouble letting go of bad compared to good thoughts. We remember the negative things that happen to us more vividly and for longer than we do the positive ones. We pay more attention to negative than positive feedback. People interpret negative facial expressions more quickly than positive ones. Bad, simply put, is stronger than good. This is not to say we agree with or value it more but rather that we notice it more.

But the problem is that Lose/Win people bury a lot of feelings. And unexpressed feelings never die: they’re buried alive and come forth later in uglier ways. Psychosomatic illnesses, particularly of the respiratory, nervous, and circulatory systems often are the reincarnation of cumulative resentment, deep disappointment and disillusionment repressed by the Lose/Win mentality. Disproportionate rage or anger, overreaction to minor provocation, and cynicism are other embodiments of suppressed emotion. People who are constantly repressing, not transcending feelings towards a higher meaning find that it affects the quality of their self-esteem and eventually the quality of their relationships with others.

Sophie was experiencing what behavioral economist Dan Ariely calls “loss aversion,” our human tendency to want to keep all options open. In a famous series of experiments profiled in the New York Times, Ariely showed just how far we’ll go to keep from closing doors. Students in the experiment played a computer game that paid real cash to look for money behind three doors on the screen. After they opened a door by clicking on it, each subsequent click earned a little money, with the sum varying each time. As players went through the 100 allotted clicks, they could switch rooms to search for higher payoffs, but each switch used up a click to open the new door. The best strategy, players learned, was to quickly check out the three rooms and settle in the one with the highest rewards. But if they stayed out of any room, its door would start shrinking visually and eventually disappear. Ignoring those disappearing doors turned out to be impossible. In fact, participants wasted so many clicks rushing back to reopen doors that their earnings dropped 15 percent. And they frenetically continued keeping all their doors open even as penalties for switching got stiffer, costing not just clicks but cash fees.

One of the most common mistakes people make is bargaining with how the world should work instead of accepting how it does work. Anytime you find yourself or your colleague complaining “that’s not right,” or “that’s not fair,” or “it shouldn’t be that way,” you are bargaining, not accepting. You want the world to work in a way that it doesn’t.

Failing to accept how the world really works puts your time and energy toward proving how right you are. When the desired results don’t materialize, it’s easy to blame circumstances or others. I call this the wrong side of right. You’re focused on your ego not the outcome.

Solutions appear when you stop bargaining and start accepting the reality of the situation. That’s because focusing on the next move, rather than how you got here in the first place, opens you up to a lot of possibilities. When you put outcome over ego, you get better results.