Apparently I began writing this some time ago, saved a draft and then forgot about it. I may revisit this post and complete it at some point, but I’m going to go ahead and post it with the disclaimer that it’s an incomplete rough draft and should be taken as such. There is one addition to the draft at the bottom.
While perusing this article in the May-June 2008 issue of Psychology Today, I flashed back to one of my recent blog posts in which I wrote about some of my past issues with self-confidence. It occurs to me that, perhaps, it would be beneficial for me to look at this from a slightly different perspective.
From the article:
But frustration is one thing; the decision to give up in the face of adversity is quite another. Why do many people simply surrender when faced with big goals and big problems? How did we acquire this tendency to feel hopeless in the face of a career setback or despair over ever recovering from a breakup (and so do nothing to move on from the relationship)?
The fact is that high-stakes situations demand a different calculus than do run-of-the-mill frustrations. When much is at stake—when, for example, we seek access to power, status, and mates—we often frame the problem as a binary choice, because for most of human history, time and options were severely limited in important matters. Do I go all out and fight for the corner office? Do I risk the relationship by declaring my need for commitment? Or do I do nothing at all and passively wait to see what happens?
On important and challenging matters, we hew to a simple heuristic: Fight, or don’t. Either we take on quandaries wholeheartedly or we feel defeated and immobilized. That heuristic also states, “If I choose to fight, I must win.” Helplessness comes from the idea that one must win at all costs, coupled with the fact that there is never a guarantee of a positive outcome.
A person with a must-win outlook creates an untenable demand that is immobilizing. We propel ourselves toward a goal with the all-or-nothing imperative only to feel a pervasive sense of defeat when we realize we’re not getting all that we think we must. This paradox explains why people often stop working toward the things they most desire.
It should be noted that performance anxiety isn’t really characterized by an internal struggle with our opinion of ourselves but rather by an internal struggle with an external idea, that being the approval and acceptance of others. In a nutshell, if we do well we’re loved by those whose approval we seek and, conversely, if we do poorly the opinion of those people changes in kind. I struggled with performance anxiety, but as I consider the quoted paragraphs, I see the same internal argument used in both situations.
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I’m not much of a baseball fan, but I do know who Ted Williams was. Called the most successful batter in MLB history, he is the only player to ever bat over .400 for a season. 4 out of 10 times, he hit the ball. 6 out of 10 times, he didn’t. The best batter ever failed more than he succeeded. I’ll let you work out the implications.