Predicting Failure

Predicting Failure to Protect Your Ego 

Have you ever heard someone, maybe even yourself, predict their own failure right before attempting something?  A golfer on the tee box with a water hazard in play - “Watch me slice this into the water”. A batter on deck - “This pitcher is going to strike me out.” This prediction of failure is common whether it is out loud to others, to yourself or just a thought in your head. In this post, we will look at why that is and why it can be harmful to performance and what you can do about it.

While often made to be humorous or sarcastic, at its core,his type of statement or thought almost always serves to protect your ego. It is human nature to want to protect our ego, to look good in front of others. Humans like to be liked, and humans like to be right. There is nothing inherantly wrong with this, but it can impact your thoughts and focus in important moments. Knowing that, you can practice strategies to make sure that your natural instinct to look good and be right is less likely to harm your performance.

The first thing predicting your own failure does is set a low expectation. Whether it is to others around you or to yourself, you are setting the expectation that you are likely about to botch it big time. This creates a win-win situation for your ego, because it allows you to be satisfied with any outcome. 

Let’s look at the implications and possible scenarios for that golfer who has set a low expectation by telling their group they are probably about to hit into the water. Remember two important elements of human nature: humans like to look good infront of others and humans like to be right:

Scenario 1: The golfer does, indeed, hit a shank into the water hazard. While the golfer didn’t perform well, or look good infront of their group, at least they were right about the outcome of the shot. They went 1 for 2 on the ego-protection measures. 

Scenario 2: The golfer hits their tee shot into the fairway. Now their group is impressed by a nice shot. Since our golfer has set the expectation low, anything above that expectation is viewed as successful, even impressive. They may not have been right, but who cares? They look good in front of others! Again, 1 for 2 on the ego protection, but probably feeling a bit better than if they had hit the water. 

Setting low expectations is hedging your bet in that if you don’t perform well, at least you can fall back on being right, to reduce the hit to your ego from playing poorly. 

So why can this be unproductive, and what is a more effective mindset?

This prediction of failure can potentially hurt performance by directing your focus away from the performance and undercutting your confidence.

Statements and thoughts about failure take your focus away from the desired outcome, and more importantly, away from what you need to do to make it happen. If you are focusing on making sure your ego is protected and what others might be thinking of you, it is harder to direct your attention to your process and performance. Drawing focus to potential failure goes against one aspect of a positive mindset: think about what you want to do, not what you don’t want to do. To use our golfer as an example again, a positive thought process would focus on wanting to hit it into the fairway and the type of swing that will accomplish that, rather than thinking about not hitting it into the water. Our brains like a clear action plan and target, and if you're not mindful, your brain will latch onto failure if it is in your attention. 

Predicting your own failure can sabotage your own confidence. Even if you are only trying to protect your ego, and even if you know that, if you have a habit of thinking this way, you are consistently sending messages to yourself that you will fail or underperform. 

You can’t realistically ignore all potential bad outcomes in a given situation. Nor should you! It is important to think about potential outcomes in a given situation in order to make strategic decisions based on risk and rewards. One small change to try if you find yourself predicting your own failure as we have discussed is to acknowledge the potential for failure but state what you want to do as well. Our golfer might say “I know there is water right to avoid, I need to make sure I am lined up to aim left, commit to the swing and send one down the left side fairway.” This acknowledges that there is a potential failure to avoid, sets the intention to succeed, drives attention to how to achieve that success, and inspires realistic confidence.