I'm in the middle of reading an article by Bill Simmons on ESPN.com that is transcript of an email exchange with Malcolm Gladwell, a writer at the New Yorker and the author of Blink and The Tipping Point. (Here's a review of Gladwell's work.) In any case, Gladwell wrote this wonderful little passage about believing in yourself and working hard:
Why don't people work hard when it's in their best interest to do so? ... The (short) answer is that it's really risky to work hard, because then if you fail you can no longer say that you failed because you didn't work hard. It's a form of self-protection. I swear that's why Mickelson has that almost absurdly calm demeanor. If he loses, he can always say: Well, I could have practiced more, and maybe next year I will and I'll win then. When Tiger loses, what does he tell himself? He worked as hard as he possibly could. He prepared like no one else in the game and he still lost. That has to be devastating, and dealing with that kind of conclusion takes a very special and rare kind of resilience. Most of the psychological research on this is focused on why some kids don't study for tests — which is a much more serious version of the same problem. If you get drunk the night before an exam instead of studying and you fail, then the problem is that you got drunk. If you do study and you fail, the problem is that you're stupid — and stupid, for a student, is a death sentence. The point is that it is far more psychologically dangerous and difficult to prepare for a task than not to prepare. People think that Tiger is tougher than Mickelson because he works harder. Wrong: Tiger is tougher than Mickelson and because of that he works harder.
Which type are you? Are you putting yourself on the line every day? Or are you giving yourself excuses so that, when you fail, you don't have to doubt yourself?
1 comment:
This passage is very interesting to me because my best friend is exactly this type of person (the "afraid of failure" type). She's bright, but hardly studies and settles for the B instead of the A she could get if she put in a bit more effort. It's not that she despises studying, but that she doesn't want to take that risk. She's addicted to the excuse, "I wrote it at 2 a.m. the night before it was due and still pulled a B+!"
But then I have to ask, is it really worth it to put all your eggs in one basket? How much time SHOULD we spend trying to get that A on the midterm? So much that we can’t meet our friends for lunch, or go for that jog, or just relax? The truth is, it’s not that we “can’t” find the time for those activities, it’s that we won’t. Often, our priorities just are not in alignment with our goals. Take my friend for example: she wants to be a successful lawyer, so she wants to get into a top law school, therefore she wants to earn better grades. But her top priority isn’t maximizing her GPA, it’s minimizing her daily stress. If she cut out only ONE hour of TV or “facebooking” each day, she’d have an additional 7 hours a week that she could study, and she’d surely be one step closer to achieving her short-term and long-term goals (and she wouldn’t have to give up that lunch out, jog, or relaxation time). Moreover, she might discover that the extra 7 hours of studying each week actually REDUCES her stress level by eliminating those dreadful all-nighters.
In short, I wonder if what holds many students back is fear of failure or fear of change. Studying for one extra hour a day, for instance, may sound like nothing, but it’s a fairly large change—one that requires commitment, and before all else, a strong determination to succeed. I think that those who truly desire to achieve their goals will find both of those qualities somewhere within themselves, and when they do, there will be no holding them back.
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