
Some Protect the Ego by Working on Their Excuses Early - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/health/06mind.html?ref=health
======
far33d
This is an incredibly scary description of how I went through college and high
school. Every time someone did better than me I thought "well, they didn't
stay up every night of this week doing drugs" or "if I studied I would have
done way better" or "I coded a one month assignment in 3 days, so what if I
didn't do the extra credit". I managed to still be pretty successful, but now
find myself frustrated with the easy choices I made.

It wasn't until I grew up that I realized the value of success and failure
(and the necessity of failure in big successes). Unfortunately, now I'm a bit
older and some of the benefits of youth are gone, making it tougher to take
huge risks, but I am doing it anyway, because I'm so resentful of all the
self-handicapping I did throughout my youth.

It's a big part of why I decided to join a startup and leave a cushy big
company job (that was actually pretty fun some of the time) - in a startup,
you might just fail even if you do a great job, but you're sure to learn a
ton. No startup exists without feeling like it's going to die at some point,
and I felt like I couldn't push through this self-handicapping without
experiencing near failure and pushing through it.

~~~
fizx
This has me wondering if doing a startup is (often) itself a form of self-
handicapping. You can always claim you had brilliant performance, but failed
due to the impossible odds. Food for introspection.

~~~
emmett
I find the opposite is true. At a big company I could always tell myself "In
the end, you're not making the decisions. It's not on your head if it doesn't
work". Working at a startup, either I succeed or I fail, but there aren't any
excuses unless you literally get hit by a bus.

------
gcheong
"Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make
yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you
like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned and however
early a man’s training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns
thoroughly." - Thomas Henry Huxley

------
swombat
Very interesting, although I'm not quite sure if they established a causal
link between these two behaviours. The article isn't detailed enough to know
this.

It could well be that both behaviours (coming up with excuses - proactively or
after-the-fact - and setting yourself up for failure) are driven by something
else (e.g. intense distractibility coupled with good creativity and
intuition). I'm not saying it is, but that needs to be ruled out before the
article's conclusion can be established.

~~~
j2d2
I thought this too but I'm not sure I see it as much different. If the reasons
for requiring the excuses are different, but the excuses are still being made
and success not being achieved, why is the distinction interesting?

~~~
swombat
Because if

A -> B

then B can be fixed by fixing A. (i.e. if coming up with excuses proactively
is a direct cause of failure, if you can cure your habit of coming up with
excuses you can reduce your failure chances).

On the other hand, if:

C -> A

and

C -> B

Then there is no causal link between A and B, even though they occur together,
and so fixing A (the excuses) won't fix B (the increased rate of failure), and
instead you must find out what C is.

~~~
Tangurena
Poor impulse control underlies many self-destructive behaviors. I'd say that
the excuses are just a symptom of poor impulse control.

~~~
mattmcknight
aka Discipline.

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
the D word! _gasp_

------
biohacker42
I wonder if there is an evolutionary reason for men being more likely to self
sabotage?

Fight only when it counts?

Me personally, I'm a touch too competitive. I often choose not to participate
rather then go all out.

For example, I used to play soccer, I jog every day but I have not played
soccer in years, and then one day I'm invited to very friendly soccer game
during lunch hour.

Cut to maybe 20 minutes before the end of the game, I had already torn damn
near every muscle in my legs and my lower back was starting to hurt. Slow
down? Quit the game a bit early, nah push harder.

I'm still recovering.

~~~
jcl
Just to speculate: Perhaps self-sabotage allows someone to maintain a high
self-esteem ("I'm great at everything") while ignoring subjects which are
difficult ("I'd be great at that, too, if it weren't for X").

This self-delusion has direct benefits; people with high self-esteem are more
attractive. But it also makes it easier to ignore a pursuit, which perhaps
encourages people to spend more time on fewer pursuits, and with greater
enthusiasm. Such specialization may help a male stand out from other suitors.

~~~
brandnewlow
I will share this as it seems relevant.

A few years back, I signed up to be a counselor at a wilderness camp in
Southwestern Colorado. Hiking. Climbing. Camping. Living in a log cabin
without plumbing at 12,000 feet for three months. I was very much not in my
element.

I had a great time. No one there knew me before, so there weren't any
preconceived notions about who I was. It was liberating.

However I also was at the bottom of the "coolness" ladder among the
counselors, because I had no background in the outdoorsy skills that
"mattered" out there.

So doing things that I normally would shy away from was good for me. But yes,
as you say, it screwed up my "game."

------
brandnewlow
Frighteningly accurate description of behavior I've caught myself engaging in.
It's a vicious cycle best defeated by working on things with people who know
you well and won't put up with it.

~~~
sgibat
Yeah, I do this too. I do it so intensely that it's practically the story of
my life. High praise and expectations from parents in youth led me to be
afraid I'd never reach them. Oh shit, did I just do it again?

Seriously, I think years of sabotaging myself has led to a real effect on my
work ethic, and I'm only just beginning to restructure my emotional schema.

~~~
brandnewlow
Same story. School came so incredibly easy for me that I decided I was a
genius or something in 4th grade. Anything that would clash with this self
assessment was something to avoid.

And sports did NOT come easily for me, so I decided I was terrible at them
wouldn't ever be any good. Anything that would clash with this self assessment
was something to avoid. I was ok with letting a ball get through into the goal
every once in a while. It confirmed my self image.

The truth, that maybe I wasn't that smart but also wasn't that terrible at
soccer, would have been a lot harder to swallow. Still is probably.

The New Yorker recently published a profile of Alec Baldwin that describes
this phenomenon very well.

[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/09/08/080908fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/09/08/080908fa_fact_parker?currentPage=all)

The writer observes that Baldwin has an excuse for every bad performance. And
that his life narrative, as he describes it, consists only of triumphs and
miserable failures.

"Baldwin is perhaps too easily seduced by a narrative of grand failure, rather
than accepting a quieter story of qualified success; but by his account, one
that hurries past some fine performances, almost everything he did in film
from that point on (post-Hunt for Red October) was, at best, dissatisfying."

\----------------------

I think that "quieter story" is what scared me as a kid and what scares me
sometimes still, the fear of being just another average person with some
successes and stumbles, rather than someone "special."

This is narcissism right?

~~~
robg
This issue is also tied into how we're praised as kids:

[http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2007/02/the_power_of_praise.ht...](http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2007/02/the_power_of_praise.html)

You were probably told you were really smart and so you tended to believe it.
Better to praise the results than make blanket statements about the kid.

~~~
brandnewlow
I thought of that New York Times piece, too. Yup.

So then you wonder about your parents. Praising the innate intelligence of
your kid is kind of like praising your own intelligence. You can't really pass
on "hard work" or "effort."

~~~
robg
I understand what you mean, but passing on "hard work" and "effort" would seem
to pay greater dividends.

------
yters
It's nicer to be a "could have" than a "cannot."

~~~
fallentimes
But do you really know if you could have until you've tried?

Almost every time a startup launches on TechCrunch, the comments are filled
with "could haves" instead of "here's what I've done".

~~~
scott_s
I think you're missing his point. By "nicer" he doesn't mean "better for us,"
but "easier on our egos."

~~~
fallentimes
Context clue failure for me.

------
tokenadult
Carol Dweck's research on mindset

[http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2007/marapr/feat...](http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2007/marapr/features/dweck.html)

is closely related to this issue.

------
danw
Are there any know solutions to preventing this behaviour?

~~~
bootload
_"... Every ugly exam score, blown deadline and failed project provides the
opportunity to try out new excuses. ... Q Are there any know solutions to
preventing this behaviour?"_

I think the real problem with trying to achieve something is a combination of
not _"knowing how"_ and thus having "no way to estimate" what it takes and
just give up. For example, if I said to you, _"go and walk 1000Km over hilly
terrain"_ most people would probably give up because it seems impossible to
do?

But if I said, _"could you walk 10Km a day for 100 days?"_. This is doable.
The second bit is the estimate. Could you _"walk the distance in 100 days
straight? Or 5 to 6 days out of every 7?"_ Breaking the big unachievable goal
into smaller more achievable goals, you do regularly, means you have an
understanding of:

\- where you are now

\- how far you have to go

\- how much effort is required, right now

I imagine some peole still might flat out choose not to do 10Km/day five or
six times a week, but I imagine quite a few could see that the effort is
doable and achievable and not give up. Breaking down the tasks means you are
not overwhelmed by the perceptions of impossibility. This could be the reasons
kids give up for instance if you tell them to do a task and simply give up.
Break it into smaller achievable tasks and you can hack their automatic flake
response.

Btw I'm at my 330/1000Km.

------
PieSquared
Now just to figure out how to make yourself _stop_ doing that...

