We fail a lot more than we win

Losers of the world, unite. Come closer and sit here in the hall of shame. There’s plenty of chairs for everyone. John, tell us that one in which you miscalculated the final price of the proposal and became responsible for losing that bid. Mary, share that story of the prospect that never answered your calls.

I’m a positive person and I believe that things will to be all right in the end. But I know the road is tough. Every day I fail. Whether it is in a new prospect approach, an internal report, a marketing plan, you name it. I failed yesterday. Part of it can be attributed to this perfectionism that we are incentivized to nurture. The other parts are composed of a diverse range of elements: lack of attention, lack of time, inexperience, insistence in multitasking, too much pressure, too much responsibility, stress, fate. You name it.

And since we know that, maybe we can do 2 things: punish ourselves less and structure ways to reduce the failure probability.

Did you know that trying to control and suppress bad experiences and emotions can play against you? Daniel M. Wegner found that by studying the “Ironic Mental Control Processes”. His conclusion: “an individual’s attempts to gain mental control may thus precipitate the unwanted mental states they were intended to remedy”. In other words, if you can’t stop thinking about that bad thing that happened to you, it will stick with you as long as you keep thinking of it. So thinking about that prospect that never answered you keep failure in your head.

On the other hand, you can use negative thinking to plan for better outcomes. That’s what Gabriele Oettingen, a psychologist at New York University, says while she questions positive thinking. Based on twenty years of research in the science of motivation, she structures a method called WOOP (Wish, Outcome, Obstacles, Plan), that presents a unique idea: “the obstacles that we think most impede us from fulfilling our wishes can actually help us to realize them. WOOP instructs us to dream our future dreams but then to imagine what obstacles inside ourselves prevent us from achieving these dreams. In research studies, WOOP has helped people reduce stress and increase work engagement, find integrative solutions to problems, and improve time management. It has supported adults in losing weight, drinking less alcohol, and sustaining healthier relationships. Children and adolescents using WOOP improved school attendance as well as effort and achievement in school”.

Much of our lives involves adapting to an imperfect world while being imperfect beings. We will fail. A lot more than we will win. But, when we win, all the perfection that comes with it pays for the struggle.