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You can set yourself up for a failure due to low self-esteem. It can result in self-sabotaging behaviors, such as:
- not trying hard enough (after all, you don’t believe you’ll succeed, so what’s the point of doing your best?),
- exhibiting doubt (who’s going to date you, invest in your business, or hire you, if you send unconscious signals of uncertainty?),
- giving up at the first sign of trouble (why fight, if you already decided that you’d most likely fail?),
- creating situations or excuses that set a person up for a failure (like a student who parties the night before an important exam).
It’s common for a person suffering from a lack of confidence to invent insignificant problems so they can have an excuse not to face the big ones.
For example, they’ll tell themselves they desperately need a new dress for a job interview and spend four hours shopping instead of preparing themselves for the interview. Or they’ll come up with a supposedly important reason to stay up late, so when they don’t get the job they’ll be able to protect their ago and say that they failed because they had to stay up late.
As absurd as it sounds, it isn’t a rare behavior. Unfortunately, because it’s so subtle, people usually don’t notice they’re doing it subconsciously — it’s not like they consciously want to fail a job interview, but that’s the outcome that their unconscious behavior produces
To overcome this type of failure, you need to take three steps:
A lack of confidence leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy: you don’t believe you can achieve something, and that’s exactly what happens. One of the most effective ways to overcome this problem is to not develop a belief in yourself, but in your goal. When you’re working on an extremely important goal, increased self-confidence will be a side effect of your efforts.
I spent several years trying to build a successful business. If it weren’t for my clear, deep conviction that I would literally die if I were to work for “the man,” I wouldn’t have stuck with the process for so long. I felt so strongly about the significance of this goal in my life that, even after numerous failures, getting into debt and being just an inch from having to close up shop, I didn’t lose my confidence. This is what believing in the importance of your goal can do for you. Can you imagine willingly suffering so much for a goal you sort of want to reach?
EMPOWERING STORY #4: PHIL KNIGHT
Nike founder Phil Knight wrote the following words in his memoir, Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike: “Driving back to Portland, I’d puzzle over my sudden success at selling. I’d been unable to sell encyclopedias, and I’d despised it to boot. I’d been slightly better at selling mutual funds, but I’d felt dead inside. So why was selling shoes so different? Because, I realized, it wasn’t selling. I believed in running. I believed that if people got out and ran a few miles every day, the world would be a better place, and I believed these shoes were better to run in. People, sensing my belief, wanted some of that belief for themselves. Belief, I decided. Belief is irresistible.”[23]
From then on, his life didn’t magically change. While he did finally begin his work on what was to become Nike, he still went through numerous failures, setbacks, and had to deal with larger-than-life problems. However, if it wasn’t for his irresistible belief, who knows if Phil would have built one of the world’s largest and most recognized sports companies?
When you’re afraid of failure, you might sabotage your efforts to protect your ego from the crushing consequences of failure. This behavior, exhibited by creating obstacles and excuses to justify your failures, is called self-handicapping.
According to researchers Andrew J. Elliot and Marcy A. Church, self-handicapping makes it challenging to reach one’s goals[24].
The problem with self-handicapping is that, on the surface, you always have a perfect explanation for your actions. Even if you’re hurting yourself by taking actions that undermine your efforts but protect your ego, you’ll still believe you’re doing the right thing.
If you recognize this happening in your life, try two alternative strategies:
1. Defensive pessimism
Defensive pessimists set low expectations for their performance and envision possible negative outcomes. However, instead of creating circumstances that would undermine their success, they plan and prepare for the obstacles.[25]
This strategy focuses on managing anxiety in a constructive way. Instead of sabotaging your efforts so that you can avoid the unpleasant failure, you plan for the anxiety and develop solutions to handle it.
Let’s imagine you have scheduled a job interview at your dream company. A person with a self-handicapping strategy will most likely do some of the following:
- worry themselves sick about the interview and their performance;
- unconsciously create a situation that will make them arrive late — and dramatically reduce their chance of getting hired, if they even get a second chance after being late;
- develop physical symptoms that prevent them from going to the interview, so they can avoid the anxiety (along with losing the job opportunity).
In contrast, a defensive pessimist will:
- envision a bad performance — and then research every single possible question they might be asked and prepare a solid answer for each one;
- leave to go to the interview an hour sooner, so even if there’s a gigantic traffic, jam they’ll still get there on time;
- ensure that they feel well and look good by paying close attention to healthy nutrition, exercise, and getting sufficient sleep prior to the job interview.
EXERCISE #6: PRACTICE DEFENSIVE PESSIMISM
If you can’t exhibit optimism and often sabotage your efforts, try defensive pessimism by imagining the worst and preparing for it. The next time you find yourself preparing for a situation that produces anxiety, come up with a list of everything that can go wrong. If it’s a job interview, you could jot down:
- getting sick;
- being late;
- forgetting important details about the company;
- forgetting the fundamental things you should know when applying for a given position;
- wardrobe malfunction.
Then, address every item one by one by coming up with a list of possible solutions and implement them to reduce the risk of the setback happening. Here’s an example:
- Getting sick. If possible, avoid crowded places with a higher risk of an infection prior to the job interview. Eat foods and engage in habits that boost the immune system, such as exercise. Get sufficient sleep.
- Being late. Leave much sooner than necessary. Ensure that your car doesn’t need any important repairs and won’t suddenly break down. Charge up your phone so you can call a cab if you can’t turn the engine on.
- Forgetting important details about the company. Visit the company’s website and memorize everything you find interesting or good to know. Read the most recent news. Find a current employee and invite them for coffee to get insider knowledge.
- Forgetting the fundamental things you should know when applying for a given position. Review the basics of your profession. Read a book or two about the most important concepts pertaining to your job.
- Wardrobe malfunction. Prepare your clothes the evening before the job interview. Bring a second shirt or even an entire second set of clothes with you.
Assuming that everything will go wrong and then making sure that you have a contingency plan will help you overcome anxiety, build confidence and avoid self-sabotage.
2. Strategic optimism
Strategic optimists deal with the anxiety of failure by adopting the outlook that things will end well. Instead of worrying themselves sick about their future performance and trying to plan for every single possible setback, they set high expectations, visualize success, and feel calm and in control.
It takes a lot of practice to adapt this strategy if you’ve been a pessimist for a long time, so start small and stay patient. The process comes down to three steps:
1. Shifting your locus of control — the extent to which you believe you can control events that affect you[26] — from external to internal. In other words, take responsibility for your life instead of blaming everybody but you for the failure, and admit that you’ve achieved success thanks to your efforts, not through luck. We’ll talk about locus of control in more detail later in this book.
2. Slowly stretching your comfort zone. Start with easy tasks within your comfort zone and take it from there. A string of wins — even if they’re tiny — will help you build positive momentum and develop the belief that things generally turn out okay.
3. Reframing. Optimists are masterful at changing the meaning of their failures. Consequently, they don’t take them personally and maintain high confidence in themselves. For example, if they don’t perform well during a job interview, they’ll consider it a lesson that they need to better prepare for their next interview or they’ll simply tell themselves that if they didn’t perform well, it was probably because subconsciously they knew it wasn’t the right company for them.
(I dig deeply into the topic of self-efficacy (the strength of the belief in your abilities that can help you become more optimistic) in my free book Confidence: How to Overcome Your Limiting Beliefs and Achieve Your Goals.)
This will sound like a contradiction to what I’ve said before about being realistic, but there’s a slight difference, so please read carefully...
I’ve been criticized that I live in a fantasy world on more than a couple of occasions. And I like when people say that because it shows how far I’ve gone to change my attitude (which previously was as pessimistic and self-limiting as you can get).
As much as I value being reasonable when setting new goals, I don’t set limits for myself as to what I can achieve given enough time — and neither should you. This is a crucial tool to escape self-imposed mediocrity that is caused by the erroneous belief that you aren’t the master of your own destiny.
This is not about believing that you can become a millionaire in three months. It’s about believing that if you want it to happen, you will make it happen, although in a more realistic time frame. In other words, you believe that everything is possible, but you don’t keep your head in the clouds.
I have a corkboard in my home office with some of my favorite quotes, and right in the center of it there are two quotes:
1. “Nothing is impossible for a man who refuses to listen to reason,” from Gary Halbert, a legendary flamboyant copywriter who is responsible for some of the most successful direct mail campaigns.
If you’re reading this book, I assume you’re doing so because you want to build a better life for yourself. This in itself runs contrary to the behavior of a large group of people who couldn’t care less about self-improvement.
Understand that you’ll meet with adversity and disbelief because it clashes with how those people see the world. You’ll be the unreasonable one in their eyes, but don’t let it define your self-confidence. All successful people have to deal with this.
2. “To live an extraordinary life, you must resist an ordinary approach,” from Frank McKinney, a self-proclaimed real estate artist, international bestselling author, philanthropist and ultramarathoner, who has built oceanfront spec homes (homes built without an identified buyer) valued in the tens of millions of dollars.
I often re-read these quotes to imprint them even deeper in my mind, but what’s more important is actually taking action in line with what they espouse. Namely, it’s refusing to accept the self-limiting beliefs imposed on you by society. It’s about not following the herd right over the cliff. It’s about developing trust in yourself, because you’re the expert of your own life and what you want it to be like. You won’t always be right, but what’s important is that you did what you thought was right. I’d much rather fail because I made the wrong choice than because I listened to someone else.
In more practical terms, this means things like:
- Quitting a lucrative job that you hate, to do something that actually gives you joy and doesn’t convert your life into a nightmare. “Reasonable” people would probably say you should stick to a lucrative job. It’s such a bad job market, you should be happy with what you have. But in the end, is life really about money alone, or hey, maybe — juuuust maybe — the point is to be happy and fulfilled?
- Going against the tide when you believe it makes sense. Most self-published authors undervalue their work by selling their books for $2.99. Readers often buy such books on impulse, skim through them and forget about them right away. I first broke the mold by pricing my books at $3.99 and $4.99, and then going as high as $7.99. It’s only a few bucks more, but paying two or three times more for a book suddenly makes a reader respect their purchase more.
- Standing out, even at the risk of ridicule. Obviously, it’s not about putting on underwear over your pants just to be different. A great example here is Dollar Shave Club founder Michael Dubin, who created a slapstick YouTube video promoting his new company. Instead of taking the common and boring “professional” angle for his commercial, he chose humor and sarcasm. Within just four years, it paid off handsomely when he sold the company to Unilever for $1 billion in cash.
Adopting these two outlooks on life will help you develop more trust in yourself and, consequently, overcome (or at least reduce) the occurrence of self-sabotaging behaviors.
1. The fifth type of failure is failure caused by self-sabotage. When a person lacks the confidence to face their fears head on, doesn’t believe that they can achieve a given goal, or (even worse) doesn’t believe in their worth as a human being, they’ll inevitably sabotage their efforts. This behavior usually manifests by creating excuses or situations that lead to failure or inaction.
For instance, a person will unconsciously choose to stay up late for some supposedly important reason so they can look tired during the job interview and reduce their chances of success. Then, if they fail, they’ll be able to protect their ego by saying something along the lines of, “I didn’t get this job because I had to stay up late.”
2. The first step to deal with this type of failure is to believe in your goal. If you can’t develop the confidence in yourself, develop the belief that the goal you’re pursuing is something you absolutely must reach. This, as if by association, will help you develop more conviction in your abilities to make it come to pass.
3. The second step is to replace the strategy of self-handicapping (creating obstacles and excuses to avoid anxiety or justify your failures) with something more effective: defensive pessimism or strategic optimism.
Defensive pessimists envision negative outcomes and prepare themselves for every possible setback. Consequently, they have less anxiety and perform better. To become a defensive pessimist, go through your worries one by one and develop strategies to handle them.
Strategic optimists, on the other hand, assume that things will turn out okay, and that helps them manage their anxiety and perform on a high level. To become more optimistic, shift your locus of control by claiming personal responsibility for every failure and success in your life, stretch your comfort zone to gain confidence and momentum, and reframe negative events to turn them into lessons instead of excuses as to why you’re a failure.
4. Lastly, live in a fantasy world. This means adopting the belief that there are no limits. While you need to be realistic about the timeframe needed to reach success, resist the social programming that tells you to remain average and conform. Dare to go against the tide whenever you feel deep inside your heart that you’re right.
