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High Pressure and Losing Streaks

Handling negative emotions

A friend of mine, writer John Murphy, pointed me to this discussion, in which devotees of the computer game Starcraft talk about how they recover after a losing streak. My first thought was that the topic wouldn’t be of much use in terms of looking at how we motivate ourselves in general, because computer games are hardly the same thing as cleaning out the garage or succeeding at our chosen career, right? Fortunately, it didn’t take me long to set myself straight on that count: after all, when we are focused on a goal and are facing obstacles and frustrations, the emotional situation is very similar regardless of whether the obstacles are gaming opponents, inefficient coworkers, or unmarked boxes full of bicycle parts. (See “A Surprising Source of Insight into Self-Motivation: Video Games“)

That’s not to say that I think that all goals are equally praiseworthy. I wouldn’t expect to impress anyone with my skilled movie watching or badminton playing, and while computer games are much like anything else in terms of how motivation works, that doesn’t mean I’d especially recommend that people direct their energies there. Engrossing is not necessarily the same thing as meaningful. With that said, every healthy life has leisure activities, so let’s learn from this one.

A warning: if you do read the discussion I linked to on your own, there may be parts that are completely foreign to you. For instance, in the following passage, I had no idea whatsoever what the author was talking about (although I enjoyed the sense of disorientation that came with that):

When I lost to broods, I checked the rep and knew I needed an observer in his main to see what the hive timing was, when hive was started I threw down a stargate. If I couldnt get an obs in his base, I told myself to start a stargate at the 12 minute mark, and to try to get a third faster.

But enough jargon: to the interesting parts. Many of the suggestions and ideas in the discussion touched on meaningful self-motivation strategies that are supported by research. For example, the gamers in this discussion were very sensitive to losing streaks, as most people tend to be. Streaks can become a burden, or can be used to create more motivation (see “Harnessing a Winning Streak” and “How to Stop Having a Bad Day“).

A couple of things to know about Starcraft (although everything I know about the game I learned from that discussion thread): first, there are different kinds of games, and the highest-pressure option seems to be “Ladder,” which I gather is a highly competitive fight to move up in the rankings. Also, unlike many video games, Starcraft seems to have limited social aspects. A user called Stereo (all participants in the discussion went by user names like this) said

Yea in wc3 if you had a losing streak it didn’t seem to matter at all ’cause I could just go talk to people and jump back into a game and have some laughs …. Here it’s like a ghost town where the only thought is the last game and why you lost.

Some of the insights in the thread (and there were a number of insights from gamers paying attention to their own thoughts and feelings) touched on taking ownership of success, failure, and the emotions that result from those experiences. Qriator said

When I’m losing it’s not because the other guy’s trolling or just way better – it’s because I’m messing up my own build.

This point is a key one: our mood, effectiveness, and resilience are affected enormously by whether we assign blame for a failure to someone else or take responsibility for it ourselves. It’s not intuitive, but taking responsibility for a failure can actually be much less stressful than blaming it on another person or outside forces, because it suggests that we have some control over the situation and might be able to handle it better next time. Focusing on others’ actions is demoralizing and stressful because by and large we have no power to make people act as we think they should. RipeBanana (I know, the names are a little strange for a conversation like this, but bear with me) commented in a similar vein:

I used to get really angry when I lost a game, then get a ton more angry if I lost 2-3 (or 9) games in a row. Then one day, and I am completely serious, I told myself I wouldn’t get mad anymore.

As simple as that – and I no longer rage.

It’s interesting how emotions work. We may have little control over our immediate, initial reaction to an experience, but our emotional state from there on is powerfully influenced by our own thoughts. (See “How emotions work” and “All About Broken Ideas and Idea Repair“).

Several participants in the discussion emphasized the importance of going back to figure out what went wrong, and of concentrating not on winning, but on improving. Terminus said

… by analyze I mean going to the point in the replay that made you lose the game, and remembering to not commit that same mistake again.

You have to get into the mindset that games are no big deal. Points aren’t important, ranking isn’t important, what matters is improving …. once you improve, your ranking will naturally rise.

Jazzman takes a similar approach:

… then I watch the replays of my last couple of losses, pinpoint the earliest possible fix I can make, and proceed to go crush 3 or 4 people in a row.

Both of these players have a good chance of doing better through this process–that is, their loss may mean that they’ll actually win more in the future–because they’re pushing themselves to consciously work in a different way. (See “Practice versus Deliberate Practice“)

The last idea I’ll quote from the thread–although far from the last idea that was suggested there–is from piCKles:

There’s actually a little trick that I learned from a quarterback that I’m going to start using. You wear a rubber band around your wrist and every time you get into a new game, you snap the rubber band. This helps create a trigger in your mind … that every time you snap the rubber band you forget about everything that went wrong with any of the previous games, and that this game is fresh start and a new chance to pull off the winning play or game in this instance.

I’ve never tried this, but it makes perfect sense: any simple reminder to clear our minds and shed any lingering anxieties or anger about previous problems is likely to help us do better at the next thing. For instance, if a person has two job interviews in a row and the first one is a disaster, the ability to “snap back” and approach the second job interview fresh is likely to make a big difference for the better.

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Recovering After a Failure of Willpower

States of mind

We’re well into a season in which, for Americans at least, restraint isn’t very popular. We start out with a holiday that celebrates eating as much as possible, work up to a holiday that celebrates spending as much as possible, and cap it off with a holiday that celebrates staying up late and drinking.

All right, I admit that this isn’t the kindest or even most accurate depiction I could give of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s, but the point is that whether or not you happen to celebrate any of these holidays, it’s likely you run into times when you don’t exercise the amount of willpower and restraint you would like to. Practically everyone does sometimes. Over time we can get better at exercising restraint even when we’re receiving messages to do otherwise, but what do we do to get back on track after losing our willpower for a while? Here are some specific things that can help:

  1. Don’t beat yourself up. Feelings of guilt, shame, frustration, disappointment, and depression are common after a failure of willpower. These are traps: avoid them. If you get caught up in destructive emotions, it will be hard to learn well and regain your focus. Identify broken ideas that aren’t doing you any good, then repair them: see “All About Broken Ideas and Idea Repair.”
  2. Get smarter. After a failure of willpower, you have an ideal opportunity to learn from your mistakes. Start a feedback loop to figure out how to change your behavior next time, and keep using it to see how well your new approaches work. Your feedback loop (which could be journaling, talking with a friend, talking to yourself, etc.) will include a description of exactly what you don’t like that you did, what you were thinking when you did it, and some ideas for changing what you do in the future. It will also include acknowledgments of any good decisions you made.
  3. Look ahead. One of the best ways to do well with willpower is to prepare solutions in advance. For instance, if you ate much more than you wanted to at your last family gathering, you might want to plan what you’re going to eat before you go to the next one. See “How Preparation Enables Stronger Willpower.”

You might also be interested in reading “How to Recover When You’ve Completely Blown It,” which talks more about failure in general and its role in successfully pursuing a goal.

Photo by kharied

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What Are Your Mental Schemas? A Quiz, Part 3

Handling negative emotions

Here’s part 3 of the quiz on mental schemas. See Part 1 for more information about what this quiz might be able to tell you and why mental schemas are worth understanding, along with the first set of questions. You’ll find the second set of question in Part 2.

Do you feel as though you are set apart from the rest of the world in the sense of being superior?
Do you often feel as though you should be able to have certain things despite those things being impractical, harmful, or unavailable?
Does it sometimes seem to you that the rules that should apply to other people shouldn’t apply to you?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, you may be struggling with an Entitlement Schema.

Do you often find yourself making impulsive decisions you later regret?
Do you notice yourself making choices that you know at the time are bad ones?
Do you have trouble suffering through boredom or frustration, even for a worthy end?

These kinds of experiences may point to a Lack of Self-Control Schema.

Do you find you prefer to be told what to do rather than having to decide yourself?
Would you have trouble feeling loved and valuable if important people in your life did not approve of your actions, even though you felt your actions were right?
Do you often feel controlled or rebellious?

Feelings like these may suggest a Subjugation Schema is at work.

Do you tend to feel that meeting your own needs is less important than meeting the needs of others who are close to you?
Do you feel guilty when you spend time, effort, or resources taking care of your own needs?
Do you find it very hard to ask for or receive help?

If so, you may want to read about the Self-Sacrifice Schema.

Do you find you aren’t happy unless other people are happy with you?
Are you constantly working to win other people’s love?
Do you find rejection extremely painful?

These kinds of attitudes are common in people who have the Need for Approval Schema.

That completes the quiz. Did you find one or more schemas that you felt were descriptive of you? Seeing these schemas clearly can be the first step in overcoming them once and for all.

Photo by meddygarnet

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