by Clay Tucker-Ladd, PhD

The world is filled with obstacles and critics. When we try and fail, we feel sad. Failure is often a defeat--a loss of status in the eyes of others and/or a loss of a wish or self-respect.

The more ego-involved we are, the more bitter the loss. Generally speaking, if you don't try, you can't be defeated or feel defeated--you haven't played the game.

Also, any life challenge or test has to be reasonable before we feel like a failure, e.g. most of us could fail a test in advanced calculus today and say, "So what?" It isn't reasonable to expect us to know calculus without the course.

If you get about what you expected, i.e. accomplishments equal expectations, you will be happy.

But the formula also suggests that unhappiness may result in two ways: (l) failing to reach reasonable goals (accomplishments) or (2) setting unreasonable, impossible goals (expectations).

The latter is a complex problem. Our society encourages aiming high--"try to be the best." Many people want to be better than average, certainly not be "below average."

Yet, by the nature of mathematics, exactly half of us must be below average in intelligence, looks, and income as well as height. No wonder some of us "below average" people withdraw from the competitive "rat race." Sometimes it's wise to lower our expectations and avoid unreasonable demands, but when?

It isn't a simple matter of lowering our sights so we never fail and, consequently, become blissfully happy. First, some accomplishments (relative to your potential) are necessary for self-esteem (see chapter 14).

Second, some people take satisfaction from having a dream--some inspiration--and striving for it day by day, even though they never reach their goal.

Others have a lofty dream--being president, an astronaut, a professional athlete--but neglect the detailed, daily work of accomplishing that dream. Having the dream provides some payoffs. Dreamers run the risk of being disappointed and self-critical later.

Other people have argued that the focus of James' formula, happiness, is of secondary importance. Garcia (1971) contends that happiness should not be life's main goal.

He claims accomplishments--seeking knowledge or helping others--are far more important goals and more realistically satisfying in the long run than happiness (see chapter 3).

Fourth, the facts are that some unhappy people have given the world great accomplishments--Lincoln, Gandhi, Goethe, Luther, Van Gogh, Mark Twain, Beethoven, Michelangelo, and many others.

If they had to choose between happiness and the accomplishments they gave us, which do you think they would choose?

How we handle failure is critical. An achiever acquires confidence and pride by taking on challenging life goals, by using good models and methods for getting there, and by putting in the time and effort to make the accomplishments meaningful.

In contrast, a low achiever (see attribution theory in chapter 4), preoccupied with avoiding failure, will either choose an extremely easy task or a very difficult one. Neither task puts him/her to a test, both the very easy and the impossible are cop outs.

The achiever is "mastery-oriented;" the low achiever is "performance-oriented," i.e. he/she is most concerned with avoiding failure and looking good, not with learning or mastery.

In contrast, the mastery-oriented person welcomes tough challenges because he/she is most concerned with learning something worthwhile, not building an image.

After a failure, such a person would say, "Okay, I didn't win but what a learning experience! I'll practice another approach and then try again."

To the extent that more effort and learning better skills would significantly improve our performance, it is important to take control of the situation, rather than blaming our poor performance on factors that are not under our control.

In short, to manage our life we have to take responsibility for it--take charge. It is the reason we give ourselves for the failure that determines how we feel:

Explanation for Failure / Feeling / Solution
"I need more practice" / Confident, motivated / Gain skills, try again
"I can't do it" / Inadequacy, hopeless / Work harder, learn more skills, or accept situation
"I didn't work hard enough" / Self-critical / Try harder, use better methods & time management
"It was too hard for me" / Inadequacy, sad or mad / Develop better skills or strategies; lower goals
"It was _____'s fault" / Anger, unfairly treated / Assertiveness, demand justice; be responsible
"I had bad luck" / Disappointed, surprised / Look for other reasons & try again

After a disappointing performance, it is important to ask yourself, "Honestly, now, what were the causes? What can I do about each of those causes?"

A wise person will guard against assuming unchangeable factors are the sole causes of his/her problem and learn instead to concentrate on the factors (causes) he/she is able to change.

Almost no complex behavior is totally caused by fixed factors, such as heredity, innate ability, physiological factors (height), etc. Most behaviors can be improved. Don't discount the importance of learning in any performance.

Remember how many hours goes into making an outstanding star in any sport, often 4 to 6 or more hours a day for years, starting at 6 or 8 years of age or younger.

If any of our current "stars" had an identical twin who had never played their sport, no doubt the twin, like you, would say, "Wow, I could never skate or dive or shoot or hit like that."

Humans can learn a lot more than they think they can (I didn't say easily). Most failures don't prove a lack of ability, they reflect a lack of effort or learnable skill. In most areas we will never know our limits because we will never push ourselves to the limit.

It is obvious that some of the "reasons" above are excuses for our failures.

Self-handicapping is a similar process, except it occurs before the performance rather than after. Common excuses arranged in advance for a poor performance are: I'm very tired, sick, drunk, anxious, unprepared and so on.

In these situations, the person is using the old TA "Wooden Leg" game, "how can you expect me to run fast when I have this wooden leg?"

Self-handicapping excuses do reduce some immediate anxiety and disappointment after failure, but in the long run they usually lower our self-esteem and increase our fears.

Why? Because we haven't performed very well in the past and because a part of us knows we are deceiving ourselves and others. Pride is primarily felt when we truly "do our best."

See the discussion of underachievement in chapter 4 and self-handicapping in chapter 5.

In summary, sometimes we are too hard on ourselves, expecting too much, and sometimes too easy, not expecting or trying to do our best.

You may be too uptight about achieving your dreams; you might not be uptight enough to achieve them. Ideally, I suppose, one would be inspired by his/her ambitions and visions of the future, but down-to-earth enough to accept (for the moment) whatever he/she actually accomplishes.

All of us need to ask, "How can I do better?" It reminds you that you are in control and don't have to do poorly. Review the sections on self-efficacy and optimism in chapter 14.

This article is an excerpt from the book by Clay Tucker-Ladd, PhD: Psychological Self-Help http://mentalhelp.net/psyhelp/

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