If you don't want to make that mistake, don't focus on it
For those that know me, I tend to cycle quite a bit. When I first started out I always made the mistake of looking at the pot hole that I wanted to swerve around. Sure it's happened to you all, you concentrate so hard at the thing you wish to avoid that you somehow manage to steer right into it. Likewise if you're delivering a presentation and demand of yourself not to stutter or mumble (or whatever) you almost inevitably end up doing that exact thing. Anyway, I read an interesting paper that looks into this phenomenon by Daniel Wegner.
Doing the opposite of what we want
Apparently this is called ironic process theory. Below is an abstract from the study
In slapstick comedy, the worst thing that could happen usually does: The person with a sore toe manages to stub it, sometimes twice. Such errors also arise in daily life, and research traces the tendency to do precisely the worst thing to ironic processes of mental control. These monitoring processes keep us watchful for errors of thought, speech, and action and enable us to avoid the worst thing in most situations, but they also increase the likelihood of such errors when we attempt to exert control under mental load (stress, time pressure, or distraction). Ironic errors in attention and memory occur with identifiable brain activity and prompt recurrent unwanted thoughts; attraction to forbidden desires; expression of objectionable social prejudices; production of movement errors; and rebounds of negative experiences such as anxiety, pain, and depression. Such ironies can be overcome when effective control strategies are deployed and mental load is minimized.
This might be of interest to those that wish to shape how we act under both instruction and in the feedback we give.
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Comments
Never really thought about that before but it's uncanny how often that happens. Nice to know it's a bona fide thing and I'm not simply a nutter!
I was worried that I was going to hit the send button too soon and I wouldn't get to finish my
Touche, very good Colin :D
If you think the worst it often happens and vice versa. I'm sure your mindset is important as to what happens to you and how you move on or not.
I totally agree - what we pay attention to we get more of. I have made the unfortunate mistake when riding my horses and rabbit holes - focus on not letting the horse fall down it and guess what their foot falls straight in it. It puts me in mind of the leadership quote “If your car veers off the road, look for the gap rather than the trees.” Anon
I thought this was a very well known aspect - certainly is in coaching. It is all about the fear factor and focus.
When you were young (in my day anyway :-) ) you would clamber up and walk along a garden wall - or any other wall. You were fearless and it was no problem - balance was perfect and you just walked along - or even ran - naturally. Then mum came along and said - careful you don't fall and hurt yourself. Suddenly fear has been injected and lo and behold you thought it was possible to fall. From then on its a downward slope and to overcome this you have to learn how to unlearn the fear.
Think of all the sayings like 'don't look down' when dealing with heights and how you are immediately tempted to do just that.
The mind is a very very powerful tool. One I often use is to say to a group 'whatever you do don't imagine a pink elephant with blue spots'. It is rare you will find anyone who hasn't conjured up the image.
It is well known that penalty takers who think about not placing the ball over the line are likely to do just that. The thing is that the brain focusses so much on the issue that it translates it into doing it - going over in your mind 'don't but the ball over the bar, don't put the ball over the bar, don't put the ball over the bar' becomes shortened to 'put the ball over the bar' because that is the image you have in the mind - the ball going over the bar!
As any sports (or other) coach will tell you the key is to focus on what you want to achieve - imaging coming first etc and how that makes you feel. Negative thoughts bring negative impacts.
So the key is to focus on achieving what you want as the positive outcome.
That means Adi should stop thinking about avoiding potholes when riding and focus on riding over smooth roads. That will automatically focus the brain on looking for smooth roads and thus avoid pot holes by default.