How Are Your Predictions Working For You?
Have you ever finished a long day, looked at everything you still needed to accomplish and thought, "I have absolutely nothing left!" Or is that a daily condition 😊?
Maybe you've said it after a long practice, a difficult meeting, a stressful week or even before tackling something you really wanted to do.
But here's an interesting question.
Are you actually out of mental energy, or have you already convinced yourself that you are?
I've been reading The Expectation Effect by David Robson, and one of the concepts he returns to throughout the book has really caught my attention.
Our brains are prediction machines! And understanding that might change the way we think about what we're capable of doing.
Here's something fascinating about our amazing, yet sometimes frustrating brain. It's not simply sitting around waiting for things to happen so it can decide how to respond. It's constantly trying to predict what's coming next.
Using our previous experiences, beliefs and the information around us, our brains anticipate what we're likely to encounter.
Think about catching a ball. You don't wait until the ball reaches you and THEN decide where to move. Your brain uses information about its speed, direction and your previous experiences to predict where it's going. Heck, sometimes you don’t even see the ball go into your glove…and yet…miraculously it’s there! (Not recommended, by the way!)
That's what allows you to react so quickly!
But here's where things get really interesting. Our brains make predictions about more than where a ball is going to land. They also anticipate how difficult something will be, how we'll feel and how much effort we might need. Think about looking at your calendar in the morning and immediately thinking, "This day is going to be exhausting!"
You haven't even started! Yet you've already made a prediction about how you're going to feel.
Or consider the athlete heading into the final minutes of a game thinking, "I'm always terrible when I'm tired." Before the next play even begins, that athlete is anticipating a struggle.
What if our expectations are influencing our experience before we've even given ourselves a chance to find out what we're capable of doing?
Robson shares a great analogy in Chapter 8, describing the brain as an accountant managing its available resources. The idea is that our brains are constantly evaluating demands and helping determine where to invest our effort and attention.
If we expect to be exhausted, we may become more conservative with our effort. If we believe we can continue concentrating despite having worked hard, we may be more willing to engage with the next challenge.
Psychologist Veronika Job and her colleagues explored this idea through research on people's beliefs about willpower. For years, a popular theory called ego depletion suggested that concentration and self-control worked like a battery. The more we used them, the less we had available.
But Job's research revealed something interesting. Participants who believed mental effort depleted their resources were more likely to show declining performance after completing a demanding task.
Yet, those who believed their mental resources were less easily depleted didn't show the same decline in the original experiments.
Even more interesting, the researchers found that influencing participants' beliefs about mental energy could change their subsequent performance.
Think about that!
The tasks were the same. The demands were real. But expectations about mental energy appeared to influence what people were able to do next.
The broader science of ego depletion is still debated and we shouldn't conclude that mental energy is unlimited or that expectations alone determine our performance.
But the larger lesson is worth considering.
Our expectations can influence how we approach challenges, interpret difficulty and decide whether to keep going.
This is where I think the concept becomes especially valuable for all of us. How often do we make predictions and then behave as if they've already come true? "I'm going to be exhausted." "I never play well against this team." "I can't concentrate after a long day." "I'm terrible under pressure."
We've all made statements like these. And sometimes there's evidence behind them! But there's a difference between recognizing a challenge and assuming we already know how we're going to respond.
When we expect to struggle, we may become more attentive to signs that things are going poorly. We might disengage sooner, lose patience or interpret ordinary difficulty as confirmation that we're finished. Our predictions can influence the very behaviors that follow.
But here's the good news. A prediction is not a promise!
Your brain is using what it knows to anticipate what might happen next. It isn't necessarily telling you what MUST happen next. And predictions can change as we gather new information and gain new experiences.
Before we go any further, let's be clear. Being tired is real! Our bodies and brains need sleep, nutrition, recovery and rest. No amount of positive thinking replaces those things.
And sometimes the smartest performance decision is to take a break.
But there's a difference between experiencing fatigue and automatically deciding that fatigue means we can't concentrate, persist or perform effectively. We don't need to pretend we're not tired. We need to become more aware of the conclusions we're drawing about what being tired means.
That's something we can practice.
This week, let’s work to catch our brains making predictions! The next time you find yourself anticipating exhaustion, frustration, failure or difficulty, ask yourself three questions:
1. What am I actually experiencing? Am I physically tired? Mentally fatigued? Frustrated? Bored? Overwhelmed?
Notice what's happening without immediately deciding what it means.
2. What is my brain predicting? Am I assuming that because something has been difficult, I won't be able to handle what's next? Am I treating a previous experience as a guarantee of a future outcome?
3. What else might be possible? What evidence do I have that I can manage this challenge? What's one useful action I can take to find out? Maybe you'll discover you really do need a break.
Maybe you'll realize that changing your focus or your approach makes a difference. Or maybe you'll discover that you're capable of more than you expected! And that experience becomes new information your brain can use the next time it makes a prediction.
Here's what I want to remember this week: Our brain is constantly trying to predict what's coming next.
That's part of how it helps us navigate the world. But just because your brain predicts something doesn't mean you have to accept that prediction as a fact.
Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is challenge what we expect and give ourselves an opportunity to discover what's actually possible.
Manage your mindset. Maximize your performance.
Julie
Julie Jones
Mental Performance Coach
SSB Performance
juliej@ssbperformance.com • 234-206-0946
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