How Learning From Success Builds Confidence and Improves Performance
Here’s a weird question. What’s at the front of your filing cabinet?
Imagine standing next to a filing cabinet filled with every experience you've ever had. Every success. Every failure. Every mistake. Every accomplishment. Every conversation that made you feel like you could conquer the world and every comment that made you question whether you belonged.
In a conversation Kortney Harmon and I had with my mentor, Dr. Sue Ziegler, on our podcast last year, Dr. Ziegler used this illustration to explain how we draw on past experiences when we encounter new situations.
When something happens, we instinctively reach into that filing cabinet looking for something familiar.
Have I been here before? What happened last time? How did I handle it? What should I expect?
But here's the problem.
The files closest to the front aren't necessarily the ones that will help us most. They're often the ones that got our attention. And unfortunately, the experiences that get our attention aren't always the ones we want to repeat.
Our brains are constantly working to predict what's coming next and help us respond to it. Experiences involving threat, uncertainty or strong emotion often receive extra attention.
Psychologists have studied this tendency for decades. One influential paper by Roy Baumeister and his colleagues was appropriately titled Bad Is Stronger Than Good.
Think about that for a minute.
We can have a great day, receive ten compliments and accomplish almost everything on our list. But what are we thinking about when our head hits the pillow? The one thing that went wrong. The one person who questioned us. The one mistake we made.
And we don't just remember it. We replay it. We analyze it. We give it more attention, more emotion and more space in our filing cabinet.
I was thinking about this recently because of something deeply personal.
When my mom suffered the fall that ultimately took her life, I was still on vacation…where she had just been. At approximately 3:45 in the morning (or exactly that time), my sister called after they had reached the trauma center where my mom had been life flighted. I knew they were headed there and the situation didn’t look good, but the hope remained that she would be sitting up and embarrassed by her fall.
I remember the condo where I was staying. Unit 103. I remember the bedroom. The bathroom I could see from where I was lying. Some of the decorations. I remember talking with the doctor and hearing the machines in the background that were keeping my mom's heart beating.
I remember his emotion. I remember the conversation. I even remember the song that was running through my head. Amy Grant’s version of It Is Well as I was trying to convince myself that it was. I also vividly remember the hours that followed as I tried to travel from the Sarasota airport to the University of Kentucky trauma center.
That experience was profoundly different from anything that happens on a playing field or in a boardroom. But it reminds me how powerfully emotion can influence what stays with us.
Of course, I also vividly remember the day Jensen was born and the championships we won.
Strong emotions can accompany wonderful memories, too.
But in everyday life, particularly when we're evaluating our performance, we often give far more attention to what went wrong than what went right.
And that creates an interesting problem. What happens to the things that WORK? Where do they go?
I work with some incredibly talented high performers who hold themselves to extraordinarily high standards: neurosurgeons, professionals in sport and business and high-performing teams and athletes.
And I've noticed something.
Sometimes they're reluctant to acknowledge when they've done something well. It's almost as if recognizing success might make them comfortable. And getting comfortable might make them complacent.
So, they move on. “That was fine. What's next?” Or they immediately identify what could have been better.
There's certainly value in wanting to improve. But here's the question I keep coming back to…if we don't acknowledge what worked, how do we know what to repeat?
Think about it.
If you perform well but never examine what contributed to that performance, you're leaving valuable information on the table. What were you focused on? How did you prepare? What decisions did you make? How did you respond when something didn't go as planned? What did you do that helped create that result?
Those are the things we need to file away, too!
In The Inner Game of Tennis, Timothy Gallwey challenges us to move away from constantly judging our performance. Instead of immediately labeling something good or bad, he encourages us to observe what actually happened.
That's an important distinction.
When we judge, we often attach emotion and identity to the outcome. “That was terrible. I always mess that up.”
Or even, “That was great. I'm finally good at this.” But when we observe, we gather information. “My timing was late.” “I kept my attention on the right cue.” “I committed to my decision.” “I stayed engaged after the mistake.” Now we have something useful!
The goal isn't to ignore mistakes or celebrate everything. The goal is to learn from what happened so we can influence what happens next. As I told one of my high-level swimmers, “We're not collecting evidence to convince you that you're better than you are. We're collecting evidence so you stop overlooking what you've already demonstrated”
And that means studying success just as intentionally as we study mistakes. Because confidence needs evidence!!
Psychologist Albert Bandura's work on self-efficacy helps explain why this matters. One of the most important sources of our belief in our ability is our experience of successfully doing something.
In other words, what we've done helps shape what we believe we can do. But what happens when we constantly overlook the things we've done well? We may be missing opportunities to recognize evidence of our own capability.
This isn't about false confidence or convincing ourselves we're better than we are or lowering standards. I’m yet to ask someone to do so!
It's about recognizing what's real.
We can't consistently repeat what we haven't taken the time to recognize. And we can't build confidence from evidence we continually dismiss.
One of my favorite exercises with teams is something called Well, Better, How? Like every good tool, I didn’t make it up. I’ve borrowed it from other high performers like Kobe Bryant. When we use this tool at the start of our sessions, we identify what's going well, what could be better and how we're improving. Sounds simple, right?
But something interesting happens when I ask teams what's going well. Almost inevitably, someone says, "Communication." It's the safe answer. It’s the easy answer. So, I push a little further. What's going well with your communication? And then I ask a question that often makes people stop and think. "What are YOU contributing to what's going well?"
Because here's the thing. If you don't recognize what you're doing that's helping your team succeed, you might stop doing it!
Maybe you're the person who keeps everyone engaged. Maybe you're asking questions that create clarity. Maybe you're bringing energy when the group needs it. Maybe you're consistently preparing in a way that makes everyone around you better.
Those things matter. And if we never identify them, how do we know which behaviors to protect, strengthen and repeat?
The same is true for individual performance. We spend so much time breaking down mistakes, analyzing failures and identifying what needs to change.
What if we gave some of that same attention to what worked? We need to put the right files within reach!
Here's our challenge this week. After a practice, performance, meeting or even an ordinary day, take a minute to ask yourself three questions:
What worked? Be specific. Go beyond "I did well."
What did I do that contributed to it? Identify the preparation, focus, decision or behavior that helped.
What can I repeat? Choose something you can intentionally bring into your next opportunity.
That's it. We're not ignoring what needs to improve. We're making sure our evaluation is complete.
Because when the pressure rises and we reach into that filing cabinet looking for something to help us navigate what's next, wouldn't it be nice to find a few more reminders of what we're capable of doing? A few more examples of how we've responded well? A few more pieces of evidence that we can trust our preparation, our decisions and our ability to perform?
High standards and acknowledging success aren't opposites. They're partners.
We don't become better by pretending everything is great. We become better by paying attention to what actually works and learning how to do more of it.
So, what's at the front of your filing cabinet? And more importantly, what are you choosing to put there?
Until next week, keep getting Smarter, Stronger and Better!
Julie
Julie Jones
Mental Performance Coach
SSB Performance
juliej@ssbperformance.com • 234-206-0946
Comments