One of the most common forms of perfectionism is the “one shot wonder.” Everyone knows the story of Mr. Joe-Average who went on one great adventure and did one great act, came out on top and lived happily ever after. It is a modern myth that “success” is an absolute state which results from one epic act. And, as we will later see, it destroys motivation the more we buy into it.
The Story of the Gold Medal
After years of commitment, sacrifice, and belief in oneself, an athlete stands alone in the spot light of the world. They have one, and only one, chance for a perfect performance to win the gold. The pressure is epic and the competition is fierce. They execute a perfect performance and, by the slimmest of slim margins, they win. They come out on top and are elated to the point of tears. Still crying with joy, sweat and exhaustion, they are donned with the gold medal. In this monumental victory they carry honor back to their country. Millions of fans cry and cheer as they share in their glorious triumph.
Riches quickly follow fame. Companies offer lucrative endorsement contracts to share in the lime light. Reporters clamber for exclusive interviews, publishers have teams of ghost writers ready to record their biography. Stories of their struggle, perseverance and the perfect success inspires the next generation of athletes. Thousands of whom dream of being the next gold medalist.
The Illusion Unmasked
The Olympics is a great promoter of “one shot wonder” perfectionism. Every year it manufactures scores of success stories which the world is addicted to.
Before you get mad, before you say, “Hey! These are REAL stories…” Stop and think. When you were reading the above story you probably imagined a specific athlete in a specific competition. Was I talking about Boxing? Or Skiing? Or Sprint Racing? Or Biking? Or Swimming? Or was it Figure Skating? The above story is a template which describes any athlete who brings home a gold medal. Why is that?
Haven’t you ever wondered about those who didn’t win? What is the story of the silver or bronze? They may get an honorable mention, but no endorsement deals, nor are their stories sought after. Why are they so readily forgotten? Didn’t they train for years? Didn’t they also sacrifice and believe in themselves? Didn’t they have the dream of taking home a gold medal?
And you may say, “Yeah, but they didn’t perform as well as the winner.” Well, that is debatable. Take a closer look at the margins of error which separates a gold from a silver. Sometimes the difference can be as small as a hundredth of a second. Does this really account for a difference of skill? Time frames this small could be caused by a puff of wind or by variation on ski resistance as it goes over previous run paths. If you ran the same event 5 times in a row, you could easily produce 5 different gold medal winners. And if that is the case, then who wins the gold is more about a difference in luck than a difference is skill.
This is exactly why medals are awarded on a single performance. If it became known that luck played a major role, then you couldn’t say so-and-so athlete is the best in the world at such-and-such sport. “Luck” is counterproductive to the narration.
Yet, no one seems to care. The Olympics isn’t about determining who has the greatest skill. It is a multi-billion dollar industry about creating heroes. Who gets to be the hero isn’t important, only that a choice is made among many fine athletes so the story of being the “one shot wonder” can be told to a world of adoring fans.
Why We Hesitate
The Olympics promotes the idea that you only get one shot, one chance, one attempt to be perfect and if you miss your opportunity, that’s it… you’re a failure. The level of importance on a single result is magnified in our mind, so is the cost of failure. Human beings are more motivated to avoid pain than they are to seek pleasure. When the consequences for failing have been amplified in our mind, there is more strength to avoid doing the activity than attempting it and failing.
So we get stuck saying stupid things to ourselves such as “I only get one chance at that job interview,” or “I have to make this goal or else I let my whole team down,” or “That is the girl of my dreams, I only have one chance to make a good impression.” Then you follow up with something like, “I’m not ready yet.” So you reschedule the job interview, pass the ball off to someone else, or walk away from the girl, red faced and ashamed that you didn’t try.
Seriously Why Hesitate?
The “One Shot Wonder” is a sham. The concept that “You only get one shot and if you don’t succeed you’re a loser” is misguided. Fear of failure accounts for most procrastination. Let’s assume that you try for the job interview and botch it horribly. What happens next? Well, you’ll have another job interview with a different company, and you will figure out how to overcome that difficult question that derailed you in the first interview. Your next attempt will be far better.
So you make your shot at the hoop and miss, your team loses, and you have the bitter taste of defeat. What happens next? You can practice standing shots and mentally prep yourself for high pressure situations. You and your team will have more games, there will be other seasons. When you say something embarrassingly stupid to a cute girl, don’t worry, you’ll meet an even more attractive girl tomorrow.
While stories love to focus on one-shot successes, your life isn’t a one-shot deal. Life will give you many opportunities to fuck things up; and from all your failures you gain experience. From those experiences, you develop wisdom and become more effective the next day.
The Hindsight Curse: Analysis Paralysis
“But I need more information. If I study hard now, I’ll be more prepared when opportunity knocks.”
Consider your decisions over the span of a few years. Notice how you made terrible decisions in the past. If you only knew what you know now, you would have made a far better choice back then. Think for a moment how this line of thinking affects future choices. In a year from now, you will probably learn new tricks and distinctions which allow you to make even better choices. This is the curse hindsight brings.
Hindsight is a nasty little critic which never fails to show all the things you could have done better. It causes you to second guess yourself making you paranoid of wrong decisions. It leads to “analysis paralysis.”
Yes, a decision made tomorrow will always be better than a decision made today. Tomorrow you know more, you may discover new things, and you have more experience. Except there is one problem; tomorrow is always a day away. In 24 hours, there is yet another new tomorrow which might hold an even better option than the ones you have now. Forever holding out for your best option dooms you to procrastination and never making any decision.
Worrying too much about bad decisions blocks you from making decisions in the present. It leads to a state known as “analysis paralysis.” To get beyond analysis paralysis remember the following two things:
You Are Human
Accept the idea that you are human. This means that you will never be able to execute a flawless performance or make a perfect decision. You can only do the best you can with the resources, information, and time available. There is a cut-off point where you have to bite the bullet and make a decision. Holding yourself to future possibilities is unrealistic and undermines your confidence.
If the decision is very important and carries a major consequences, like buying a house, decide on a time frame. Do your due diligence, collect relevant information, get advice from people who have better experiences, and decide which values are important for the final decision. Most importantly, once you have used up your time, force yourself to make your best guess based on what you learned.
De-emphasise the importance of “One Shot Thinking”
All decisions and actions carry consequences. This is to say that we will see results from them that are good or bad. The only way forward is to try and see. If everything goes right, then we may refine our target. If the attempt goes totally wrong, we learn better ways to do things. Life is about trying things, and making better iterations with each attempt. Fail to try and you will fail to learn.
“One shot wonder” is a belief that you only get one chance. But life simply isn’t like that; we learn by making mistakes, often lots of them.
A Roll of the Die
Let’s play a little game. The rules are:
1) You can roll a single normal 6 sided dice.
2) If you roll a 6 you win $1 million. On a 1-5 you lose.
3) Each throw costs you $10,000.
What would be going on in your mind just before you placed your bet? “$10,000 is a lot of money… The odds seem good, but they’re still against me… Can I afford to lose $10,000? …Is the die loaded?” You examine the die for being weighted or for magnets, and it seems fair. So you put $10,000 down on the table. You throw it. You get a 3.
Did you win or lose? Well, you didn’t get a 6, so you lost $10,000. Does that mean you’re a loser? Does this mean you’re going to stop, give up because you didn’t get the roll you were looking for? No one said there was a limit on how many times you could play. You may have lost 10 grand, but we are talking about winning a million!
Let’s consider the game another way. Say you purchase six “rolls” at the beginning of the game; this cost you $60,000. Win or lose, you will roll the die 6 times. Now what are your chances? Well, if it is a fair die, then the odds are even that you should roll a six at least once on 6 rolls. There is a chance that you won’t get any wins and there is a chance you will get multiple wins. Everyone knows that the more you roll the more likely you are to get a “6.”
Let’s say you didn’t trust your luck, but you really needed that million dollars. So you buy 12 rolls at the beginning of the game. Let’s say you were right… and you are half as lucky as anyone else, scoring only one six after 12 rolls. What would the net effect be? Well you spent $120,000 for the 12 rolls and you gained $1 million. You would profit by $880,000. Are you a winner or a loser now?
There are many stories of entrepreneurs who made millions because they were well positioned. They started their business on the ground floor of an emerging market and their brand dominated that new industry. Financial reporters focus all their attention on the one venture that had meteoric success, they ignore the other ten businesses that the entrepreneur crashed and burned. Statistically, most business owners go through 10 failed businesses before they find the one that produces millions for them.
This idea of taking many shots at something, applies to many aspects of life. Having a hard time getting a job? Hate interviews? Plan on doing ten. As you do more interviews, you become more skilled, comfortable, and confident in looking like the sort of person employers want to work with. Michael Jordan is a “natural” at shooting baskets. His secret: thousands and thousands of basket shots. If you want an attractive girlfriend, talk to ten girls every day for a week. After a few days you will get over worrying about the crash and burn effect and you will start talking to attractive girls as if they were normal people. Even if you found the perfect girl two days in, you have already paid for your “twelve dice rolls.” Keep ongoing till the end of the week and see what happens.
In all of these cases you de-emphasize the importance the “One Shot.” True failure happens when you think you have only one roll. In reality, life gives you many chances.
Perfection through Imperfection
“One Shot Wonder” perfectionists believe that opportunities are scarce. With few chances to try, failure is bad. Failure to get perfect results means you don’t have the “right stuff” and you are a failure. Realization of this fear is painful to the self-image, it leads to a loss of self-confidence. Procrastination becomes a strategy to avoid the fear of failure; if you never try you can never fail.
Stage Magicians are one of the few professions which must do “perfect performances” each time they deliver them. A poorly performed magic trick allows non-magicians to figure out how it was done, and that spoils the trick, not just for the audience, but for all future magicians performing it as well.
In order to do magic before an audience the standard is to perform a trick 100 times perfectly in a mirror. Not just 100 times, 100 times perfectly in a row. If they fail on attempt #99 they start again from one. Most magicians practice their routines thousands of times, each botch shows them another way to improve the trick. After thousands of tries, their muscles can palm small objects, fold cards, or distract attention without conscious thought. Now they work on their patter; or the story that goes with the trick to further distract the minds of their audience. Given such a price they pay to master a trick, it is little wonder why magicians never show the secret behind how it was done.
The idea of expecting perfect results without building up skill is painfully unrealistic. Yet our culture is stuck on the idea. Fear of imperfect results wastes time where a person could be learning from failed attempts. Waiting till the last possible moment before beginning robs you of many opportunities to improve. Ironically, making your final results more perfect.
In the end, “One shot wonder” thinking is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those who hold off on an attempt because they are waiting to do a perfect job never develop the skill to produce masterful results. Thus, “one shot wonders” prove themselves right, but to their ultimate loss.
