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If you consistently lose in games of skill, it's your fault
Sunday, 15 July 2007
Let's face it, there's a large dose of luck in many areas of life. A lot of self-help gurus don't like to admit it, but chance plays at least as big a part in success as skill. However, there's another factor that can reduce chance's influence - time.
In this way, life is like a game of poker in many respects. Luck plays a large part in any individual game. You can't control which cards you're dealt after all. But there's also an element of skill. In any one game, a beginner can beat a champion through sheer luck. But over time and a large number of games, the influence of luck becomes less and the skill of the champion will almost certainly prevail.
Thus it is in many areas of life. Let's say you're trying to move ahead in your career and applying for jobs. In any individual job application, there's quite a lot of luck involved. Someone else with more experience than you may apply, you may remind the interviewer of someone she doesn't like, or your application may accidentally fall off the desk into the waste-basket. However, over a number of job applications, this element of luck will be largely reduced and your personal skill in convincing people to employ you will become the dominant factor.
So it is also with attracting a partner. If you meet one particular person that you like but they don't like you, it's likely luck that's involved. They may not like the way you dress, you chose the wrong topic of conversation, or they were simply in a bad mood at that moment. But if you're getting consistently rejected, then it's your skill level that's at fault.
In the world of investment, putting all your eggs in one basket is widely acknowledged as a bad idea. If you just choose one stock on the stock market, for example, there's a large element of luck involved in how that stock will do. You couldn't really label somebody a bad investor just because that one bet went bad. However, if someone consistently chooses bad investments, then the problem is with their skill level.
The point is to have the courage to admit that if you're consistently losing in a game of skill, it's your fault. You're using a bad strategy and need to learn and practice a better one. Blaming it on circumstance may make you feel better, but it's not going to improve your situation.
This is a very difficult thing for many people to do. They prefer to whine about how unfair it all is, looking around for anything to blame it on but themselves. This is the emotionally easy option, and you can see why people do it. But it's also the strategy of losers.
Of course, we all need to protect our self-esteem, and it's natural at first to look outside ourselves and find fault. This is okay and understandable. But in the long-term, have the guts to admit to yourself that if you're consistently failing in games of skill, you're the one to blame. Then, become determined to take concrete steps to turn things around. Search for new knowledge on the subject, practice, and work at improving. This is the strategy life's winners adopt.
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