Bad luck always seems to strike at the worst possible moment. A man about to interview for his dream job gets stuck in traffic. A law student taking her final exam wakes up with a blinding headache. A runner twists his ankle minutes before a big race. Perfect examples of cruel fate.
Or are they? Psychologists who study unfortunate incidents like these now believe that in many instances, they may be carefully arranged schemes of the subconscious mind. People often engage in a form of self-defeating behaviour known as self-handicapping -- or, in simple terms, excuse-making. It's a simple process ﾟ by taking on a heavy handicap, a person makes it more likely that he or she will fail at an endeavour. Though it seems like a crazy thing to do, it is actually a clever trick of the mind, one that sets up a difficult situation which allows a person to save face when he or she does fail.
A classic self-handicapper was the French chess champion Deschapelles, who lived during the 18th century. Deschapelles was a distinguished player who quickly became champion of his region. But when competition grew tougher, he adopted a new condition for all matches: he would compete only if his opponent would accept a certain advantage, increasing the chances that Deschapelles would lose. If he did lose, he could blame it on the other player's advantage and no one would know the true limits of his ability; but if he won against such odds, he would be all the more respected for his amazing talents.
Not surprisingly, the people most likely to become habitual excuse-makers are those too eager for success. Such people are so afraid of being labeled a failure at anything that they constantly develop one handicap or another in order to explain away failure. True, self-handicapping can be an effective way of coping with anxiety for success now and then, but, as researchers say, it makes you lose in the end. Over the long run, excuse-makers fail to live up to their true potential and lose the status they care so much about. And despite their protests to the contrary, they have only themselves to blame.