Wasted Effort and Self-Sabotage

This is the story of how I went from a nationally ranked swimmer who was finaling at state championships to a mediocre one who could barely qualify for them.

I've been successful at most things I've attempted in life (primarily because I haven't attempted many difficult things), but my swimming career stands out as a true failure and lost opportunity. Since the age of 10, I've been a competitive swimmer. This required me to practice 6+ times a week, wake up at 4 AM, maintain a healthy diet, and do strength training on the side. All in all, I put a tremendous amount of effort into swimming.

Puzzling, when it came time to race, I would sabotage myself—sleep late, feign sickness, or skip practices leading up to a competition. My performance plateaued and I lost my passion for the sport. This was 3 years ago. Since then, I've spent a lot of time reflecting and trying to figure out why this happened.

The fear of wasting effort

As swimmers, we are told that hard work is highly correlated with results, that if we put in the hours and effort at practice, the times would come at meets. Of course, this isn't always the case. People have off days, get unlucky, and sometimes don't work as hard as they think.

For me, after a string of bad results, something switched in my mind. My focus went from dropping time to preventing disappointment. I became scared of all my effort going to waste so I created excuses and reasons to explain poor performances: I swam poorly because I didn't get enough sleep or I messed up that race because I'm sick.

From the outside, this is supremely stupid. By sabotaging myself, I guaranteed that all my hard work would be wasted. Why did I do this? I want to explore this question in the following two sections:

Action/result relationship

The reason I became frustrated in the first place is because of the action/result relationship. I was taught hard work = improvement. I believed there should be a clear relationship between the action (training) and the result (dropping time). But when this connection was broken, it became harder for me to put in the work.

To cope, I developed reasons (read: excuses) for why the results did not appear. Sometimes these were legitimate excuses, but they gradually morphed into a mindset that prevented me from improving.

I think overcoming this fear of wasting effort is incredibly important. Most things in life do not have a clear action/result connection. Most things have delayed gratification or risk. People fail New Year's resolutions because they don't see improvement in the first 2 weeks. People don't start businesses because they are afraid they might fail. Going to the gym once might feel like wasted effort because, on its own, a single gym session does very little. But over time, workouts compound to make you healthier and stronger. Same thing with entrepreneurship. The first project might fail, but over time you might build something amazing.

One thing I've tried is to focus on the process. Finding ways to enjoy the grind and enjoy the work will make it easier to risk the initial effort that any major improvement requires. But even this won't solve the problem. Not everything is fun and if I only limit myself to the things I enjoy in the moment, I will lose an entire world of opportunities.

A key trait of interesting, successful people is their willingness to put up the initial effort and their willingness to fail. In an episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph said:

Identity and ego

Beyond the action/result connection, I think that identity and ego played a more interesting role in my swimming failure.

Self-sabotage was a way to protect my identity. I could still call myself a fast swimmer if I had a reason for swimming poorly. I could still identify as someone who worked hard at practice if I had excuses for missing training sessions. Self-sabotage gave me reasons to point at so I didn't have to contend with the idea that I was no longer a good swimmer .

This is not an uncommon experience. The Harvard Business Review describes the phenomenon:

In the study, the subjects incorporated their success on the first test into their identity and ego. When it came time for the second test, instead of setting themselves up to succeed, they chose to disadvantage themselves. That way, if they failed they could point to the drug as the reason.

This type of self-sabotage is far more discreet and dangerous because we rarely notice it. Every person has an image of who they are and our egos and identities are tied to that image. The reason we feel disappointed is because we've staked our identity on a certain outcome.

My swimming experience has taught me that it's necessary to ask uncomfortable questions. Did I really work hard at practice? Was I still a fast swimmer despite slacking off? The answer was no. But it didn't have to stay no. The sooner we identify self-sabotaging behaviors and trace them back to our sense of identity, the sooner we can adjust. In fact, moments of realization that we are not who we think we are can be liberating. Once we accept that we aren't actually putting in the work we are free to start. One of my favorite quotes from Conan O'Brien describes this:

Takeaways

1. Be okay with wasting effort. In addition to enjoying the process, a valuable mindset shift I've adopted is viewing effort as experience. The experience I gain from working at something will subconsciously affect every aspect of my life. Going to the gym teaches me about strength training and health, applying for jobs and internships teaches me about how to navigate the workplace. If you adopt the mindset that effort gives you experience, it can never be "wasted."

2. Look for upside risk. Instead of imagining all the effort that will be for nothing, imagine the benefits months or years down the line. Delayed gratification is still gratifying—it just requires patience.

3. Fail often. Every time our identities and egos get shattered we develop resilience that makes it easier to take risks in the future. Each piece of criticism is not only valuable advice but prepares you for the next critic.