जीत का मनोवैज्ञानिक मंत्र: सब कुछ खुद करने की जिद छोड़ो और साथियों पर भरोसा करो, इस फार्मूले से सफलता की राह होगी आसान

Rustin Dodd | We are all the heroes of our own life story. Often we feel that to achieve success we have to become ‘Superman’, we have to do all the difficult tasks ourselves and we should also get the full credit for the victory. But examples from psychology and sports world show that this ‘hero syndrome’ can become the biggest reason for our failure.

The story of American Football League NFL quarterback Sam Darnold is a living example of this. When his career started in 2018, there were huge expectations from him, but he crumbled under the pressure and went through a period of failure. The change came when 2023 San Francisco 49ers star player Brock Purdy gave him a piece of advice; ‘Don’t be Superman, think like a basketball ‘point guard.’

The job of a point guard in basketball is not to score the goal himself every time, but to pass the ball to the player (playmaker) who is in the best position to score. When Darnold understood that his job was simply to put the ball in the right hands and let his teammates do the rest, his game became easier. This mentality helped him win 14 matches and bring the team into the race for the finals. This is not just a sporting strategy, but a psychological truth. In the 1980s, psychologist John Sweller explained in Cognitive Load Theory that when we try to bear the entire burden by becoming a ‘hero’, the ‘cognitive load’ (burden) on our brain increases. This causes fatigue and increases the possibility of mistakes. At the same time, when we focus on making others successful, our stress reduces and we are able to take better decisions.

The great basketball player Michael Jordan also wanted to score all the points alone in the beginning. He was great individually, but his team wasn’t winning. Only when his coach Phil Jackson taught him ‘selfless awareness’ and he started trusting his teammates, his team became champions.

This mantra is applicable both in office and home. When we stop thinking ‘I have to do everything’ and focus on ‘how I can help others’, our performance automatically improves. This is the biggest formula for victory.