🌳 The Bias That Will Always Hold You Back

QUOTE OF THE DAY

THE SELF-SERVING BIAS THAT WILL HOLD YOU BACK

307 Words | 1 Min 7 Sec

You’re probably familiar with self-serving bias, even if you don’t know it by name.

A self-serving bias is the common habit of a person taking credit for positive events or outcomes, but blaming outside factors for negative events. Just from reading that, you can probably picture a friend that has this problem. The friend that blames everything bad that happens on someone else but loves to suck up the credit for all the good outcomes, maybe you are the friend…

To put this into an example: A student gets a good grade on a test and tells herself that she studied hard or is good at the material. She gets a bad grade on another test and says the teacher doesn’t like her or the test was unfair.

So why is this a problem? It makes sense to not take any of the backlash for the bad things that happen and take the credit for the good as you can avoid any self-blame. The problem here is that if you are always blaming someone else for the losses or failures then you will never find a way to improve. If it’s always the referee’s fault that you lost that game then you will never feel the need to up your game and you will go through life pointing fingers at others rather than noticing the three pointing back at you.

Why do we do this?

We do this because of the need to keep up our own self-worth. If an individual uses the self-serving bias, attributing positive things to themselves and negative things to outside forces helps them maintain a positive self-image and self-worth.

For example, say you’re playing baseball and strike out. If you believe the umpire unfairly called strikes when you actually received bad pitches, you can maintain the idea that you’re a good hitter.

ACTIONABLE NEXT STEPS:

Take responsibility for every outcome, good or bad, this way it’s a true reflection on your skills and you can improve when necessary and reap the rewards of your hard work when necessary too.

This is the only way you’re able to continuously grow and you’ll find that you will be much happier overall when you know you’re in control of the outcome.

TAKEAWAYS:

Taking credit for positive outcomes and blaming others for negative outcomes will turn you into an extremely sour person.

BOOK OF THE WEEK ⤵️

The book of the week is ‘How to get rich’ by Felix Dennis. Now we know what you’re thinking, this book seems like a scam but it’s actually a fantastic book written by a man that had lived an incredible life and who believed that almost anyone of reasonable intelligence can become rich, given sufficient motivation and application. Check it out HERE

CREATOR OF THE WEEK ⤵️

cameronrosin

View more on Instagram

The creator of the week is @cameronrosin. He’s a US-based creator that makes extremely helpful content (one of those creators that you need to watch every day). His content is super laid back but always helpful and leaves you knowing something new every time!

LESSON OF THE DAY ⤵️

Luck doesn’t just happen, it’s created. You can do things to increase the odds of serendipity.