New Light on Why Some People Can't Handle Success

The idea that people often sabotage their own success gets some scientific backing in this study. Seems what you believe about your ability to improve your intelligence strongly affects how you react to both a) poor performance, and b) success.

People who are convinced they can improve reacted with improved performance after being told they had, in fact, improved their score on what they were told was an IQ test. People who think they are always going to have the same abilities got really nervous when they were told they had improved.

And now the kicker. When the first group, who believe they can get better, were told that their score on a second test had gone down, they got really nervous and actually performed worse on the next round!

This is good news for all those hundreds of life coaches appearing recently whose mission is to get people to change. All they have to do is convince their clients that all they need to do is change their underlying assumptions about their own abilities.

yawn... "Weight loss with dietary counseling fizzles over time"

The joke goes that one of the headlines in the year 2029 will be "Massive $10-billion study reveals: Diet and exercise the keys to weight loss!"

This study confirms it--Americans' ongoing struggles with weight aren't about knowing what to do or who counsels us while we diet. They're the result of a myriad of other factors, including stress, loneliness, sexual dissatisfaction or deprivation, poor self-esteem, fear of success, boredom, and a hundred other emotional reasons why people overeat.

Add to that the country's obsession with advertising food and drink on television and elsewhere, the easy availability of millions of food choices in our grocery stores, the comfort and easy access of so many dining-out options, the suburban mindset of "gotta go everywhere in a car," and fashion's focus on thin-is-beautiful, we have a perfect recipe for a war on weight.

Let's face it. As the commercial suggests with the the lady who's remarking on the "20-pound baked good" provided at the office to celebrate nothing but the beginning of the third quarter--but offers another snack instead--we sabotage ourselves.