Some preseason games have already been played, and it is only a few short weeks until the games that count begin. Football season will soon be upon us in America. For many of us, football has replaced baseball as our national pastime – perhaps because it’s easier to fit watching 16 games into our busy schedules instead of 162.
While anything can happen in a football game, some things are quite predictable. You can be certain that some teams will establish a lead – and then become conservative. Rather than maintaining the aggressive stance that got them the lead in the first place, they go into a “prevent defense”. While it sometimes works, at other times it allows an opponent to catch up by playing aggressive against a team that goes conservative in an aggressive sport.
Several times a season, a radio or TV analyst will jokingly point out that the “prevent defense” prevents the team that is using it from putting their opponent away and winning the game.
There is a lesson there that applies to life off of the football field. Too often, I have observed individuals make progress by assertively pursuing their goals – and then they become timid when the pursuit becomes a little riskier.
When you hold back from volunteering to ask a meaningful question or when you are too embarrassed to answer a question for fear of drawing attention to yourself or because you are not certain that the answer is correct, you are playing prevent defense. When you don’t apply for a job for which are qualified but doubt that you will be selected, you are playing prevent defense.
When you internalize distress rather than addressing the source of your distress, you are playing prevent defense. And when you fail to approach that attractive man or woman who interests you but you are afraid of rejection, you are playing prevent defense.
I’m certain that many of you can find examples from your own lives.
Sometimes you can win by playing prevent defense, but it often comes at a cost – the cost of feeling that you are not in control of the direction of your life and the cost of not letting others know about your strengths.
You can obviously also make mistakes by being assertive, but those kinds of mistakes do not usually result in a reduction of self-esteem.