Proving them wrong

You occasionally hear success stories being born out of the desire to prove someone wrong.

Somewhere along the line, a doubter, skeptic or someone of little faith told the hero they can’t reach that high.

Then the hero determined to prove them wrong, found a new unprecedented level of performance to earn their respect.

It’s definitely a useful strategy and a powerful motivational tool but I believe it has sustainability issues.

First it relies on external parties for motivation and secondly it only works when you are an underdog.

If you prove enough people wrong then you’ll turn all your doubters into believers and then what?

After Michael Jordan won his fifth championship I highly doubt anyone was telling him he couldn’t win a sixth.

There’s less to doubt so the hero runs out of skeptics and the need to prove oneself lessens.

Therefore I think the best in the world outgrow the motivation to prove doubters wrong and find a more powerful intrinsic motivation to see how far they can go.