Even the Most Skillful Athletes Are Superstitious

Here’s why superstition can be useful in the face of uncertainty

Four in five athletes or about 80.3% of professional athletes are superstitious. For me, this is interesting because sporting values are usually built upon dedication, perseverance, and reliance on rigorous skill-building.

Back in college, I was dating a Pencak silat athlete. She was nearing her provincial competition and I, as a partner, offered my enthusiasm and support by intending to watch her compete. But she immediately said, “Don’t”. Confused, I probed her to explain. It turns out that when the athlete’s significant other is present, it will lead to defeat.

I didn’t believe it and wanted to prove it. I took a seat in the topmost section at the sports center during the d-day. It was true, she lost. I was sure she would win because she won all the early rounds. But when I was present and she noticed me, it became a different story.

It was said that Johann Cruyff, the Dutch footballer, always spit his chewing gum to the side of the field in every pre-game. One day, he forgot that his mouth was empty and his club lost 4–1.

Wade Boggs, the former player of the New York Yankees ate chicken every day for 20 years because he thought it made him hit better shots.

It’s fascinating how a field that relies on dedication, hard work, and life-consuming training which translates to self-reliance is filled with the very people that rely on the opposite concept of luck.

Superstitious athletes are able to balance the proportion between reliance on self-development through skills and also the acceptance that there are things we can’t control.

Superstitions Are Religious Rituals’ Brother from Another Mother

The three anecdotes above contain the same important elements in superstition:

• It was a routine or rituals that are done even though there are disparities between the cause and the effect.
• It usually is done in a situation that is full of uncertainties and the stakes are high.
• Superstitions are used as a defense to create the illusion of control in something that might be uncontrollable.

Hence, it can be defined as:

Unusual, repetitive, rigid behavior that is perceived to have a positive effect by the actor, whereas in reality there is no causal link between the behavior and the outcome of an event

I often hear people around me say that religion is a superstition but also the opposite. Some people believe that religion was devised by superstitious storytellers to make people afraid or persuade them. Some others believe that religion is different from superstition.

Like a brother from another mother, superstitions help shaped religions and vice versa. For example, in Islam, there is a superstition that if you put statues inside the house, the angels will be reluctant to enter and bless it with their presence. But I also think that the intention and characters differ.

Both religious rituals and superstitions rely on continual repetition. But the former is driven out of obligation and God’s ordnance. Both entail the practitioner to believe that it will affect them somehow. But the former is driven more by God’s mercy and acceptance.

We always need these two forces, because the world is getting more and more uncertain. Especially for us middle classes.

We Live In a World Full of Uncertainties and the Stakes Are High

Nowadays, the majority of people in the world might be middle class. There are about two-thirds of OECD countries population who regard themselves as middle class. However, the situation at hand showed that their economic power is diminishing. Prices became more volatile, income growth is free-falling, and we can’t just save that well.

In developing countries like Indonesia, the youths or what our politicians called the “Millenials” that work in the cities with middle income and proclaim themselves as middle classes are having a hard time buying a house. In a decade, housing prices can jump up to 39,7% while income growth was slow.

The same is happening in a developed country like South Korea. The middle class, desperate, has chosen the path of gratifying in-the-moment consumption that they dubbed as “fuck-it-expense”.

The lifestyle and consumption of the middle class are also becoming harder to maintain. Education becomes more expensive. Lifestyle-related goods prices skyrocket. It caused middle-class families to pile up debts through credits and own less money to save, worse than the lower and upper class.

Imagine if you work your ass off, juggling between two to three jobs in order to buy your dream house only to end up spending it on other needs because there might be something unexpected. Or simply because the inflation is too high for us to keep up.

Yet, what people or financial gurus always told us is that we have to work hard and invest. When we don’t obtain enough income, it is entirely our fault, because we can’t or won’t save and have not worked hard enough. But the economy is a mishmash of causes and root problems and mostly it is structural.

Who can bear that burden by himself? When there is a gap in the preached ideology and the situation at hand, it creates a whole new set of problems.

Middle-class ideology puts the blame entirely on ourselves — it can be damaging

The uncertainty of living like a middle class, whether it is in a developing or developed country is that we can either ascend or descend. The middle class differs from the lower or higher class because in the former, they feel like they are destined not to climb the economic status ladder and in the latter, it is almost impossible for them to turn bankrupt for many generations.

The fluidity of the position of the middle class makes them the protagonist of capitalism. As the protagonist, you have to work hard, save, and invest. If you are lazy, consume too much, and are not smart enough, you will descend and be poor.

The entire middle-class ideology is in contradiction with capitalism that relies on accumulation and consumption. Also, the people who have a job are actually undervalued and it puts them in a dilemma of saving or consuming.

Furthermore, the scarcity of property and products that can support the livelihood of the middle class created competition on who’s more productive and then we glorify hustling like it’s a lifestyle like it’s a choice. Yet it causes dissatisfaction — and at worst, mental health issues.

The emphasis on individual effort and competition, the overwhelming feeling of “the world is in my hands” can make an individual feel like Sisyphus, rolling an immense boulder uphill. It causes loneliness and the meaninglessness of a person’s identity. Hence, people around the world feel that their job only brings unhappiness.

When in Doubt, Be Superstitious

When faced with the uncertain and high-stake venture, you diversify burden and anxiety with developing your own unique superstition.

Not everything can be weighed through reason alone

Imagine you’re a fresh graduate about to enter the workforce. You are then invited to an interview session in a big financial company. Upon arriving in the interview room, you see that there is one person that is responsible to decide on your feng shui. It happens in Hong Kong, where fortune tellers also appear at interviews.

In the Chinese world of business, CEOs almost always consult on fortune tellers. In the situation of incomplete information and when dealing with something that is uncertain — such as opening new business in two potential areas or assessing potential subordinates’ suitability — sometimes superstition can help.

You can do this by developing your own superstition which is based on an accumulation of your instincts or experiences or by adopting the established superstition such as zodiac or feng shui.

Superstition as a way to diversify burden and anxiety

My co-worker was about to have her final performance presentation as a management trainee in a multinational company. Due to Covid-19, she felt that her performance was not impressive at all. She was afraid that she would fail. Suddenly, she opened her zodiac app and felt validated. Her fears subdued a little, feeling that the decision is not only in her hands but in her managers, who may see her potentials and her uniqueness.

I have friends who are smart and skillful but still stuck in an underqualified job. I have friends who perform well in their company but still got cut off. We live in constant uncertainties and fears, for not meeting someone’s expectations, for not delivering the best.

Athletes are superstitious because they alleviate anxieties and tensions. Businessmen in Singapore feel that fortune and one’s own fate sometimes are out of the boundaries of their control.

It doesn’t always entertain the middle-class ideology of hustle and over-reliance of the self.

Superstitions provide the illusion of control and improvement

An experiment shows one group in which the participants bring their own lucky charms and one that did not. They are given a memory and anagram task. The results showed that those who brought their lucky charms tended to perform better than those who didn’t.

The situation reflects the real-life situation in which when we encounter a test that we are not prepared for beforehand, it can affect our self-perception whether we can do well in the test or not.

My ex-girlfriend feels that when she skipped one part of the mandatory prayer, it will bring her bad luck. She succeeds in building a consistent habit out of her superstition. That she can even control and repel bad luck by doing the things she thinks necessary.

At Last

Even the most skillful and renowned athletes cultivate and develop their own unique superstitions.

We are no different from athletes. As ordinary people, we also encounter the possibility to be anxious and to fear our future. We endure high-stakes and uncertain ventures throughout our life and beyond.

But individuals also have their limits. It is important for us to understand and create a system to control the things we can’t control.

One way to do that is through developing our own superstitions, our own mental models. Superstitions have the ability to transform our minds, from denial to acceptance, from reason to imagination, and from insecurity to confidence.