Ego orientation

Achievement goal theory (John Nicholls) distinguishes two orientations: task and ego. With an ego orientation, your sense of success depends on comparison against others — placing, ranking, beating a particular rival. Effort is not valued in itself but only as a means of proving superiority, which is why an easy win subjectively feels worth more than a hard one.

An ego-oriented athlete stays motivated as long as they are confident of winning, but loses their appetite easily against a strong opponent and starts avoiding risk. That is where fear of losing and fear of making mistakes grow from: any failure reads as a blow to self-worth. Such an athlete tends to choose either clearly easy or clearly impossible tasks, to protect the image of being strong.

Goal orientation and achievement motivation questionnaires in the assessment section identify which orientation dominates. Their results show the balance between wanting to be better than others and wanting to grow. It is convenient to go through the profile afterwards with a specialist.

Working with process goals instead of outcome goals softens the tilt toward ego: focus on specific actions rather than on your place in the results. Exercises in keeping an effort journal and comparing yourself today against yourself yesterday fit well. Gradually this hands control of your motivation back to you and reduces the anxious dependence on the outcome.

The opposite pole is task orientation, while the environment that reinforces an ego focus is described by the ego-involving climate. In practice the consequences show up most often as fear of losing and fear of making mistakes.