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Playing the Mental Game.

Do you play sports or enjoy a sporting hobby?

You are not alone. Millions upon millions also do. But sport also means competing which involves facing others and the bigger issue of winning and losing. And for many of those millions the possibility of victory or defeat in not won or lost on the field of play, but in the mind.

It is the playing of the mental game that we are all actually participating in.

If you play golf, how is your putting? I ask this because there is a well known affliction on the green whereby good, solid golfers fall apart and lose all confidence to slip the ball into the hole even if it’s only a matter of 6 inches away. It’s called the Yips and even professional players suffer from it. Top 10 golfer and Major winning star Ian Baker-Finch famously quit the game as he couldn’t seem to hit the ball cleanly anymore putting the reason down to one word, ‘Mental’.

He’s not alone. In the 1968 Rugby League Challenge Cup final Wakefield’s Don Fox missed the last kick of the game from right under the posts to hand the cup to Leeds despite just being voted man of the match as the enormity of the kick played on his mind.

It even hits Olympic champions! World class gymnastic legend Simon Biles actually withdrew from some events having developed ‘the twisties’, a mental block gymnasts experience making them lose their sense of space and awareness in the air and causing them to lose control adding an extra twist or two that isn’t required and potentially landing awkwardly or dangerously. Biles cited stress and the pressures focused on her for getting her mind bent out of shape.

Heads you win!

Truth is all of these skilful athletes and players are human like you and me. We don’t just play the mental game in a sporting sense, we play it in the very real living sense. A missed penalty in a football match can lead to losing and letting others down in our heads. Missing an opportunity for promotion due to giving a poor job interview can also destroy our self belief and remain with us for years, Not hitting the bullseye in darts ends up in a loss you should have won and not asking that cute guy or girl out who seemed to have an eye on you becomes saying goodbye to the one you could have married and been happy ever after with. That’s the mental game. It’s in our heads and nowhere else.

You are beaten before you’ve done anything if you play the mental game that way with yourself. You will always miss, lose, blow it, fail, and confidently collapse if you keep believing and expecting to. Whether it’s a five inch putt to beat your best buddy Walt or a 25 yard field goal to snatch the Superbowl in the dying seconds.

It’s never the physical game that we play that tests us, it’s the mental game that’s our true opponent to beat. On the sports field or in the game of life itself.

How do you play the mental game?

The Life Changing Power of Believing.

Abraham Lincoln famously became President of The United States in 1860.

But less famously behind that success lay nearly thirty years of failure and heartbreak. From being defeated in his nominations to the US Senate and Congress to losing his sweetheart in his mid-twenties when she died, losing his business and having a nervous breakdown, he never stopped aiming for his goal of the Presidency. He had the belief.

The legendary baseball player Babe Ruth was struck out over 1330 times in his career. All time superstar basketballer Michael Jordan estimated he completely missed scoring some 9000 times and lost over 300 games over the years despite winning every accolade on the court.

And Scottish tennis hero Andy Murray was beaten in hundreds of matches and four grand slam finals in a row before becoming the first British male for 77 years to win Wimbledon.

All of these have the same story. They experienced a life changing moment that they always believed in. A major dream, a pinnacle achievement they set their heart on, that seemed further and further away after each painful setback. But they never let that pain consume them. Or disappointment or doubt, themselves killers of hopes and wishes. They instead held the vision and the sheer power of believing that one day would be their day. And it was.

You are right to believe.

Belief is a personal thing. Where one person continues to believe in the outcome they desire despite seemingly negative results, another will fold and quit after one tiny loss. That’s because belief is powerful – just as Henry Ford, whose words have gone down in history, wisely observed, ‘Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right’. Belief decides the road we will take ahead; the low road to struggle or the high road to stellar accomplishment.

This is where we all are each day. Either believing we will win, or never will and that view gives power to our reality. And that’s why in the end winners come out on top and losers never get near because each only ever believed they would.

It’s all a journey in our mind and that’s why I’ll leave the last few words to the pop group Journey and their top hit, ‘Don’t stop Believin’,

‘Don’t stop believin, hold onto to that feeling’.

What journey have you been on? What power have your beliefs achieved?

What Matters Most.

Have you ever had a prized possession?

A special or sentimental item that means the world to you? One that you cherish or what matters most?

Many of us can put our hands up to this. Some own a teddy bear from their childhood that brings back special memories. Others have a family heirloom that has been handed down through the generations that they would never part with. And quite a few of us have a modern possession we adore such as a classic sports car or autograph from a sporting idol.

What’s yours?

These things often have little financial value or at least not what we might have paid for them. But that isn’t the same within our mind (and our heart that the mind influences). What matters most to us is priceless and the importance we attach to them means they are something money just could not buy.

But you know what? The same applies to our thinking. We get so absorbed in certain thoughts they become an extension of us and so we struggle to let go of them. We carry them in our mindset for years and simply cannot put them down because they relate to a certain time or person or situation that once existed. Like our physical prized possessions they become part of us.

The difference is our mementos we hold dear don’t prevent us purchasing current day items. A cuddly 50 year old bear never prevents you buying new toys for your own children. Dad’s old pipe is kept safe locked away and as you don’t smoke it has no effect on what you spend money on day to day. What matters most related to olden times never gets in the way of what matters most with our needs today.

BUT THOUGHTS DO!

Our old, fixed thinking may be good for our teenage years or when we had a financial challenges a decade ago, but we can’t truly move into tomorrow with a mindset of yesterday. The world has moved on, people have moved on, the circumstances have moved on…..but we’re still holding onto what we used to think. We’ve not moved on mentally and often it results in our life never moving on either.

What matters most now as you approach another new year is that you take a look at your thoughts to check if they maybe some prized mental possessions that aren’t so prized any more. A threadbare toy bunny will last a lifetime in its benefit to you but threadbare thoughts well past their sell by date may not be bringing you any joy for Christmas, New Year, and every other day in the future.

Take a look at them. What thinking should you lock away and never get out again?

It’s time for some new prized mindset beliefs.

Because if your life is to thrive, that’s what matters most.