I had a discussion with a good friend of mine a couple of years ago about forgiveness. In particular, self forgiveness...
We strive to attain our goals and sometimes fall short. For this outrageous and unacceptable failure to perform, we beat ourselves violently. We talk about our failures, we go over our failures, we upset ourselves about our failures, regardless of whether or not the failure was actually our fault or not.... well... some of us do!
It's considered "human" or perhaps just "british" to be self defacing and self punishing, talk talk down our successes and talk up our failures.
Well, not for me!! I like to talk about my successes, because it feels good to succeed. I make no apology for it. Of course, no one wants to be seen as a braggard and arrogant, but please understand that it's OK to say 'I did that well, and I'm happy with it' It's ok to smile and pat yourself on the back for reaching your goals.
I also like to forgive myself my failures. Being somewhat disabled, there are days when I'm in pain, when my body doesn't want to do the things I'm encouraging it to do, when antagonistic muscles want to have their say, when things are going on in my life which distracts me from my objectives and leaves me in a poor place to perform. Under these circumstances it's OK to perform below par!
As yourself some questions - did you do your best? Could you have done any better? Did you work as hard as you could? If the answer is YES, then I'm sorry to break it to you, but that's the best you could be on that particularly day. It's disappointing, of course, and you may feel bad for a period of time, but for goodness sake make it minutes or hours rather than days!! For your own sanity, for your own peace of mind, take yourself back to a place and time when you did well and remember that time. SEE yourself performing well and replace those bad, destructive thoughts with thoughts of slick, easy performance and forgive yourself.
I remember when I won my first proper medals for my country at an international event - I won two, and they were both Gold. My friend asked me if self-forgiveness was my only secret... I said no, and for those few one or two who read my blog, I hereby share my 'secrets to success'.
1. Forgive yourself. As above. Enough said. Be kind to yourself, talk nicely to yourself... you'll be amazed at how it can change your outlook on life.
2. Set realistic goals.... You should have a different set of goals depending on how you feel, how the weather is, whatever factors affect you. I usually have 3 sets of goals - my personal best, for when I'm on top of my game, an average, for most days, and a 'bearable' for those days when I'm not at my best or the weather is poor, but above which I will accept that this is the best I can expect.
3. Work harder than your opponents. This is no surprise to any elite athlete. Everything you do that your opponent doesn't do, has to give you an advantage. Whether it's better equipment setup or more practice time, it's all going to give you the edge. Act boldly, and act today.
4. Believe you're better than you currently are, and strive to be better than you are. I'm endlessly surprised at the ability of the human being. How many new world records are set every year? HUNDREDS! Why? Well some of it is because technology is helping, but most of it is because the best people do not limit themselves to the barriers set by those who came before.
Small anecdote here: My wife used to shoot well, but never quite getting to 'Grand Master' status. She was hovering around 1200 scores. On our way to a tournament one day I told her I believed her to be capable of 1260. I spent most of the journey explaining why I believed her to be capable. Now 1200-1260 is a BIG jump, but by the end of the journey I think I had persuaded her. She went out that day and shot a 1268. Coincidence? I think not.
5. Trust your ability. The last thing any elite athlete needs to do when performing is to think about it... We think in training, we work on technique, we consciously work through the process, we then put that into practice and practice then becomes pre-competition preparation. It takes the brain SECONDS to process conscious thought - it's way too slow to perform at elite levels, which is why we need to keep it out of the equation. The subconscious / learned responses can operate much faster independantly. As soon as you doubt your ability, your conscious WILL get involved and try to 'fix' things, then the game is over. Learning to trust yourself is the only way to achieve awesome results.
6. Have fun. Motivation is a strange thing - some people are motivated by money, others by fame, others by sex, others by self-preservation. Finding real satisfaction in whatever it is that you do is, in my opinion, the only way to ensure that you will continue to increase your performance. For me, and many of my friends, much of that comes from enjoying what you do. And it's a funny thing that the better you get at doing what you do, the more fun it becomes... Never lose the satisfaction.
7. Know yourself. Spend time looking inwards and understand what makes you tick. It may not be what you first think. Taking time to understand why you are who you are will help you with all aspects of your performance. I've worked with 4 sports psychologists and a business coach, and the journey has been enlightening and occasionally scary, but it has helped me understand what I really want and need, and why I feel the way I feel. The benefit of this is that things I felt were scary before, are no longer as scary as they used to be. Fear, in particular, holds us back more than we can possibly realise.
8. Take control of your controllables. What can you do about the issues you're facing? Get on and do it. Shrinking violets rarely shine.
9. Ignore the uncontrollables. Is something bugging you that you can't control? Injury, someone else's actions, your environment? Suck it up and move on.
10. Never, ever, ever, give up.
Simple as that.
The true meaning of life is to be found in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system.... Human experience is essentially self-transcendence rather than self-actualization. Self-actualization is not a possible aim at all, for the simple reason that the more a man would strive for it, the more he would miss it.... In other words, self-actualization cannot be attained if it is made an end in itself, but only as a side effect of self-transcendence - Victor Frankl
