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Not To Overthink On The Field A new soccer season and a new school year are just around the corner. Hopes and dreams abound for a winning season, good grades, and making people proudmost of all making yourself proud. Every beginning is a fresh start. Who knows what the year ahead holds for you, and you are determined to start with a positive attitude. You step into it with open arms and suddenly you find yourself playing your heart out, running down the field with eyes only for the ball, jockeying for a position to kick it straight past the goal-keeper and into the net. It is possible even for a rookie to achieve what might seem impossible. How does this happen? Basically a beginner is free to not think too much. He or she is too busy enjoying the action. This doesn't mean that the best tactic for a great athlete is never to think. It simply means that thinking too much can get in the way. Beginnings can be both exciting and scary, but if the attention is focused on the negative what-ifs you can count on the mind being too preoccupied to play well. And this concept is important to remember throughout the season, in every practice, at school and all other areas of life. Whatever your brain perceives, it believes. This brings us to the days following being a beginner: the expectations of success or failure carried over from the last game, fears dredged up from past history. Let's say your first practice or game was a positive experience. You placed a masterful kick to center field where it was picked up quickly for a goal. Maybe you even placed a goal yourself. Or, if you are a goal-keeper, you wowed the crowd with a block. You've been high as a kite all week. Now, as you run onto the field for the start of the next game you think to yourself, I hope I can play like I did last week. The key word here is hope, not believe. Even if you do believe, you are only human and your first missed kick is picked up by the opponent and ultimately goes into the net for a point. The distraction that occurs here can be major. The negative talk running through your head sounds something like: "I've lost it. How embarrassing. My luck has changed. What a klutz. Why did I think I could really play well"? And on and on. This kind of thinking, of course, is a major distraction. On the other hand, if you are able to keep a beginner mind, the one that focuses not on winning but on playing with all your heart no matter what, you will forget about everything but the ball and that is keyto follow the ball. You can worry and fret about what you did or didn't do later. Right now your mind is open and free to play the game. Like every hero, we all have the potential to rise about our expectations and fears and to realize we are capable of becoming much more than good soccer players, good students, or simply popular in the crowd. If we have the right mindset, and keep it there, we are capable of achieving greatness. And by that I mean the qualities we reflect in playing soccer, in becoming an exceptional student, and in having true friends are the ones that inspire us in others' courage, determination, fairness, integrity, and confidence. And these are the same mental qualities that allow us to play well, to win the game. Yet even our own heroes had to start somewhere, from whatever challenges they had to rise above, from their own doubts and fears. We never imagine that maybe they cried, had self-doubts, even wanted to give up. We assume they have always been great and we let our assumptions paralyze our own efforts on the field by judging ourselves as failures. We have lost sight of the ball. It is normal to wonder if you are good enough when you are up against a formidable opponent or even when you are just having a bad day. But at some point it is important, even essential, to make a choice to do the best you know how to do, to stay committed to learning how to be even better, and be willing to see winning as more than a score. Could it be beginner's luck is simply a matter of being so free of expectations that the body and mind are allowed to perform without fear of failure, in a zone where no thinking is involved but just total immersion in the action of play? Consider how babies learn and it may help you to get beyond self-critical thinking. If babies thought about learning a new skill the way we do as adults they would never learn to walk. If they gave up after falling down, even banging their knees and heads a few times, there would be very few people walking around. Everyone would be crawling. And although that is a funny picture, it is very true. Babies simply have no thoughts about giving up. They are always in their beginner mind. They do not criticize their own mistakes. They just keep at it and finally they succeed. So you see your dream of becoming great can not be limited by the fear that you might lose a few games or miss a pass or a goal. You must continue to be inspired by the joy of playing the game, and commit to being as determined as a baby learning to walk. Learn the mental skills of concentrating on the ball, thinking positively, and how to bring out the best in your teammates. Develop a beginner's mind, open to learning something new every day, with every practice, every game. Are you ready to begin? Then begin this season, the school year, and today with a vision of opening your mind to learning about yourself in a new way. All possibilities exist with this kind of attitude. |
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