“I’m not really interested in talking about the physical side of tennis anymore. I’m mostly interested in the mental game.” ~ John McEnroe
We talk about sports like tennis as if there are two games. A physical game of techniques and movements. A mental game that is distinct from, but influences, the physical game.
We are mistaken.
The brain lives in a black box. It never sees, hears, feels, smells, tastes, touches, or experiences our position in space. It receives input from sensors and hallucinates an experience.
Everything is mental. Strictly speaking, there is no purely physical game.
The intuition of there being a separate mental game emerges from our experience of fear. We’re playing fine. Physically, everything’s going well. We sit down 5-4 up on the changeover and… unwanted thoughts pop up. Fear grabs the wheel. Our heart speeds up. The court feels like it’s the size of a postage stamp. It’s hard to breathe.
We could be so freaking good… if only we could control this pesky mind of ours!
No need goes unserviced in a market economy. Accordingly, the marketplace of sport has endless methods and multi-step programs that promise to teach us to be fearless… for a fee, of course. Mindfulness, meditation, breath work, reframing, six ways to control your mind, ten steps to change your mindset… the list goes on. They’re sold under the umbrella of “mental toughness”. You can file “mental toughness” in the bullshit file. It’s just another hobgoblin of the mind.
Fear is not the problem. It’s only a symptom. The problem is you believe that there is something to be gained through sport. Whenever there’s something to be gained, there’s something to be lost. The greater the distance between what you need from the game and your perceived ability to make that happen… the greater your fear.
What’s there to gain? Well… ultimately, you want to think you’re awesome. Of course, no one admits that. They hide it behind a complex set of prerequisites. The calculus of which looks something like this: you’ve gotta do something awesome to think of yourself as awesome.
Winning is pretty awesome. It leads to titles, titles lead to status, status to the admiration of others, which leads to always getting the best table… in any restaurant, that leads to more admiration, even from the people you admire. Somewhere down this road you’ll finally get enough of all that stuff… and… you will like and admire yourself. Allegedly.
I say allegedly because it can’t work that way. And, if you think about it, you already know that. Your life hasn’t been absent success. Yet you still need more to see yourself in that light.
Yes, sports can give you titles. And people can give you their admiration. But only you can decide to admire yourself. And if that admiration requires any, or all of that other bullshit… you are a puppet, living your life second handedly throught the eyes of others, dependent on the opinion of people you barely, if even, know.
Self-respect pursued in this way is a rainbow chase. Every hoop you jump through begets another hoop. In fact, it’s hoops all the way down. Eventually you fail… or quit. Then what?
Since what you’re after is ultimately, a thing only you can give yourself, the most direct path is to tackle it head on. Why do you wish to be something other than what you are?
“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you truly are.” ~ Joseph Campbell