Whow do we like sports? There are millions of people around the world who feel happiest when they are engaged in pursuits that are – on the surface – useless. And yet sport is serious business. Jamie Carragher and Declan Rice are two English footballers who said their sport was “all about winning”. Is it really true? I was a sports presenter for BBC Radio 1 for eight years, which included the 2012 London Olympics, Andy Murray’s historic Wimbledon win and a World Cup in Brazil. It was often exciting, but over time, when I went on air to report on the action, I had a nagging feeling that something was missing. The fixation on results did not convey sport’s deep beauty and its many life lessons. Sports are often described as a metaphor for life, so I set out to investigate just that – and found many important insights into where happiness and fulfillment can be found. Here is what I discovered.
Treat your brain like a computer
The next time you’re waiting to catch a train, look at your fellow passengers. Most of them will be staring at their phones. For the first time in human history, we never have to be bored – and this is contributing to the rising levels of burnout. Sir John Kirwan, the All Black rugby legend who was knighted for services to mental health after a depressive episode during his career, shared a fantastic analogy to consider. What do you do when your computer starts playing? “Turn it off and on again – 99% of the time that works.” We need to do the same thing with our brains! Kirwan is an “active relaxer”. He reads, walks and plays the guitar. Whatever it is, find ways to distract your brain that don’t involve browsing.
Develop emotional intelligence
In 2016, Team GB won gold for women’s hockey at the Beijing Olympics. The coach was Danny Kerry, who worked hard on his emotional intelligence (often described as a better predictor of life satisfaction than IQ) over the course of his career. EQ is about understanding what you feel and managing yourself, as well as being able to read and empathize with others and then influence them for the better. So Danny Kerry put together a brilliant EQ shortcut questionnaire: “Where am I? Where should I be? Where are they? Where should they be?” In Beijing, if he was grumpy, he might delegate a meeting if he felt the players needed to be lifted. At home, if he felt tired after a hard day’s work, but his children needed him to be engaged and playful to be, he consciously raises his condition to give them the father they need.
Stop monster bat
Albert Ellis was an extremely influential psychologist with a peculiar twist. He claimed that a great deal of psychological suffering was created by believing illusory “oughts,” such as “I must do good.” There is nothing wrong with wanting to do good, but it is different from demanding that it happen. Former England football manager Roy Hodgson put it well when he said: “One of the phrases I hate is, ‘This is a must-win game.’ So, if the opposition are winning 2-0 and there are 10 minutes to go, does that mean I have to take out a machine gun and shoot them?” One way to avoid falling into the “musterbation” trap is to watch your language. Phrases like “I have to” and “I have to” only increase pressure, which paradoxically reduces the chance of achieving the outcome. achieve what you want Stick to “I want” or “I would like”.
Growth mindset can be overdone
From the locker room to the classroom, you’ll hear people extolling the importance of a “growth mindset.” It’s a term coined by Stanford professor Carol Dweck, who suggested that believing your abilities are malleable can have a huge impact on performance and outcomes, while a “fixed mindset” did the opposite . In her Ted Talk, Dweck claims people can be encouraged to develop a growth mindset through simple interventions, such as praising hard work and effort rather than talent or intelligence. The problem is that researchers who have tried to replicate the two core research articles, which have been cited thousands of times, have found no such correlation. “Praise wise,” they told me, had no effect. Don’t thoughts and beliefs change like the wind? As one of my podcast guests pointed out, one day you think you’re great, the next day you suck. Instead of struggling with “mindsets”, perhaps it is better to take action, regardless of what the voice in your head happens to say.
Say to yourself: ‘I am aware of the thought…’
We all have thoughts we don’t want to have, like, “I’m going to mess up this speech!” to “What if I hit a double fault?” But thoughts are not facts, and an even more important recognition is that we are not our thoughts – we are aware of our thoughts. So, when an unhelpful thought comes up, rather than identifying with it or resisting it, notice it and then add the following prefix: “I’m aware of the thought that… I’m going to mess it up.” It creates space between you and the thought. Then bring yourself back to the present, perhaps by noticing the sounds you can hear. This is a core pillar of acceptance and commitment therapy, which English cricketer Sir Alastair Cook used to great effect before his career-defining series round the Ashes in Australia in 2011.
Shifting from ‘thinking mind’ to ‘conscious mind’
I was introduced to this distinction by Dr. Guy Meadows, former ultrarunner and sleep specialist, who taught elite athletes how to maximize their recovery. We all create a conceptual identity by referring to what happened to us in the past, our hopes for the future as well as our beliefs, values and opinions. It becomes the “story of me” we use to navigate the social world. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s not the whole story. As we said, we are not our thoughts; we are aware of them. This “conscious mind” exists before thoughts and feelings, just as the sky exists before the weather. And just like the sky, the conscious mind is at peace with whatever weather (thoughts and feelings) is present in it. If we can recognize that we are not only the “narrative self”, created by thoughts of past and future, but also the conscious mind in which the thoughts that create the “story of me” appear, then we can fall back into that calm, peaceful place that exists before whatever we experience, whenever we choose, regardless of external circumstances.
Doing does not end in being
We tend to think that fulfillment lies in the future – when we meet the right person or get the promotion or the big house. The problem is that it doesn’t tend to work that way. The number of people who have reached the highest heights in the world of sports, only to be left with a sense of deep dissatisfaction, is huge. I remember putting in Caitlyn Jenner’s living room, listen to her talk about how winning Olympic gold didn’t deal with any of the problems she faced. So what is the answer to this mystery? To admit that the future never arrives and to seek happiness there is futile. That’s it folks! It is always now, and we can strive to do our best in this moment, the only moment that ever truly exists.
Forget being somebody; embrace being nobody
The day after Jonny Wilkinson kicked the winning goal to win the Rugby World Cup, he felt empty. However, in the moment when he kicked the winning goal, he experienced a transcendence. His sense of self disappeared. “It wasn’t ‘me’ that kicked it, it was knowing about it,” he told me. This is a common phenomenon experienced by sports stars. If that sense of “I” can disappear, how real can it be? Winning is often overwhelming, but the experience of flow is intrinsically enjoyable. As thoughts of past and future disappear along with our conceptual sense of self, we are joyful and perform at our best. While we think we want to become a special “somebody”, we are actually most satisfied when we experience being “nobody”. Through sports, conversation, reading – the portals are vast – we are happiest when we lose ourselves in the moment, not when we try to increase our sense of self by “winning”.
Champion Thinking: How to Find Success Without Losing Yourself is published by Bloomsbury Tonic on January 18 at £18.99. Buy it at guardianbookshop.com for 16.71 Euros. Simon Mundie is also host of The Life Lessons Podcast
