Only two things drive you CRAZY…

I watched, with a sinking heart, the English rugby team slowly wrestle defeat from the jaws or victory on Saturday. I couldn’t understand how this side which had started so well, and had been so commanding in the first half had sunk so low in the second half. There wasn’t a single defining moment when it began to change; it just slipped through their fingers like sand. This got me thinking, and reminded me of something a friend and associate often says “Only two things drive you crazy; not getting what you want…… and getting what you want!”

On first listening, this sounds just plain wrong, but as you think about it, it starts to resonate. We all have had moments, perhaps playing tennis or something like that when we think, “Just one more point and I win this game” only to double fault, and then the rot starts. We want it so much that the very wanting gets in the way of our performance. This is another and rather subtle outworking of the Flight / Fight mechanism.

People tell us to “Relax.. Calm down etc” but usually that only makes it worse! I wonder if we all have this distant but primal memory of fear of the teat being snatched from our hungry lips as an infant? This experience often triggers self-talk about never getting what we really want, and perhaps feelings of unworthiness about having the very thing that we crave.

So on Saturday, hundreds of thousands of English rugby fans joined their team in experiencing this bitter pill of positive expectation turning into nasty, real frustration. So what? It is only a game. However, most of us experience this see-sawing between the twin fears of getting it and not getting it. Unfortunately for us all, all I can offer is the advice of breathing, staying present in the moment, setting aside hope and expectation and just continue doing ‘your thing’; ever-ready to accept the natural outcome of this process, both the sweet fruits of success and learnings from each experience. Good Luck!

“No one ever won a chess game by betting on each move. Sometimes you have to move backward to get a step forward.” Amar Gopal Bose

“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” Colin Powell

This entry was posted on Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 08:23 and is filed under Flight / Fight, Hints, Tips & Techniques, Mini-Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.