10d • General discussion
This weekends big competition
I got an email today which has a lot of great stuff for me in advance of this weekends Department Triples in Normandy playoff.
It’s from The Inner Game who I highly recommend you subscribe to and watch as it’s based on one of my favourite books The Inner Game of Tennis. Yes i said tennis and not pétanque but any sport can apply to this mental inner game. I have been preaching about this for 20+ years now.
“You feel something similar before your next big presentation, your quarterly review, or that one conversation that could change everything. The stakes feel enormous because someone important is watching. Your mind races through consequences. You can feel yourself tensing up.
That moment hits harder than all the hours, or even years of work, you put into preparing for it.
The Principle
Self 1 loves an audience. It imagines the crowd, the judgment, the story that will be told about you. It rehearses failure and triumph in equal measure, all while the actual task waits quietly in front of you.
Self 2 knows the ball doesn’t care who’s watching. The serve, the slide, the next word out of your mouth: None of it changes just because a stadium or boardroom full of eyes is watching. The mechanics remain the same: Just breath, focus, and action. What changes is the narrative Self 1 spins about what this moment means.
When you strip away the imagined audience, what remains is simply you and the task in front of you. One action, then the next.
This Week’s Practice
Before your next high-stakes moment, pause and ask: What would I do if no one were watching?
Memorize that answer, because it’s going to be easy to forget in the heat of the moment. But that’s when you need that memory the most. Recite it to yourself, and notice how the task simplifies when you remove the audience from your mind.
Return to the task at hand; just you and the one thing in front of you.
Your Invitation
When the spotlight finds you this week, let it be a reminder: you’ve done this work. Your body knows. Your mind knows. Trust yourself to perform.”
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This weekends big competition
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