Mindset

It has occurred to me that my mindset really plays a role in how well or how poorly I do at something on any given day.  And this whole idea I think can be pulled out to fit some of the grander scale things.  I’m sure the notion is not new to you, but maybe it is something you have not thought about in a while.

Let me give you an example or two.  As you know I play goalie at least once a week and now that my brother-in-law’s knee has healed up I’m playing against him a lot of those nights.  The night of his return I went to play with the idea that ‘I have to beat Greg’ in my head.  Now it is important to note that when we play Friday nights the hockey game is not exactly played with a defensive strategy in mind and so the goalies are left on their own a lot.  The players goal is to have fun and score, not to “win”.  So approaching the game with that mindset was a poor decision as when I got scored on I would get frustrated as my chances of winning the game dropped when really aside from putting up a shutout I could not win the game for myself.  The score that night was 9-8 in the end, and typically with my team scoring eight times I would win that game.

The next week I when to the game with the idea that I was just going to let go of winning since I could only affect one small portion of the overall game and just focus on doing my part in the net.  I played a much better game, had better stops and recoveries.  It was still a night where I had six goals against me, but in pickup hockey that is just how it goes, the important thing was the stops I made and I made plenty of them.

So I think what I am saying here is not the whole ‘think positive and good things will happen’' bit, but more of a ‘think about controlling what you can control’.  Everything else is still going to happen, but if you just concentrate on doing what you do it makes things a whole lot easier on yourself.