So volleyball season is underway and the MIT volleyball team is off to a slower start than usual. One of the guys sent out an email asking people to respond with how they feel when they are in the zone. The following is a little bit of what his question got me thinking about…
…We so often let winning and losing define who we are instead of defining ourselves in spite of winning or losing.
It took a long time for me to figure this out, but in the end if you let yourself rise and fall with how you perform, you will never be able to play at your best. If you don’t already know you are the best then you never can be the best. If you let the outcome affect you, the game has already been lost.
Michael Jordan was not afraid to take the last shot because he knew he was the best. Whether he made or missed he was still the greatest of all time and would remain that way. He didn’t doubt, no one else doubted, everyone just knew.
For the past couple years Ive been telling my teammates on the court (and in beirut)that these aren’t games of skill, but rather games of CONFIDENCE. So of course it finally just occurred to me after years of calling these things “games of confidence”, that the root of that statement is my central theme here. Only if we can define ourselves in spite of winning or losing will we ever reach our goals, win the game, become the best.
Its easy to believe that you are the best when you win. It’s much more powerful if you continue to believe you are the best when you lose.
In volleyball this means making the play that YOU KNOW is right…it means running an offense YOU KNOW will allow the team to win, rather than just keep you from getting into trouble with the coach…it means swinging to tool, tipping a ball, or looking to bounce not because someone told you to, but because YOU KNOW it is the right play to make…it means passing 3/4 of the court because YOU ARE the best passer on the court…it means knowing YOU ARE good enough to serve tough with the game on the line…it means reading you hitter and committing to where YOU KNOW the opposing setter is going with the ball…
But most of all it means being able to accept the consequences of your actions. You were the right person. It was the right play. If you were put in the same situation, you would do exactly the same thing again.
