emotional choice

I saw Melissa Hollingsworth give her first public speech after finishing fifth in the ladies skeleton at the winter Olympics in Vancouver. She was the first seeded racer heading into the first of the four heats. After a slightly shaky start she was within striking distance of the gold medal when she pushed out of the starting blocks on the final run. After doing her best ever start on that course she missed her mark by just a few centimetres heading into one turn and that manoeuver landed her in fifth place. One decision. One result. Done.

In the excellent book he wrote with his wife Aly (http://marriageandmedals.com/), Jeff Pain made what I think is a crucial distinction about goal setting, saying that he does not believe in setting goals, he believes in making decisions. Jeff was the silver medal winner in skeleton in Torino in 2006 and has won several world championships as a slider. I respect his opinion on this.

The likely goal, or at least dream of most Olympians would of course be to win a gold medal. However, most don’t. Most don’t ever see the podium. In working with his sport psychologist, Jeff learned that whenever he focused on the goal of winning at the start of or during the race, he became much less present in the moment and then did not do as well. The Olympics places an added stress on athletes and it can be that much harder to stay focused and in the zone.

A Gold medal victory is not a single decision but the summary of countless well-aligned decisions. First there’s the decision to enter competition in the first place. Then there’s the decision to get up every morning and train and the decisions about how to train and to finish training everyday. There are many decisions related to finances, to coach selection and the way equipment gets set up and tuned. The decisions of all of the members of the support chain make it more or less possible to win. In the course of competition itself there are many minute and subtle decisions that affect the final result as Melissa clearly stated and demonstrated. Then there are the decisions by the other competitors all of whom are vying for the same title. And only one person wins Gold in the end.

Competitors have direct conscious control over some decisions and unconscious control over others as they use their instinct and intuition to navigate the competitive landscape. They have some influence on another set of decisions and very little influence on others. And finally, there are a great many decisions they have absolutely no control or influence over, which could greatly affect the final result. This element of chance plays a larger factor in the final analysis than maybe we’d all like to think. A gold medal in anything is really the alignment of a great many small forces acting in unison. This makes a gold medal all the more precious and special.

A choice in this context is not simply the declaration of a goal. The statement: “I’d like to be in an Olympics and win a gold medal” is fantastic and fanciful for most of the people who might utter it. A select few really mean it when they say: “I’m going to the Olympics to win a gold medal”. The latter phrase is an emotional choice and even then, there are no guarantees.

An emotional choice is like the declaration of goal, but with the full force of deep emotion behind it. That kind of emotion only comes from the connection of a goal with a core value. Metaphorically speaking we all have a gold medal to win in something. If my gold medal goal and my core values are in alignment, then all of the myriad minor and major decisions along the way–by both me and my support team–are more likely to be consistent with that thrust.

There is still a large element of chance in every game. That’s what makes a game a game and what makes competition such a great part of the human aspiration to achieve. If the gold medal in my area is truly within striking distance and I’m fully aligned, I have the best chance of winning. In the heat of each moment, I’ll either find a way to do what it takes or I won’t.

In the end, what may well matter the most is simply being present in the game itself–being conscious of and enjoying the process of making and acting on all those decisions. The purpose of any game is, after all, to play it.