One Way to Prevent Yourself from Trying Too Hard
Juan Martin del Potro was amped and frustrated. It was the finals of the 2018 US Open Men’s Championship, and he was losing to Novak Djokovic. The tension only mounted as spectators and his tennis club from Argentina sang at the top of their lungs like it was a soccer match, reminding him of the stakes: He was playing for the pride of his country. While Djokovic operated like a calm surgeon, del Potro was getting more and more worked up. And as the expectation and intensity rose, he began to overswing. He was trying to do too much with each shot.
Do you ever feel like you’re swinging too hard?
After taking some time off at the end of August, I was excited and ready for the “new” that September ushered in. On the home front, we’d just bought a gleaming light-colored rug to place inside the doors to our backyard. And at work, our company was kicking off its new fiscal year on September 1. A fresh start.
Then it started raining. Lots of rain. A great, mud-producing rain. And here’s the thing: Kids and dogs don’t notice mud like I do. As I watched the mud fill up in the backyard, I got pretty amped up about wiping feet, keeping the dog outside when she was muddy, and anything else I could do to try to protect that brand new rug. But it was an exercise in futility. The worst moment came when we went inside to get towels to clean off the filthy dog, only to return and find one of the kids had already let her in the house. Mud everywhere. I might have screamed.
The fiscal year that had started with fresh expectations got a bit muddy, too. Like any month of the year, some things went well, others didn’t.
I was quickly realizing that you just can’t keep everyone’s mud off the nice new rug—no matter how hard you overswing to try to keep it all tidy and high functioning.
One Antidote to Anxiety
As I’ve started to feel amped and frustrated, one thing has kept me calm and focused on what really matters: silence.
Last February, I wrote about a practice I had begun in December of sitting alone in silence every morning. I had picked a word to focus and direct my thoughts in those silent moments. The word was “meek,” which I explained actually means “strength under control.” Think of it like someone who is well-trained and accepting of circumstances.
As I sat in silence each morning through September, my mind shifted from expectations to acceptance: to take what comes, and to do what’s right and needed, regardless of how it feels, whether it’s reciprocated, or whether it produces immediate results.
You see, too often you and I need life to go a certain way to be OK. We want people to act a certain way, we want to accomplish certain things, we want life to live up to our expectations. We want to keep things tidy and we want to win.
Silent focus on being meek reminds me to accept my current reality as a human being, as frustrating and muddy as it may be. To stop overswinging for a moment and rediscover my inner calm.
What kids and dogs are running around your carpet with mud? Will you swing at the situation with all your might and fury? Or will you operate like a calm surgeon?
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