Last weeks one all draw against Group D leaders Turkey at the under-17 World Cup in Nigeria has been described as one of New Zealand’s best ever performances in international football. This, their third 1-1 draw in succession, meant New Zealand finished pool play unbeaten thereby securing them a chance to progress through to the knockout stage.
While their performances to date suggest the young All Whites have the skills to compete on the world stage, only time will tell whether they have got the goods to go on or whether their lack of international success will prove their undoing.
Even though I believe the kiwis could advance, Coach Steve Cain’s comments after the match cause me to suspect they have already surpassed their true ‘expectations’ – rather than their ‘aspirations’.
The reason athletes (and businesses for that matter) find ‘cracking new or higher ground so notoriously difficult’ is because most of them fail to create the necessary mind set to advance beyond what they have achieved before. As such, they tend to create an ‘inappropriate’ and reactive state i.e. a state that is inconsistent and thus incompatible with their ultimate intentions – and by default, rather than ineffective management, descend into the realm of positive thinking i.e. hopeful, wishful thinking – or what could otherwise be referred to as the most celebrated insult of human intelligence.
If the young All Whites are to advance, they will need to create a more appropriate state going forward because at some point they will need to learn how to win, rather than just prevent a possible loss i.e. they need to ‘become’ more progressive attacking footballers who are capable of winning matches, rather than just being good defensive and gutsy players who mitigate losses.
An interesting point to watch will be whether their elation i.e. their current ‘elevated’ state (being an invaluable consequence of their recent performances) will give them the impetus to progress further or whether their previously established beliefs will cause them to falter. That said, if they do hit the wall this time, they will hopefully come away with a view that they have the potential to compete on the world stage in the future.
Conditioning – the inhibiter of Potential?
Potential is a word that has become synonymous with sport, but in fairness it is a word everyone should think about. A common trait I observe is that most people tend to ‘see’ potential in other people, but rarely ‘see’ it in themselves. Why is this? Why do most of us appreciate the unique capabilities in others, but fail to recognise our own?
Almost every day I encounter undiscovered, unexpressed potential – but rarely do I observe those who have it demonstrate it i.e. ‘leverage’ it to appropriate effect. Is this because we are often ‘blind’ to what we’ve got, or is it because we have become so conditioned to thinking in a certain way, we are incapable of accessing it?
Regrettably, I have found most people are so completely unaware of how they think, they lose sight of the fact they have the ability to operate in a profoundly different way. It is only through the realisation that we have the capacity to improve our mind-set, that we can improve our contribution (performance) and thus our lot in life.
If you are serious about improving your results, you have to improve your performance. The only way we as human beings can deliberately improve our performance is to improve our state of mind. By improving our state, we will automatically improve what we do and therefore the results we as individuals achieve.
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