Navigating the Maze
“Be prepared to take one step back to take two steps forward.”
Everybody knows this adage but who is truly prepared to follow it. One of the hardest things for a sportsperson (or just a person in general) is learning something new, or more to the point finding out that the way you do something could be done better. On the whole we really struggle to unlearn our bad tendencies because most of the time we don’t see them as that – bad. We understand that we could get better but we think that is just taking another step forward, adding another layer to the cake, rather than starting again. It can be likened to navigating through a maze. That statement is even more relevant when it comes to match play, most of the time we’d rather win playing average rather than lose playing well.
Everybody has had a go at doing mazes before. How many people have cheated and started at the end to find the right path? I know I have. Unfortunately in sport (and life) this scenario is not possible, we must start at the beginning and blindly navigate our way to the end. Along the way we will almost certainly hit a dead end and have to back track. Whilst frustrating we accept the fact that back tracking is the only way forward and as such do just that, we don’t try to climb over the wall. So why is it that our egos are always trying to climb over the wall of experience, thinking they can scale it rather than acknowledging that the quickest way forward will be to first go backward? Why is it that no matter how many times we hit a dead end we believe we can find a way over? Why is it that we’d rather just be at the end straight away and draw a line to the start rather than go through the trials and tribulations of walking the path of experience? Why can’t we accept that taking those steps back can in fact become the biggest lesson of all?
Think of the one step back as experience, you must hit the wall enough times to be accustomed to look out for it. You must know when to backtrack straight away to learn the real lesson. If you accept that your experience level rises. In doing so, so does your confidence level. For there is no negative in this scenario, the steps back just lead to another path forward. Experience can’t be rushed it must be lived. It’s the lessons learnt that makes us great not the achievements obtained. Once you become accustomed to this a strange thing happens, your mind stops trying to find the right answer. It accepts that you’ll always navigate your way through the maze and actually starts to enjoy the journey. That feeling of stillness is a really liberating feeling and is achievable in everything you do in life. Your chosen sport is a great metaphor for this as it is an easier path to follow than that of random life so when training/participating in whatever endeavour you do see if you can overcome this hurdle (or more to the point find your way around it) to experience what the stillness feels like.
Breaking down the ego mind is the fastest way to fulfillment. Accepting that to do that you must take many steps backwards is the only way to truly walk forward. And the only way to improve is to walk forward. By continually reminding yourself of this adage that stillness should eventually hit. The only way for this to happen is to acknowledge it and train it. Thus who’s ready to train taking one step back?