Badminton day

Today I had a badminton tournament, it has been awhile since I last played badminton. Since second year of uni to be honest.

It was a group tournament, something like thomas cup where the group scores counts more than individual matches.

My first match was a tough one because i'm the last pair of my group and we are even out at 2-2 by that time.

Being at such pressurized state, I began to lose some controls because I know i'm far from the playing form I used to have in uni, which is not that good that time anyway. But at least is much better than now, furthermore my stamina has been lacking since i'm a lazy guy at sport.

Anyway, that's not the main thing I wish to highlight. It's the mental pressure that I faced during that match. I believe everyone suffers from mental presure especially when it comes to things that you are not confident at.

Giving that i'm always confident at doing my stuff, sometimes I do face situations where I'll fear and afraid. And whenever such feeling comes, I'll lose my grip and everything went haywire. Similar situation happened before, which triggers my awareness that, i'm not invincible. I do have flaws and I do have weaknesses, everyone has, in fact. Whether you have more, or you have less.

The thing is, how to overcome your fears. Sometimes the lack of confidence pull you down from your normal state and cause you to perform worse than usual.

I lost my grip during my first match, I missed too many chances where I should score. Even thou my opponents are not that strong, the weak in myself amplifies under the pressure to perform, to score, and to nail it. Eventually we lost the match as expected. Realizing I can actually perform better during that match and maybe even winning it.

This situation is like a deja vu to me where I faced the same situation in the incident I mentioned earlier. It's not that I cannot perform, it's the desire in me that pulls me down from what I really good at. My stress handling has become so weak that I don't even realize it. It's all because of my slacking, my ignorance to self improve. Contended to what I achieved for my academic goal, I felt that I were good.

Realizing the fact that this feeling is haunting me again, I regain myself for my next round.

This time, our opponents are much stronger than previous team. However, because I have my mind set still before the match, I'm able to minimize my mistakes and regain some performance that I lost during the first match.

This clearly shows that, the mindset is very important to determine the outcome. It's normal when dealing simple tasks but when decision making or pressurized situation, the mindset is very important. I will always keep this in mind, and not forgetting to self improve.

A badminton match, different situation, but same theory applies.

Update: Some what related, but just for share.

 

 Source:  TED - Shawn Achor: The happy secret to better work

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