S2 E3: Brain Games Part 1 - Timothy Cunningham
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- By Timothy Cunningham
Blog S2 E3: Brain Games Part 1
Hello readers! It’s Tim here with another blog post! I’m writing from a GRP trip to find early season snow in Finland. I wanted to take some time to use the shoulder season to address one of my favorite topics in sport: mindset.
One of my jobs at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center is to give weekly mindset presentations to the guest campers. I won’t claim to be the man with all the answers when it comes to championing a topnotch headspace, as mindset can be very personalized and because this is an area of constant growth opportunities for us all, but I do want to share one or two tidbits of useful information learned from my experiences in sport.
I like to think of Mindset as having three distinct parts:
1. Motives – The reasons we have for wanting to attempt ambitious goals.
2. Mental Strategies – The tools we have at our disposal to help prepare ourselves to achieve set goals and recover from setbacks
3. Goal Setting – The mapping of mental strategies and motives to mark progress and outcome success. Presenting mindset at Craftsbury takes the better part of an hour, so for today’s blog we will focus on item one: motives. I consider this the most critical aspect of mindset because there are nearly limitless reasons to do something, but not all of them spur action the same way. It makes intuitive sense to know the reasons we act matter. However, let us imagine a range of motives covering a spectrum as follows:
The charts above show arrays of goals and motivators any person could have. These two are just examples, but for each of us we could plot a litany of items onto both charts that speak to us.
Looking at our charts, we see some goals and motivators that will work well together and some that won't. It’s challenging to pursue a lofty goal when your motivator doesn’t get you out the door when you need it to. When I’m chronically confused or unmotivated it is sometimes because my reasons for wanting to achieve my goals are no longer sufficient to keep me going. In a very real way, each individual needs to balance the ambition of their goal with an equally driving motivator; wanting something without feeling the burn to get it is just as defeating as using eternal glory as a motivator to make dinner instead of ordering out. Point two about motive, you need to fully own your reason for acting. We all have people on our team helping us achieve our goals. The support of others is great, but others believing in you alone isn’t enough to accomplish what needs to get done. Having a clear idea of why you are willing to try hard to realize your dream is something you need to figure out. Ideally your motivation should be strong enough to usher you forward on its own, as if you were alone in your endeavors. That way, the extra support we all have can be a bonus for when things get difficult.
Lastly, your motivators can and should change over time. Hard times come, new chapters in life happen, and all this affects what we want to do and why. Even if the goal stays static, like pursuing excellence in sport, it could happen that what was once a brilliant kick to get out the door is now a mundane habit quickly losing its appeal. Success can even cause us to rethink our motives. Let’s say we accomplish our goal; do we stop because we did what we set out to do or is there more we can stay inspired to achieve? I reassess my motives annually as a minimum standard. If I am met with significant life events I might re-up more frequently.
I’ve spoken about finding strong motivators and how critical it is to pair them with an ambitious goal. What I haven’t spoken about yet is how to think about what motivates us, and how to help cultivate longevity in our pursuits. I learned the majority of this bit from my teammate Jake Brown, and I’ve found it tremendously helpful to think about when I fortify my head space. When we think about what motivates us it’s helpful to identify where the “reward” comes from. Is the value of our endeavor derived from an intrinsic sense of progress or an external confirmation of success? These two outcomes define a continuum with Ego on one end and Mastery on the other, leaving everyone to fill the space in between.
The Ego/Master continuum laid out and populated with some statements of mentality. As an exercise, you should fill out this continuum with some of your motivations. Pay attention to where your average is and ask yourself is that the most productive place for you to be? Are you well balanced?
There is no correct place to be on this continuum, as both ends have the capacity to provide strong, long-term motivators and can be immensely successful in their own regards. In fact, we at all times have some balance of these extremes inside of us. What this dichotomy can help us with is picking diverse motivators to keep us in the driver seat regardless of the successes or obstacles we encounter.
Let’s dive into this a bit more. Generally, the Ego is motivated extrinsically. Recognition of accomplishments, cinematic performances, gaining status, and fear of losing all fit the bill for Ego-driven motivations. In some way or another the effort expended in achieving a goal is made worth it by material (prize money, medals, endorsements, etc.) or social gain (the title of “Olympian,” elevated position in social circles, etc.). By contrast, the Master is satiated by optimizing the execution of their “craft,” perfecting their process, and continually improving towards the notion that there is a best way for them to do what it is they want to do. In this context a Master could outperform the entire field and still be dissatisfied because they didn’t perform to the best of their ability. Think here of the famous artist who painstakingly pours over hues to select the exact quality of blue they need for a skyline; the world might still see a masterpiece, but the artist will know what could have been if they chose a different tone.
There are pros and cons to both ends, and we do need both to be our best (in my opinion). In the context of racing the Master maximizes seeks to win by maximizing their chance of success by optimizing their skills. Skills like an efficient technique, robust range procedure, and nuanced race tactics are advantages the Master can leverage to help drive a desired outcome. In that sense, the application of sport (or job) mastery of skills is incredibly important. The Ego, by contrast, can seek victory by developing the same skills as the Master, but in particular emphasizes winning via superior effort and drive. Some real world examples are Noah Lyles, current Olympic champion in the 100 meter sprint, who compensates for a comparatively weaker start with a blistering close, and Simone Biles, another Olympic champion who executes high precision maneuvers with astonishing repeatability. The former uses the amplified atmosphere created by the stadium to derive motivation, while the later re-cultivated a joy for the sport before returning to the top. Hopefully we have illustrated here how two athletes can be equally successful but derive motivation from different sources (intrinsic or extrinsic).
One final note about drawing motivation from across the Ego/Mastery spectrum. The added advantage to having a range of motivators is that even if things don’t work out on the results page, we might still be satisfying one or more of our process goals. For example, say I have an event coming up and I want to perform well at it. One of my goals could be to win. If I win, I will leave the day satisfied, if I don’t, and that was my only motivation for racing, I will have nothing else to take away from the day but disappointment. What if, in addition to winning the race, I was also motivated to try and maintain a high degree of technical efficiency throughout the effort, and wanted to make time on the field by attacking the tight turns throughout the course. There is a much greater chance of me successfully completing one of those three goals and having something positive to take from the race. It could even be true that I might win because I was focusing on technical efficiency and cornering.
This is where we start to move away from motivation and into building proper goals and developing mental strategies, which will have to wait for Brain Games Part 2.