In sport, we throw the ball to get it quickly from point A to point B. My throwing range isn’t very far. For me the best way to get the ball to where I need it to go is to throw it to someone who has a stronger arm.
How far we throw or hit the ball matters, but accuracy matters more. In basketball accuracy determines who gets the goal. In cricket it determines whether you can get the batter out. In tennis accuracy determines whether or not the ball stays in. In golf it determines the score for each hole.
When we go off track, we don’t necessarily notice it straight away. Now, I don’t know whether this was the first guy to come up with this idea, but Ian Johnston talks about learning the rule of 2 degrees.
In sport it is easy to see the rule of 2 degrees in operation. In golf, if you hit the ball only 2 degrees off from where you’re aiming it doesn’t look like much at first, but by the time the ball lands, that two degrees makes a huge difference. It’s the difference between hitting a hole in one and your golf ball landing in the rough – not even on the green. Accuracy matters.
Assuming that we want to notice where we are before we end up in the middle of nowhere, let’s talk about getting back on track. We all veer off at times. Maybe it’s because we don’t really know where we’re aiming, because something outside of our control happens or we neglect to call something out.
Each sport has its own aim, its own set of rules and its own scoring system. In football you want the team to score as many points as possible; in golf you want as few shots as you can. It helps to have a basic understanding of the game you’re in. Find a coach or a team that can give you pointers and encouragement. Go and find someone who plays better than you and play alongside them. In life we call this finding a mentor. Look for someone who you aspire to be like and find out from them their aim, the rules that they play by and how they know when they’re making a good choice.
If you figure out where you’re going, you have a much better chance of getting there.
I woke up in January 2016 with the idea for a novel. I knew that I would write it, but circumstances at the time didn’t look favourable, so although I researched it, I didn’t actually start writing. Fast forward over 7 years and I was talking about my idea again with my husband and he asked me – if you really want to write it, why don’t you do a course and get it done? That’s when I came across The Company. I joined their Arche Year course. Suddenly I had people to walk alongside and learn from.
So here I am in this game of writing. I didn’t actually know where I was going to land, but I knew the direction and so I began. Now I’m not only writing my novel. I’m writing here for you. This blog alone is more than I imagined in 2016.
Once we’re playing the game of life, something outside of our control can veer us off track. It takes some knowledge and understanding to adapt when life throws you a curveball. On a windy day we have to adjust where we aim. If the ground is wet, we play differently. Sometimes it’s major and we’re carried off the field on a stretcher to recover before we can rejoin the game. If that is you, allow yourself time to heal fully so that you can start playing again.
In sport we practice so that in the middle of the game we have the skills to adapt to the conditions. Get good at the basic drills. Practice some basics in relationships. Listen. Notice what’s going on. Ask questions. Practice sitting in an emotion without reacting. Say I’m sorry. Set some boundaries to prevent injury. As you strengthen your unused muscles and refine your skills, you will be more adaptable and enjoy the aspects of the game of life that were more challenging before.
I remember the day that a colleague misheard my son’s middle name. I thought to myself, it’s only his middle name, what does that matter? She’ll forget it soon. We never call him by that anyway.
I let it pass without correcting her. Well, that one tiny detail stuck with her and she always called him by his full name. Oh dear. Now I regretted not correcting her but it was getting more and more tricky to broach the subject every time she said it. I was embarrassed.
Months later he came into the office and she greeted him by his full name. He turned to her and said “That’s not my name, it’s …” Now not only did I feel awkward for not correcting her all those months ago, but she was embarrassed – she knew how much she had repeated the wrong name over and over. It was so slight at first, I let it slide. But, that slight inaccuracy kept getting bigger the longer I left it.
I was at leadership training once and they taught us that dealing with the uncomfortable is like addressing someone who has stepped in doggy doo and they walk into the foyer of a large building. They don’t even know that they are marking the floor and stinking out the room for everyone else but the further that we allow them to get from the mat at the door, the more cleanup there will be. It’s going to be uncomfortable and awkward whenever we tell them, but the sooner that we can let them know, the sooner that it will be dealt with.
If we can correct mistakes early then they’re much easier to recover from. When we make assumptions about a person but we’ve made a mistake, it can be humbling to have to adjust our thinking. But it is worse to not realise that we’re wrong.
When we make a mistake in the game of life and we’re heading off in some other direction, the earlier that we can correct our trajectory, the better. The longer we leave it the bigger the adjustment is going to be. The longer we are off course, the further we have to go to get back.
We all veer off at times. Maybe it’s because we don’t really know where we’re aiming, because something happens outside of our control or we neglect to call something out.
It might only be a small variance of 2 degrees, but the direction that we’re heading will impact our game. We might not notice the drift straight away, but when we do, let’s act so that the impact stays small. We all face the uncomfortable. It’s better to face it sooner rather than later.
As we grow in skill, we’ll sharpen our accuracy. That’s not to say that we won’t make mistakes, but hopefully they won’t throw us far off course because we deal with them straight away.
In sport, we throw the ball to get it from point A to point B. In the game of life, we’re also heading somewhere. Let’s develop our skills so we land as close as possible to where we’re aiming.
