Creating Fear for Inspiration
Poets, philosophers, and writers are fascinated by creation. They see value in questioning how much of existence is made up of destruction, destruction that must be accepted as a precursor to growth. "To write is to destroy the world," poet Roden Noel once wrote. In the words of novelist Pat Barker, "Without death's prelude we wouldn't know life." We would not survive without change.
But what if you were able to create fear that was just as effective as its natural counterpart? You could have an infinite and permanent source of inspiration - fearlessness - without ever having to face your own dismemberment and decay.
Who wouldn't want that?
In "Head Games," an article for the New York Times about athletes who suffer concussions, neurologist Robert Cantu writes: "Although no study has proved a cause and effect, there is a profound association between head injury and depression." [1] Speaking from personal experience, I can say that this is true. During times when I was depressed, be it from sadness or otherwise, the days became unusually painful because I did not have the inspiration to escape my own mind and enter a more exciting one. Without inspiration to look forward to - whether it was a vacation or deadline - each day demanded its own amount of willpower just to make it through.
So how can you create an endless supply of inspiration for yourself and your teammates? The answer is to create a game in which you must constantly battle against your own fears. That's right, the next time you lose a battle or a final is closer than it should be, look beyond the problem and see what fear has caused it. Perhaps you are too slow to move. Maybe your peers believe that you are weak. Or maybe hypothermia has set in and your body demands more energy than your mind can provide. No matter where fear has pushed you - on the court, in the gym, or out of the pool - identify it and then turn it into an advantage by creating something beautiful out of his or her destructive instinct.
I don't mean to divide the world into good guys (who make things beautiful out of the destructive elements in nature) and bad guys (who destroy their surroundings). I believe that if you practice a healthy respect for fear, you will make your teammates more powerful because they know that fear is a useful tool. Without fear, there could be no suspense, no motivation to improve, no pressure to become better. Even if your team loses as much as it wins, it's still better than losing because you never put in the work required to be victorious. This is exactly what happened when I was at a club swim meet. We were easily leading the meet until we came down to our 200 freestyle relay team. I finished behind a girl who was three seconds ahead of me. I felt as though my world had come to an end because I had dreamed that I would win this race, but now I was relegated to embarrassing myself in front of my teammates. I didn't have the strength to fight back against fear, so my mind thought that it had won and it was relieved.
On top of your teammates' expectations and their will to win, you have the pressure of coaches and other people watching you swim. This is another way in which fear can become useful - when someone is watching you and expecting you to succeed, he or she will push you to do your absolute best even when fatigue can be a major factor in slow times. When I was in high school, I used to race my brother at times and he would swim faster than me. I hated his guts because he was so much better than I was, but I knew that doing well for him was the only way that he could get a college scholarship. In order to win for him, however, it is important to realize when you're tired and to slow down accordingly. The spectators would hate me if they thought that someone who started off so strong wasn't equally tired as they were.
So try creating havoc out of fear in order to make your fellow swimmers stronger and more encouraging too. Don't mess with your teammates' heads to the point of creating more fear, though. I like to create negative energy for myself so that I can feel how my mind need to escape and crack through my shield of mental strength. If a teammate pushes me too hard and I lose control, it's probably not the end of the world. A switch just went off and it's now time for me to become strong again so that I can become a bigger threat than before - even if it means creating chaos for my teammates.
Most importantly, you shouldn't allow your subconscious mind or conscious self to be controlled by fear because it will make you weak. The idea is to become stronger, not weaker. If you can control your mind and make it do what you want it to do, then you are a powerful swimmer. And by becoming stronger, you can show your opponents that fear is useless against you and that they might have to work a little harder from now on in order to beat you.
I hope this information has been helpful to my fellow swimmers and their coaches. I want to take this opportunity to say that I am sorry if any of you have suffered a concussion because of my writing. I will always make an effort to try and help you in any way that I can. As for fear, fearlessness is what we all strive for.
A stubborn and morbid curiosity might find itself at the bottom of a swimming pool, but the real genius is never found there. - Flann O'Brien
Sources: 1) Cantu RL et al. "Chronic traumatic encephalopathy in athletes with a history of mild head trauma." New England Journal of Medicine 2012; 366(2):120-9. 2) Robert Cantu & Christopher Dornstauder, MD. "Neuropsychological effects of sports-related concussions in athletes." Journal of american medicine, Association of American Physicians 1143:4 (2002):450-4 5) "The brain on a diving board." New York Times
Send your questions or comments to:
michael.kowalski@my.harvard.edu
Home | FAQs | Articles | Resources | Newsletters | About Us © Copyright 2003 by Michael Kowalski, PhD. This article may be freely reproduced provided that both the author and publisher are acknowledged as the original copyright holders, and interest is expressed in the use of this article in non-commercial educational settings. All other rights reserved. [/two_third]
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Michael Kowalski, PhD is a professor of health sciences at Harvard University. He studies the brain/body connection, especially as it relates to exercise, sports performance and traumatic brain injury. Dr. Kowalski is author of the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change (Tarcher).
Conclusion: How to Think Like a Winner
The question of how to think like a winner is an important one - because the more you know about how winners think and act, the more like winners you'll be. And knowing how to think like a winner will not only create a competitive advantage and improve performance, but it may also protect against injury. So, if you want to win at anything - whether it's school, sports or work - or if you're simply interested in bettering yourself as an athlete or person, read on!
Think Like A Winner
The most important thing to remember about winning is that there are no shortcuts.
There are many different ways to win.