How Does This Stop You?
Starting with the Stoics and heading off in a different direction
This summer, I was reading one of Ryan Holiday’s newsletters (this one to be exact) and one of the lessons he wrote about made me stop and really think. Lesson #26 starts like this.
“How does this stop you? This was the question the Stoics asked. How does this situation stop you from acting…”
To stay with ancient sayings for a moment, the first answer that many assertive, competitive coaches might give to this question is what Hannibal is reported to have said after encountering resistance to his proposed plan to cross the Alps.
Aut inveniam viam aut faciam
(I shall either find a way or make one)
This is a fancy way of answering Holiday’s question with an emphatic, “It won’t stop me! It can’t stop me!” But, remember that Holiday wrote that this was a lesson he learned and I don’t think the lesson was to see how hard-headed one can be. At least, that’s not the lesson I’m learning from his question.
To me, the lesson is one of reflection rather than one of determination. Notice that the Stoics were not asking themselves, “should this stop you?”, they asked, “how does this stop you?” They were asking themselves to notice what had actually stopped them from acting. What does this lesson in reflection (and splitting grammatical hairs) have to do with your modern coaching?
What usually stops you from acting is you, some thought or emotion that arises within you causes you to opt for inaction instead of action. More importantly, thoughts and emotions are often what stop the athletes you’re working with. What the Stoics were teaching is that there’s a crucial step that comes before you can tell them to just go. The step isn’t as simple as telling them to not be afraid or to not hesitate. Instead of telling them what to do, you (and they) need to first acknowledge that something is stopping them. Why does this step matter? It helps break them out of reactive thought cycles. (I introduced the cognitive triangle in a different post. I highly recommend understanding the cognitive triangle to get more out of what’s below.)
The goal isn’t to get in a long discussion about what stopped them and why, the goal is to establish that they can have thoughts and feelings while doing other things. Think of it as a sports version of improv comedy’s “yes and” practice. One of my favorite ways to “yes and” players is when they comment about how challenging a drill or game is to win and I reply with a smile, “yes it is. And we’re going to do it anyways.” The statement is to acknowledge what they’re feeling, the “we” is to let them know that I’m in it with them, and the smile is to give them a cue that I believe we can do it.
The author Emma Donoghue summed it up beautifully in the quotation above from her novel, Room. I find that athletes, particularly younger ones, have yet to discover that there is room within them for multiple, often conflicting, thoughts and emotions. They have yet to learn that they can be scared while doing brave things. They can be uncertain while doing the best they can. Emotions can be difficult for athletes to navigate, especially when they are happening in the middle of practice or competition. Helping them recognize that those emotions exist but that they don’t have to stop them from doing things is a crucial part of supporting their growth.
Why do I think it’s so important to acknowledge what’s stopping them instead of just skipping to the part where they do stuff? Because thoughts and emotions don’t go away when you skip over them. In a recent episode of the podcast Slappin’ Glass, Nick Winkelman said, “psychology trumps motor learning”. Winkelman goes on to explain that thoughts and emotions affect your ability to pay attention, to process, and to perform. Flow isn’t the absence of thoughts and emotions, it is a state in which thoughts and emotions are aligned with the task at hand. That’s part of why I care about the cognitive triangle and how it impacts your coaching. You should acknowledge a player’s thoughts and feelings because it helps them understand how those thoughts and feelings interact with their actions. You should acknowledge those thoughts and feelings because they’re always there and affecting performance, whether you address them or not.
If you don’t acknowledge them, they don’t go away. They give rise to more thoughts and emotions, usually ones questioning the legitimacy of the original thoughts and emotions. Things get even more cloudy in an athlete’s head when you ignore what’s going on in there. If you try to focus on just actions, athletes are left to wonder what their thoughts mean and if they should even be having any thoughts at all. This is an unhealthy way of approaching sport and performance because it ramps up the amounts of thinking and feeling beyond optimal states of arousal that are part of flow states. Addressing existing thoughts and feelings invites choices about how athletes want to move ahead. Acknowledging thoughts and feelings empowers athletes to make choices and to take action in healthier, more effective ways than ignoring or avoiding them does.
When the Stoics asked, “how does this stop you?”, their goal was to invite reflection. That reflection creates the space necessary to discover how to get going again. As a coach, you have the ability to invite reflection in others so that what stops them can eventually become what makes them better.