Don't Panic!! Separating fact from feeling when thing start to go wrong

It looked like the game was going the All Blacks’ way.

They had emerged from the bruising first half of the 2011 Rugby World Cup final ahead 5 points to 0. Then 4 minutes into the second half Stephen Donald kicked a fairy tale penalty to put us 8 points in the lead.

Two minutes later, the French lost the ball forward and Israel Dagg scooped it up, opened the taps, and stormed 20 metres to the halfway line. It looked like a good set-up for another try.

But then everything changed.

Fran?ois Trinh-Duc intercepted a loose kick by Piri Weepu, setting in motion the chain of events that resulted in Thierry Dusautoir's try in the 47th minute. Trinh-Duc’s conversion took the scoreline to a nailbiting 8 to 7.

In the space of two minutes, the All Blacks winning margin had to be cut to the bone, their momentum was dead, and the possibility of defeat was staring them in the face. Memories of previous crushing RWC defeats welled up in their minds and a mountain of renewed pressure came crashing down on their shoulders.

To a greater or lesser degree, we have all experienced this kind of moment, when you suffer a sudden reversal of fortune, when your expectations are shattered, when you feel the ground crumbling beneath your feet. The sudden in-rush of pressure can lock you up with fear, shut down your ability to make good decisions, and trigger poor behaviours that can actually make matters worse.

Your situation can turn into ‘quicksand’, as described so eloquently by Keanu Reeves in this scene from the sports movie ‘The Replacements’:

“You're playing and you think everything is going fine. Then one thing goes wrong. And then another. And another. You try to fight back, but the harder you fight, the deeper you sink. Until you can't move... you can't breathe... because you're in over your head. Like quicksand.”

In professional poker they call it ‘tilt’. The term comes from ‘tilting’ a pinball machine when you see the ball going in the wrong direction but instead of correcting the ball’s path, you cause the machine to lock up, freezing the flippers and ensuring defeat.

In poker, it refers to the state of mental and emotional frustration experienced by a player when he or she loses a big hand, especially to a bluff. This mental confusion leads to over-aggressive play that results in even bigger losses – and potentially even worse tilt.

It sounds like a vicious cycle. But that doesn’t mean you have to buy into it.

There is a concept sports psychologists talk about called ‘blue heads’ versus ‘red heads’. Being red means being in a negative cycle of self-judgement, rigidity, aggression, shut down, and panic. Being blue, on the other hand, is a state of mind where you remain calm, flexible, on task, and in command. The goal is to spend a lot more time keeping your head blue regardless of what is happening.

In every moment we can choose how we react to what’s happening. If we’re late for something, we don’t have to get stressed about it, start shouting at the kids, or cause a road-rage incident. If we were raised in a violent home, we don’t have to grow up to be a violent person. If something goes wrong at work, the red mist does not have to descend.

We can choose to remain calm, we can choose to change how we feel about the situation, and we can choose what we’re going to to do about it.

Viktor Frankl, world-famous author of ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’, puts it like this:

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Great leaders and effective people learn how to live in that space, how to widen the gap between a negative event and their reaction to it, how to break the vicious cycle before they get sucked into it.

In his blog, Stephen Covey, author of ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ says he is often asked which of the 7 habits is the most important. Pressed for an answer, he picks Habit 1: “Be Proactive”.

“Habit 1 is, undoubtedly, the foundation for leadership at home or at work because it begins with the mindset ‘I am responsible for me, and I can choose’. All the other habits are dependent upon being proactive and choosing to master and practice principle-centered living,” he says.

“The key to being proactive is remembering that between stimulus and response there is a space. That space represents our choice— how we will choose to respond to any given situation, person, thought or event.

“Imagine a pause button between stimulus and response—a button you can engage to pause and think about what is the principle-based response to your given situation. Listen to what your conscience tells you. Listen for what is wise and the principle-based thing to do, and then act."

Sidestepping the quicksand: 6 steps towards mastering your reactions when things go wrong

1. Observe your reactions. When things go wrong, what do you do? What’s working for you and what isn’t?
2. Understand where your reactions come from. Consider how you react in negative situations and pinpoint the causes of those reactions.
3. Picture the person you want to be. If you have a tendency towards certain negative reactions, develop a clear vision of yourself as someone who rises above them.
4. Imagine better ways to respond. Take your vision of your ideal self and think about how they would react.
5. Choose to be your best self. When the pressure comes down, widen the gap between stimulus and response, and choose to react positively.
6. Be gentle with yourself. Don’t get down on yourself if you fall short. Failure is your greatest teacher – without failure we would never learn to succeed.

Returning to the All Blacks story I began this post with, when the pressure was at its most intense in the final moments of the 2011 Rugby World Cup Final, captain Richie McCaw drew on the hard work that the team had done to prepare for exactly these sorts of situations. He remained calm, widened the gap, thought clearly, and took control.

Coaches Graham Henry and Wayne Smith actually passed a message to the captain that read: “Kick deep for position. Get the ball in behind them. Play the game in the French 22.”

McCaw ignored them.

According to Graham Henry: “Richie thought it was a better idea to keep the ball and grind it out because he was worried that a kick would spark a strong counterattack. We couldn’t understand why our instructions were being ignored but Richie was right.”

After the game, McCaw said, “the big thing was not panicking”.

"The senior players, we talked about being in those situations over the years. Last thing we wanted to do when momentum went against us was panic.”

Don’t panic! Keep calm, widen the gap, and be your best self no matter what happens.