MASTERING THE INNER GAME

This month I have taken the time to take stock of the areas of my life that I would like to see some improvement. I am very happy with most areas of my life save for:

?My golf game.

?Despite having had some good lessons, I’ve struggled with my form this season. My approach is always to go to first principles, and the always obvious place to enquire is the inner game that I am playing.

Indeed, when people ask me what I do for a living, I often come up with something along the lines of:

I help people win the inner game of life so that they can enjoy playing the outer game of life with more ease, flow and less stress.

And so, delving into my library, I plucked out a classic text, The Inner Game of Golf by W. Timothy Gallwey. Published in 1981, the book is part of a series of books on the inner game with other titles including The Inner Game of Business, Tennis and Music. The author’s approach has actually had a huge influence on modern business coaching with another important book, Coaching for Performance by Sir John Whitmore, citing the central formula posited in the Inner Game:

Performance = ?Potential minus Interference

?For me, this formula is huge and offers a blueprint for anyone wanting to improve their performance in any area of life: it is psychological interference that sabotages most of our efforts. For me, it perfectly captures what people mean when they say, ‘I just need to get out of my own way (but I don’t know how)…’

And this begs the question: Who’s the one getting the way of who?

Well, Gallwey’s theory uses two metaphors for the human mind. These he derived from noticing that when playing tennis (the original text in the series), he asked himself:

Whom am I talking to, whom is doing the talking?

?He was surprised to discover there were at least two identities within him- one that was playing the game (e.g. tennis or golf) and one that was telling him how. These two parts he called Self 1 and Self 2.

Self 1??? The one that thinks he know how to play

Self 2??? The one that hits the ball

To quote:

“In fact, Self 1 not only gave Self 2 instructions, but criticized him for past errors, warned him of probably future ones, and harangued him whenever he made a mistake. It was easy to see that the primary feeling in the relationship between these two selves was mistrust. Self 1 didn’t trust Self 2 to hit the ball, and precisely to the extent that he lacked trust, he would try to force Self 2 to conform to his verbal instructions.”

Can you see the parallels for any domains of your life where you lack trust in your natural abilities and find yourself beating yourself up for getting things wrong?

That for me, is exactly how we get in our own way.

?And what happens when we are more trusting? As Gallwey continues:

“I noticed that when I had more confidence in my ability to hit a shot, there was a corresponding decrease in instructions from Self 1, and that Self 2 would perform amazingly well without him. When I was on a streak, there was no talk in my head at all.”

This final sentence is telling: think of a time when you have been performing well in any area of your life, and I will bet that there was an absence of self-talk. This is one of the primary characteristics of Flow, the term first coined by the pioneering psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to capture that peak performance state where we are fully absorbed in a task, fully present and engaged. This is where the natural expression of Self 2 shows up.

And so, what to do with this information?

First, I suggest sitting with the implications of the inner game formula. From what I have observed in my own life and the people I work with, until we acknowledge the existence of the sabotaging and interfering nature of Self 1, it will control us.

In the example of my own life, in the last few weeks, I have unearthed the blind spot in my own golf game where there was way too much tension in my golf game, with Self 1 preoccupied with a myriad of how-to thoughts during the swing itself. Through deploying a few simple concentration techniques from the Inner Game, I have found myself swinging with far more ease as I trust the part of me that already knows how (Self 2) to do the work. Indeed, the results have astounded me (any golfers out there, I am happy to share these techniques with you).

My second recommendation is to think of any area where you would like to improve your performance, whether that is a sport, hobby or something in your professional life. Then take a piece of paper or create a Word doc where you complete two columns:

Column A?????????? List all the sabotaging and interfering thoughts that you notice preoccupy your mind either when thinking about the task, when about to start, or during the activity itself. Also include the feelings and emotions that you notice.

?Column B?????????? Think of a time when you are performing at your best, either in the area you want improvement in or another area where are accessing a more natural and flowing state of being. Allow yourself to go on a journey in your mind where you see yourself in the picture. Notice what you notice. How you are moving, how you are expressing yourself. Notice where your attention is, and how absorbed or engaged you are. Also, notice how you are feeling inside of yourself. Another approach to accessing your peak performance state is to use your imagination to explore how you would like to see yourself and the associated feelings with being in this optimal state.

I frequently use this as a tool for helping my clients access peak performance states, whether that is in sports, hobbies or professional performance contexts such as public speaking or interviews or in creative pursuits such as art and writing.

If you think back to your early childhood, I suggest there were so many times when your natural expression was coming through. Perhaps you notice this way of being in any small children in your life. We are all born with the potential to access flow states. We all have the capacity to absorb ourselves in what we are doing; it’s just that pesky interfering Self 1 that gets in the way.

This also has implications for how we learn or develop any skill: this is why small children pick so many things up so easily- there is significantly less psychological interference and an absence of sabotaging thoughts. They are simply playing as a way of learning, their innate curiosity being expressed as experimentation.

?We are all unique in how Self 1 shows up, and the reality is that we have so many sub-personalities that sabotage our endeavours. Unearthing and developing eyes for how these show up is how we can master the Inner Game. As we place more trust in our natural abilities. In turn, this helps us play the Outer Game with more freedom, ease and, dare I say it, enjoyment.

And for me, for the rest of Summer into early Autumn, I’ll be placing my attention into accessing that part of me that already knows how to strike the golf ball sweetly and effortlessly.

It’s all a game, and when we put our energy into the Inner Game, the Outer Game becomes so much easier.

Thank you for reading.

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Hi, I’m Laurence, an ICF-accredited coach based in Chorlton, Manchester. I help leaders and entrepreneurs improve their performance in any area of their lives that matters to them. For the rest of August, I am offering a one-off in-person 2-hour life strategy session for ￡99, where together we will build the foundations for creating meaningful change. I’ll send you a short questionnaire ahead of the session, and you’ll leave with a practical action plan.

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