Assuming Total Personal Responsibility

I've noticed a trend over the years as I've watched various sports events and the subsequent spin that participants and their coaches have put on their performances. The tendency, as I have observed, is to take a rather myopic view of what happened, with all of the lessons learned from the event being based on one's own performance, without regard to whether the other side was having an especially good or bad game.

When I was much younger and had athletic aspirations, I would sometimes play beyond my abilities and have spectacular games. I would run a football kickoff back for a touchdown, score three quick goals in soccer, or play devastating defense in basketball, repeatedly stealing the ball from my opponent. But although these performances represented personal peaks in my achievement, when they happened my opponents tended instead to berate themselves and each other for "letting me win".

I see this all the time on TV. Florida's Tim Tebow throws a couple of interceptions against Mississippi State and it's all about "what's wrong with Tebow", not "wow, Mississippi State's pass defense is playing extraordinarily well". Of course, coaches and players alike will make the perfunctory "good sportsmanship" remarks praising the other team's performance. But their overwhelming emphasis is on their own performances, almost as if the other side were a constant, unchanging element that had little or no impact on the game's outcome.

As dishonest as just looking at one's own performance and ignoring or diminishing the opposition's may be, it is actually a healthy attitude, in a manner of speaking. As an athlete or coach, I can't control how my opposition will play on any given day. The only thing I can do is to optimize my own (or my players') performance by insisting on taking personal responsibility for every outcome. Only then can problems be identified and strategies enacted for overcoming them in the future. The idea of assuming total personal responsibility in an interactive contest may be a lie, but it is a useful lie, nevertheless. And this principle can carry over beyond sports, into general living.

The principle of "it's not what happens to you, but rather what you do about what happens to you that matters" is a corollary to the above "lie", and has its own limitations as well. We should each of us focus on our own behavior while still being cognizant of what others do. There are some things in life we have little or no control over. Still, we need to act AS IF we had control, nevertheless. Because, sometimes, we really do!