Trying too hard

A nice piece in Intelligent Life (May-June) concludes that sometimes thinking is a bad idea. Ian Leslie suggests that our tendency to choke, or fail at critical times, is because we are trying too hard and lose our spontaneous performance as a result. I agree. The examples quoted are mainly sporting ones. Novak Djokovic in 2011 went through a period when he could not stop winning. And what was noticeable was that he seemed to play his best points under the highest pressure. Under severe pressure, most of us become stiff, cautious, and underperform. Look at almost any golf tournament. Birdies fly in for the first 63 holes, but the winner is the one who makes fewest errors over the last nine. I am no sportsman, but I suffer from this myself. In singing, it is weird that I sing the highest note of any piece consistently badly. I am not alone in this. It hardly matters if the note is really high or not. An F is no problem if the piece has G's and A's, but if the F is the summit, it starts to cause problems. The best way to avoid this is to somehow confuse my brain. Techniques for this include focusing on something other than singing, like walking around. If the top note passes without me actually registering it, I sing it OK. When I used to play bridge, I remember sometimes having the thought that I might win a particular tournament, usually about 80% of the way through if things were going well. This thought was always somehow almost fatal, and my performance declined instantly. The only way to win was never to let winning enter my head. Sports people recognise this phenomenon. One consequence is the rise of psychology in top sports. Professionals have their technical coaches, but if anything nowadays they value their psychological coaches more. These miracle workers are the ones that help their clients fail to notice that they are about to tackle their top F, so the moment passes just like all the other moments in the event with a regular, good, performance. One way to try to understand why this choking happens might come from a model I learned at work. The model is the origin of the famous rumsfeld speech about known unknowns, so ridiculed at the time. I learned it first in a sales context (trying to win clients) but its applications are wide. The model is a classic 4-box, with competence on one axis, and consciousness on the other. In any skill or challenge, we start in the unconsciously incompetent box. We are useless, but we don't really know it. Many of us think we can sing well, but it is not necessarily true. It is state of blissful ignorance, unless you have an exhibitionist streak or a poker habit. The theory goes that to develop, you have to first move into the consciously incompetent box. Only when you know you are flawed in something can you motivate yourself to change things. In sales, you have to make your client feel uncomfortable with their present supplier before you have a chance to convert them. Makes sense. From consciously incompetent, you are ready to learn. You get training, listen to others, work hard, practice. If you have talent and application, you slowly become consciously competent. You know that if you open your mouth wide (and many other things)on high notes, they will sound less forced. Slowly, you train yourself to do it. But this is not the end of the journey. Most skills are multi-dimensional, and the human mind can only focus on two or three of these dimensions at once. In a skill with say twenty facets, we have to master at least nineteen to the extent that usually they are performed without active thinking about it. This is unconscious competence. Nineteen factors are safe, you focus on the twentieth, and the result is good. Even better if twenty are safe. That way the result is so natural that performance can transcend regular boundaries, you can almost take yourself out of yourself and discover hidden facets 21, 22, and 23. Somehow, you can move from the technical to the inspired. Thinking about the choking experience and this model together leads me to my theory about why choking happens. As we approach the finish line, we want to make sure we get there. Somehow, we remember the factors from our training, and focus on some of them to make sure we don't go wrong. As soon as we do this, we move BACK to the conscious competence box, and become mere journeymen again. And we choke. I do it every time I sing a song. Even the very best sportsmen do it to a small extent every time they stand over a match point, a penalty kick or a winning putt. The winners are those who do it less. And Djokovic in 2011 seemed to be an example of defying human nature, and not doing it at all. Now let us extend the logic beyond technical skills like sports or arts. I think it might apply to almost everything that we do. How does a baby learn to walk? The same model applies. How do we prepare for exams? How do we drive cars? Handle a negotiation? The same model applies. Then there are human relationships. How do we become better bosses? Parents and children? Life partners? Lovers? Flirters? And what about our own psyche? How do we understand who we are, our wellness and feeling good inside ourselves? Ourselves and our Gods? Life and death? I had not previously given a lot of thought to the latter categories. But I suspect the model applies even more strongly simply because the necessary skills are so ill-defined. In each case, many (most?) of us blunder through life unconsciously incompetent. We might make it to consciously incompetent, and make some effort to become consciously competent. Even then, uncounscious competence is rare, and vanishes as soon as there is any pressure, when the skill really matters. So the lessons to us as individuals are clear. First, we should look about for the vast areas of our lives where we are unconsciously incompetent, and start on the road around the four boxes. This is all about humility. Then, once we have done our training - hard work, but mentally the easy bit - we must try to avoid choking. This is all about not thinking too hard. How many first dates have we ruined by trying too hard? How many family rows have only festered when we tried too hard to solve them? How many depressions are made worse by thinking too hard about them? Todays prayer. Oh God help us to be humble enough to see our many failings, diligent enough to address them, and serene enough to be at our best under pressure. Amen.