Surrender Leads to Action

Recently, a friend of mine had a project that she needed to accomplish for work that she just couldn't seem to begin. There were many reasons why: she didn't know where to start; she wasn't sure how much information she should include; and (I can especially relate to this one) she was afraid of failing. It reminded me of a mantra I used when I was playing soccer in high school.

I played the position of stopper, whose job is to stop opposing players, particularly the strikers, from scoring. I would often find myself full of fear and anxiety at the beginning of a game, knowing that if I allowed even one goal, it could mean the end of the game. However, once the other team scored a goal (whether it was my fault or not), I found that I became instantly fearless, and suddenly capable of playing my heart out. Consequently, we often won, even (or especially) when we didn't score the first goal.

Noting this phenomenon, I began imagining at the start of each game that the other team had already scored a goal. If I could imagine that we were already losing, then I had nothing to fear-- nothing left to lose as they say-- and so I could concentrate on the task at hand. This turned into a simple mantra, "Surrender leads to action." If I surrendered the win in my mind before we even began playing, then my anxiety lessened and I was able to play with more confidence, and have more fun in the meantime.

When I went on to college, I experienced this same anxiety whenever I had a big project looming over my head. I had a difficult time even beginning to write a paper, and I would often sit, staring at a blank piece of paper, not knowing where to start, or what to include. Fearful that I would get a bad grade on a paper that I hadn't yet begun. One day, I took out a piece of scrap paper, wrote down my little soccer mantra, and taped it to my Brother word processor. And then I began to write. As a result, I discovered, again, that once I accepted defeat (whether it was the thought of an imperfect paper or a bad grade), I was instantly freed from the fear and anxiety that was paralyzing me, and suddenly capable of writing the (usually quite satisfactory) assignment.

I realize that this is all in stark contrast to the power of positive thinking that I mentioned previously, but, for whatever reason, this technique worked for me years ago, and it helped my friend begin her own project this past week.

There is so much pressure in our society to be perfect. But if we could all surrender ourselves to imperfection just a little bit, we might be surprised at just how much we could actually accomplish (and at how perfectly it could all turn out after all).