Tom Brady is constantly practicing the fundamentals, doing every day what we think should come easy to him. Practicing catching with the other players and working on player positioning. Even Michael Jordan, the best of the best at basketball spent the first parts of practice doing bounce passes with the other players. Those who practice greatness know that there is still so much to know, there is no ceiling on their skill level and it begins with relearning the basics every practice and every game.
For myself and for many others, we fall into the trap that the basics of a game, a hobby, or a job should be easy. We think that when it is easy there is not that much more to understand and should be done with perfection each time. This leads to a sinister way of thinking that our skills are finite, a mindset that says “I should know how to do this already.”
When this phrase pops up in my head it tells me that I need to be perfect and do with no effort simple things I have done a thousand times. In my case as a soccer goalie, this phrase would pop up when I was having difficulty positioning myself in the goalie box to make a stop, or when a corner kick happened and I needed to decide if I should go out for the ball or stay on my line.
The phrase is cunning because it boosts your ego up. It makes you rationalize that because you don’t need to look at the small things that you must be really good. But what happens when you mess up at the things you see as simple? You begin to question if you are good or not.
“If I am not good at the little things then I must be dumb, worthless, incapable of growth, “I should know how to do this already, why did I mess up then.”
Even the greats mess up. MJ and Tom Brady have thrown bad passes but their mentality does not tell them, “Hey you messed up on the easiest thing you must suck then.” No, their mentality tells them I just messed up, good there is something new I can learn from this mistake.
Your mentality should not keep you on the floor, a strong mentality should bounce you back up to play with a looseness and freeness so you are not scared to mess up again. Because there is no cap on your growth, if I mess up it means there are new things I can learn to overcome.
We fall into these hindering mindsets because we think our ego is trying to help, but our vulnerabilities come to light when we read and examine the lives and mentalities of other great humans. The article I was reading was about how goalies are evolving to be at a professional level. In the article it went in to explore that even the goalies at the very top are always learning new ways to position themselves when an opponent is attacking with the ball, practicing their footwork to go out and retrieve the ball, and even just passing the ball with other players. Where one player sees things as simple and easy, another player sees them as fundamentals to keep practicing and improving.
Someone with a great mentality does not lock himself up with thinking that things should be easy and perfect. But he makes it a habit at seeing everything with the possibility of learning new things. It’s easy to see the simple things such as a job or a competitive sport as not meaning that much, but it’s only when we treat the small things with curiosity and an eagerness to keep learning that we can tackle the big things and be mentally ready for the pressure they will bring on us.