Now that England have finished their last World Cup match and Andy Murray is on his journey towards a second Wimbledon Grand slam is there anything we can learn from our sporting stars and apply these snippets of wisdom and insights to our own approach to leadership and achievement of our goals? ANSWER – Yes, plenty!
I listened with interest to Andy Murray’s pre-championship interview. He was discussing how it would feel to be back at Wimbledon and the focus it would take going back on to Centre Court on Monday for the first time since his historic win. His response was “…..well yes, inevitably they’ll be a few nerves, but as soon as I get on the court ……it’s all about ‘trying’ to win”. An interesting choice of words because after all ‘trying to win’ isn’t really good enough is it? It suggests there is an option about winning or not. Mentally shouldn’t we be not just be ‘trying’ to do things well. Shouldn’t we be ‘going’ to do things well, exceptional even. No doubting ourselves, no room for maybes.
Take the England team lining up against Uruguay and Suarez. Who wanted to win that match more? From all the pre-match commentary Suarez was clearly on a mission. He single-mindedly focused on beating England determined to score and to win the match. He didn’t think he’d try and win the match he knew he would. No doubting, no room for perhaps.
How often in our working lives do we use the phrases ‘I’ll try and resolve this’, or ‘I hope to hear from you soon’, or ‘maybe we could do that’……. Try, Hope, Maybe, Perhaps – they are so often used but do they actually inspire you, or the user, to believe success is a given? It has to be all about commitment, focus, intent. In using these phrases are we really mentally planning to succeed or fail?
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