MIND MOVES:When footballing metaphors prove to be right on the ball for successful living
I HAPPENED recently to tune in to a radio interview with Pat Spillane, the legendary Kerry footballer and current GAA football pundit. It was a wide-ranging interview, flowing easily across many aspects of the footballer's life.
The conversation came around to Kerry's four-in-a-row All-Ireland victories in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and Kerry's then coach Mick O'Dwyer, another GAA household name. Spillane played with Kerry under O'Dwyer for 12 years. That's a lot of games, given that Kerry are always in the shake-up for All-Ireland honours late into the summer. Spillane said that, during that 12-year period, there were two things O'Dwyer did not discuss with his players: the opposition, and the opposition's best players.
Those Kerry teams were blessed with an abundance of talented and dedicated footballers. However, talent without hard work, persistence and mental toughness never won anything.
Within these comments about O'Dwyer's approach to coaching lies a nugget of wisdom which served those Kerry teams well. It is also a fundamental truth about successful living in any walk of life and in any situation we encounter.
Life is not about what the other guy does; it is about what we ourselves do. The power lies within ourselves.
In the last 10 minutes of the 2008 Heineken European Rugby Cup Final in Cardiff this May, the Munster team exemplified this fundamental truth about sport and life. In an impressive display of controlled power, determination and discipline, the Munster players had total possession of the ball during this vital final 10-minute period. They knew that the winning of this match was in their own hands. Successful sportspeople know that you do not win matches by giving the ball away.
To obtain an accurate picture of the challenge that faces them, nowadays many sports coaches do study the opposition in the lead-up to important matches. Armed with this information about the other guy, the best teams then focus their minds on themselves, and on how they are going to approach the game, their way.
In post-match commentaries - win or lose - the best coaches and players reflect on their own performance, on whether they gave their best, and played to their full potential.
Victor Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist. During the second World War, Frankl spent three years in concentration camps. Naturally, it took him some time to settle into such a hostile environment. His captors had the power to totally restrict his physical freedom. They had a great deal of control over Frankl's body. They could insist that he carry out their orders.
In time, Frankl found a strategy for survival. He realised that there was one thing which the German soldiers could not take away from him: his mind.
Frankls mind, his thoughts, and his will, remained within his own control. Building on this, Frankyl's sense of inner power gradually increased. In his book, Man's Search for Meaning, he credits this strategy as the single most important reason for his survival. Even in an environment as dreadful as a concentration camp, survival isn't just about the other guy.
Of course, as the victims of the Chinese earthquake and the cyclone in Burma know only too well, external events and situations can profoundly affect our survival, our lives, how we feel, how we are.
Denial of the impact of events only magnifies their impact on us. Major loss - bereavement, redundancy, illness for example - can impact on us greatly, creating uninvited and unwanted change in our lives, interrupting and fragmenting our hopes, dreams and plans.
Sometimes we get pre-occupied with what the other guy is doing. We feel hard done by the actions of others - family, friends, colleagues, the boss, the world, God. And we may well have a point. But there comes a time when the complaining needs to stop, when we consider our options, and take action on our own behalf to deal with the situation.
Whatever situations we encounter, we have an input. There is always something we can do - hence the saying that life is 10 per cent what happens to us, and 90 per cent how we respond. Life can be overwhelming sometimes, taking us totally by surprise, knocking us off our feet. How we cope depends to a considerable degree on what we do about it - on whether we get back on our feet, or throw in the towel and stay out for the count long term.
Like Victor Frankl, it may take us some time to get back on our feet, to adjust to the situation and take appropriate action towards coping with the new situation.
Victor Frankl remained courteous, civil and respectful to his captors. He did not need to convince the soldiers that he was strong, or that he would stand up to them.
It was himself he needed to work on.
Life is not about the other guy; it is primarily about us, how we each choose to deal with the situations we encounter as we negotiate the long, winding road that is life.
• Terry Lynch is a Limerick-based GP and author of Beyond Prozac