To Master, 1st Be Mindful

One of the greatest mental skills we can acquire is to stay mindful even when our mind is full.

Mindfulness: Awareness & Consciousness of problems as well as possibilities…

Sport is a continuous series of problem-solving events. Psychology is the study of mind and behavior. My devotion to learning and teaching Sport Psychology derives from problems I had to solve with my mind through my behavior as a teenager.

Like any high school student-athlete, I had classes that challenged me, romantic relationships that ended, and games that I lost. I disagreed with others from time to time. I made stupid mistakes. I thought certain things were important and life-changing when, in reality, they were minor disruptions. Is what happened a tragedy or an inconvenience? When I was a teen, many events seemed like tragedies.

My senior year of high school, tragedy transpired. I fractured my spine and my mom was diagnosed with cancer within the same year, months apart from one another. From “Player of the Year” to a player-coach… from rarely experiencing loss to overwhelming chaos… I questioned who I was, if not an excelling and physically-competing athlete. I questioned what I believed, if God was really looking out for me. I questioned how I might stay motivated, if both my body and mind were wavering while the woman I loved most lost weight, hair, and agency.

“It’s not about what we are going through so much as it’s about what we are going to.”

A fuzzy future has little pull power.

The price is easy when the promise is clear.

Three outlets made me feel better: praying, writing, and visualizing (little did I know at the time, these activities funnel into the field of psychology). I prayed for strength. I wrote for relief. I visualized for peace. These outlets led to inroads in my mental health, everyday energy, and resiliency. Despite the anxiety-provoking complexity around me, these routines calmed the waters within me.

“Clarity creates confidence.”

It was clear to me: I had a higher power on my side, a pen I was in control of, and an inner theater to imagine future me.

“You don’t learn anything when you’re happy,” a mentor exclaimed to me at the time.
Problems are goals.
Problems are opportunities.
Problems are summits to climb, targets to hit, and evolved versions of us to discover.

There are four stages to learning anything:
Ignorance — we don’t know what we don’t know
Awareness — we know what we don’t know
Evolution — we know and have to think to do it
Mastery — we just do it!

Breaking my back and being there as my mom battled cancer was one of the best things that could have happened for me, in hindsight. Before it, I was ignorant to the fragility of life and the never-too-far-away nature of death. During it, I became aware of what’s truly essential, health and closest relationships. Through it, I realized my capacity to wonder, to withstand, and to win. Nowadays, because of it, I live with urgency.

14 years ago, I walked into my parent’s bedroom where my mom was resting. The out-patient nurse just left after delivering necessary medication via IV drip. I handed my mom a small sandwich with two scrambled eggs, without any seasoning nor sauce. Her taste buds had seemingly vanished due to the chemotherapy, but her heart was still very much alive. “Rafa is down two sets,” my mom exclaimed, referring to her favorite tennis player, Rafael Nadal, who was playing on the television screen. I lied down next to her. I put my hand on her forearm, as I did daily, and we watched the match in silence. Minutes bled into two hours. Rafa battled back. In a fifth set tie-breaker, he smashed an overhead and fell to his knees in celebration, filled with both exhaustion and exaltation. My mom and I locked eyes and smiled. She squeezed my hand. I squeezed hers.“We’re going to battle back, too, just like Rafa. ¡Vamos!”

I’m not a master, by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m far closer to butterfly than caterpillar, to flower than seed, to sage than obstinate because of that time period and the years that followed…

—

My pain became my purpose.

Over the last decade, I have worked with and in front of individuals, small leadership groups, and large audiences to share what I’ve learned and continue to study daily. I shed light on the brilliance of our minds. I point to their limitless power to influence our behaviors. I emphasize how adversity is an opportunity to grow our capacity.

Life, similar to sport, is a continuous series of problem-solving events. The problems never end; we become more capable of handling, navigating, and overcoming them.

Activity to consider: jot down a bucket list of goals to accomplish one-year, 10 years, and many years down the road. “What do you really want?” Add the adjectives and comments you would love said about you during your eulogy or written about you within your obituary. Then, before walking away from that list, answer how will you attain those goals? Which standards will increase the probability of achievement across your bucket list? & who can help? 

* Role models, standards, and an intentional action plan transform visualizations into actual victories. *

The mind defined in one word: possibility.

Therefore, mindset is a set of possibilities. Imagine the possibilities that become probable when we actively become aware of our problems/goals, evolve personally through tenacity, and master own our behaviors.

We master ourselves by engaging instead of avoiding, by becoming fascinated rather than frustrated, by viewing problems as challenges to meet as opposed to threats to defeat.

Who could we become if we visualized ourselves at our best? How might praying and writing reduce anxiety in our own lives? What if the best version of us exists behind the problems we currently resist? What if we let go of who we are to become who we can be? What if tragedies are teachers?

Ignorance is not bliss.

Awareness is.

Once aware, then we can dare.

— MG