Choose your own inner game to run, particularly in environments where you are not being stretched in what you are doing.
Many years ago I was being coached to improve my squash game and my coach encouraged me to take up offers to play a game with anyone at any level.
One day I was asked to play someone who thought they could potentially beat me, but my coach and I knew I could comfortably beat them. However, instead of simply playing full out and winning easily, my coach told me to only play shots to three of the four corners of the court, as well as to make sure my opponent couldn’t tell I was being selective in that way. In addition, he told me to deliberately lose the next point (again without showing it) if I was forced to play a shot to that “unusable” corner.
The coach watched as I played this match, winning reasonably comfortably, but when we debriefed afterwards I told them it was really hard for me as I was so focussed on doing what I had been instructed to do.
I learned a lot from this and many other similar matches where I could be seen by others as playing the game that was visible, but within that, I was running my own “inner game” so as to be stretched and learn in different ways.
As I then moved into coaching, in my first couple of years I would attend learning conferences and be highly focussed on learning the materials that were being taught by the senior coaches presenting to all of us in workshops. As time went by though, one day I spoke to my mentor and said “I am not sure what I will get from this next session, I already know these models and frameworks”. My mentor said “then take it to the next level of learning. Focus upon the presenter, how they show up, what their style is, how specifically they are presenting and workshopping so as to support learning for the audience”.
This was a huge lightbulb moment, and ever since then, I have run two “games” whenever I attend any presentation or workshop. I do focus on the content, but, as someone who presents, trains, facilitates, and coaches, I pay more attention to the presenter and what I can learn from the way they present.
Now, from those two stories, I encourage you to choose your own “inner game” to run, particularly in environments where you are not being stretched in what you are doing, in your role. Choose an “inner game” that gives you space to be stretched and to learn.
A final point. Sometimes that is learning from others, other times that is learning about yourself. How did you show up? how did you respond when unexpected or challenging moments happened? How did people react or respond to you at key moments?
Run your inner game.
As I conclude, this post reminds me of the power of the book “The Inner Game of Tennis”, which is, I feel, the foundation for the profession of coaching. I wrote a post on this some time ago which also includes a link to a #WhatComesNextLive podcast with a leading sports coach, Ian Armiger. The post is: “We have inside us our whole potential“.