Survival, Competition, and the Self-Concept

The week has been full of activity; games, trainings, meetings, weight sessions, artic recovery baths and painful release massages. Despite the activity, the residue of cobwebs, the dust of a two-month sabbatical from the competitive demand of our team sport, still remain. A sabbatical, feared by many, due to the lack of a domestic post-college competition, would hinder our development; but in fact, it was a sabbatical that was absolutely necessary to rejuvenate the self, rebalance the life, and re-establish the platform from which we will soon leap. So when we arrived Monday morning for our first practice of 2011 – we awkwardly stuck out our hand, smiled, and re-introduced ourselves to the demands of daily-double team trainings. In our greeting, we realized that, when we take the turf, we are no longer islands living and competing for ourselves; we are members of a team competing for a shared purpose, an Olympic purpose, with a shared passion. With all the promise of the words, Olympic and America, we took to the field; the buzz of the first day, the nervous excitement and exhilarating expectation of a new beginning infused our veins. But as day two dawned, the energy in our veins was replaced by the heft of soreness and lactic acid. The surreal buzz of the opening day unknown slowly faded away into the realization that the process would be long and the work hard. So try as we may, and wish as we might, we realized that after such a long respite from the game, the mind and body were functioning on different planes. I mis-trapped balls, missed my target on passes; I stumbled through the motions trying too hard to find my feel for game. Would it perpetually evade me, I feared; I became impatient. Thoughts of frustration swirled through my mind: “I have no touch. My hands are stone, cold and hard. My feet slow; cast in blocks of cement. I have no rhythm. I cannot even hear the beat. Cement fills my ears. Will I ever hear the music again? Will I ever be as good as I once was? Will I ever be better?” The thoughts boiled in my mind; performance declined; anger began to rage. Internal conflict ensued. Part of me observed objectively the increase in emotion; I wanted to laugh at myself, and say, “seriously, it doesn’t matter, you will be fine.” But then there was the other side of me; the ultra-competitive, “I want it now, so do it now” alter ego - the voice of pride, perhaps anger, that so often in my career motivated performance. And that prideful, angry voice made a statement; it said, “You are better, so be better.” In accordance with that voice, my performance lifted. I trapped every ball, hit every pass and even challenged myself with a few higher-level skills. “I will prove how good I am,” I responded to the voice that dared me to be better. And when practice ended on Day 2, although my performance had improved, I felt a bit uncertain about whether the anger motivation concept was something I wanted to use throughout this budding journey. I mean, it got me the results I was after, as it has in the past. But, I wondered whether the ends justified the means. And I questioned whether I could be a successful competitor without anger as my motivation. As we lined the fence for our post practice stretch, I posed a question to a few of my teammates; I asked, is the rational being in today’s society competitive, and for what reason? After a few awkward glances, I explained how the question came about. Finally, Marta Malmberg, a freshman at North Carolina, said, “I think people are still competitive, if they are driven to succeed, to get results and to be the best they can be.” I agreed with Ta, however, I thought there was more to the discussion, so I rephrased and asked, is there a basic survivalist need to be competitive in today’s American society? Mel Brill, another Carolina girl, responded; No – everything we have ever needed is provided for us – home, food, water, love. We have a perceived abundance of the necessities of life. Then, I thought, why are we, people I esteem to be quite rational, playing this sport so competitively? Contorting myself painfully in a hip stretch, I returned to Marta’s response; a theory was budding. Perhaps, our competitiveness does not stem from our basic human need to survive, like Mel said those needs are provided, but out of our need to survive and justify our self-concept, our image of ourselves; out of the need to live and act in accordance with the construct that we have made for ourselves. We compete in order prove that we are as good, or bad, as we believe ourselves to be. For the moment, I was appeased with the conclusion, but as I headed off the field, another teammate, intrigued by our stretch-time conversation, pulled me aside, and said, “I think that sometimes, our competitive drives stem from either pride or passion. With passion, being the healthier of the two motivations.” It was an interesting statement, and sparked more thinking. Pride, in my opinion, is an internal affect triggered by external perceptions, situations, and results. Pride is effective, like competitive anger, in producing results; but if such pride is unfounded, meaning it is not linked to a pure internal source of motivation, than its positive effect is temporary. Pride becomes destructive. However, if one’s pride is founded, not in the external, but in an internal passion for what one does, then pride is simply an emanation of passion. As I talked with my teammates the past few days, it is astounding how much I have heard the word passion used. It’s interesting, in the past I think our passion for what we do may have been clouded, or confused, with our pride for the external accomplishments of what we do. But when we lost that World Cup Qualifier last May, we were stripped of our pride; and in its absence, we rediscovered our passion for the sport. Today, we played Canada in the second of four international matches in Chula Vista. In the first match, we dominated our opponent 5-0. In today’s competition, after a dismal first half performance, we found ourselves behind 2-1 with 15 minutes left. In those 15 minutes, there was a certain competitive fire today, one that was working to survive our self-concept – America does not lose to Canada. We ended up winning 3-2, on the passion of our team’s will. Today, we survived, our self-concept intact. But eventually, we will have to redefine and enhance our self-concept, in order to get where we want to go.