500 Words a Week - The Last 10 Minutes
I recently finished reading Andre Agassi’s biography called “Open”. If you enjoy sport autobiographies, I would recommend it. There is one part that has stuck with me. Andre is describing how he gave a half-hearted effort in a final training session before a tournament. On the drive home he asks his coach to pull over to the side of the road. He asks his coach to drive 2 miles ahead of him and wait there for him, stating “I’m not done. I didn’t give my best today”. Andre then proceeds to run the 2 miles to catch up to his coach in the car.
“This run, even if it brings on heatstroke, will give me peace of mind tonight in that all important 10 minutes before I fall asleep.”
“I’ve been cheered by thousands, booed by thousands, but nothing feels as bad as the booing inside your own head during those ten minutes before you fall asleep.”
This resonated with me as I have been there and I regularly am, you may also have felt the same. At times this can protect us as during those final 10 minutes where we are our own worst enemies, we gain some solace in knowing that whatever negative emotions people feel towards us will never be the equivalent of what we have thought about ourselves at one point in time.
In those final 10 minutes, we replay everything we should have done throughout the day. We feel awful for not accomplishing those tasks we set out too, or know we didn’t do our best. With this in mind I have tried to change how I approach working towards different tasks/ goals.
Dr Jordan Peterson implorers us to have high and low goals (For those who are familiar with his work, I hope I am interpreting this right). We must set high and lofty goals to push us onward, however we cannot let ourselves become wrapped up in these. Thinking that because we haven’t instantly achieved these goals we are a failure. We must lower our bar for the here and now. An example is that I have certain numbers I’d like to achieve in weightlifting. However, I’m in-between gyms at the moment and haven’t access to facilities that I can train effectively in. As I haven’t access, I could deem doing other forms of exercise as not putting myself on the path to achieve my goals and so do nothing, or I lower my bar significantly. So what, I can’t do what I really want to do, but doing something is going to be significantly more productive than doing absolutely nothing.
This then helps in the final 10 minutes as sure what I have done might not be optimal for me trying to achieve my goals, but at least I have done something. We must not let the major goals we set for ourselves dishearten us from doing the minuscule things that we might deem unworthy but still move us forward in the right direction.
As the saying goes, we overestimate what we can do in a year but underestimate what we can do in 10.
