Confidence to Perform Consistently

For a few years now, I've been watching an emerging rugby team play. They have been ranked very highly over recent seasons in 15 a-side rugby and 7s. Yet for some reason, this season, their potential hasn't been realised. The team lost a number of games to teams they had previously beaten and heads went down. They hit a poor run of form that they couldn't shake off.

It's hard to put a finger on what actually caused the sudden downturn in form. A couple of players out with injuries? Other teams being physically larger this season? A tougher fixture list? Not really. Surely a good team doesn't become a poor team overnight?

I've reflected on what I witnessed and I came to the conclusion that the reason for the slide in performance was a loss of confidence. This then drove a lack of self belief. Over a period of time, you could see it becoming contagious.

Subsequently, I talked over this loss of form with a number of coaches, managers, educators and mentors in a number of fields outside of rugby to get as a wide a view as possible. A theme emerged from my conversations: one of the biggest performance killers is a lack of self belief which manifests itself in low confidence. That lack of confidence stops so many from getting back up and running or even making an attempt in the first place. I decided to investigate confidence.

I have to point out here I'm not advocating the development of hugely inflated egos - there are enough of those around in all walks of life. No, I am talking about the "objective understanding of ability and personal qualities" that enable people in all walks of life to take a step forward - often, as it were, to take  a step of faith -  in order to achieve something or attempt something different.

I thought long and hard about confidence in a sporting context and specifically about what are the "abilities and qualities" that drive performance. I concluded that essentially there are four key areas: technical ability, creativity, cognition and spatial awareness. They seemed to be common to most sports.

Technically, an athlete has to know how to perform core components competently: pass, tackle, kick, catch - all have to be worked at. This is true in any walk of life be it sport, a job, an area of service and even in relationships - we need to know how to treat people, how to communicate, how to listen. There are things we have to work at.

Creative thinking is that ability that allows you to think outside of the box. In a sporting sense it's the ability to play what is in front of you, responding to what you see in a constructive rather than destructive way. This way of thinking and processing real time game information is linked to cognitive ability - that is the ability to take information in, process it and replay the information in the form of problem solving using what you have worked on in training, your experience and the way the game is panning out.

Spatial awareness is the ability to see objects or people in relation to each other in space and time. It's that sense you have before you make a pass, knowing that the ball will reach the other person because you have the ability to judge space and speed. It's understanding your location on the field of play in relation to  player with the ball and the timing of a tackle or when to pass or make a break.

Sports psychologists tell us that the ability to focus and get refocussed are the keys to staying on track and sustaining performance. Doing what we know we can do and doing it to the best of our ability breeds confidence. Confidence enables us to do more of what we know we can do and sustains performance. They identify "distraction" as the trigger that so often hits confidence, suggesting internal and external reference points as a means of getting back on track and refocussing. Often a coach will have worked on a key phrase or word or an image to help a player regain composure. They are mental reminders of what the player knows but has been distracted from. Sadly, we have all seen the alternative when confidence collapses - the inevitable slide into overthinking and under performing - even for world class athletes. Its true when we experience life set backs too.

Now we all know that there are times in sport when we do actually lose a game because we meet opponents who are simply better than us. Those are the experiences from which we learn and go on to develop our own skill levels. The same is true of course in every walk of life. Unless we grab hold of the development opportunity that we are presented with in a difficult challenge or in a defeat, we are destined to produce repeat performances.

How we respond in any situation will have a big influence on what happens next. If we allow ourselves to be defined by circumstances, by what just happened, it will not only impact what happens next, but will begin to influence who we are. We start to  become responders, rather than initiators. Who wants to go through life simply reacting to everyone and everything we encounter.

The bible has an interesting observation on confidence, when it states: "don't throw your confidence away".  Its context is a passage talking about what impacts our definition as men.

How are we defined? By postcode, by job, by ethnicity, by salary, by competency, by our circumstances? Our true definition is not external. Sure, we stand in and operate from our circumstance, but they don't actually define us.

If in life as in sport, confidence is linked to our four key areas, then:

• technically we have to work on being the very best version of who we can be. 
• creatively, we can develop a sense that there is life outside of the box of the usual or routine way of thinking. 
• we can begin to appreciate that what is in front of us can be overcome, that, we can find solutions. 
• we can take a step back or pause momentarily to assess objectively where we are spatially in relation to others and what is going on around us.  

These are the abilities and qualities that help us to understand how we fit into the dynamics of a game, our jobs, a service or ministry area and relationally.

Confidence need not fly away with a poor result or outcome. Technical ability doesn't suddenly drain away overnight after we have lost a match. Our ability to read a game and creatively problem solve when confronted with a difficult situation doesn't disappear. What we have worked on, developed, become competent at hasn't been surgically removed without us noticing.

Sure there is room for improvement - that is called growth. But, we need to become skilled at identifying reference points to help us re-engage with our self belief and maintain or regain confidence.

The great thinker and writer Paul helps us with by looking at confidence from a different angle. He noted... "I am confident of this, that he who began a good work in you, will be faithful to complete it" - in other words, we can have confidence in foundational things and specifically in the foundational relationship we can have with the man's man Jesus Christ. Our confidence can develop as we recognise he doesn't go back on the ground we've covered together. He doesn't quit on us when it gets tough.

Two things mark out the man who can face most things that are thrown at him:

• the confidence he has in the abilities and qualities he carries from his personal experience and training and they can't be taken from him - that's self belief. 
• the confidence he can have in knowing that he has a source of help that transcends the circumstance, the game, the situation- that's faith;

faith in the man's man Jesus Christ to deliver on his commitment to us.  So let's not throw our confidence away. Lets work at the things we can work on and commit to Jesus Christ through faith, so that win, draw or lose we have a confidence that isn't disposable.

Cakes, cement and rugby

It was with a sense of anticipation that I was travelling to the English town of Rugby. My excuse was a business meeting. That was a front, I was on a mission.

I've always had an interest in where or how things started. Things that we take for granted. Things that are now part our everyday lives. Everything starts somewhere.

I had a mental picture of what I was going to experience. I wanted to take in the atmosphere, the sense of history. I would be inspired to come up with some motivational one liners, to inspire the lads back home. I was going to the birthplace of the great sport of rugby.

Driving along, I imagined William Webb-Ellis playing on the fields of the famous Rugby school. I could hear the lads and the master in charge shouting "What do you think you're doing boy?" Catching the ball and in defiance of the rules, Webb-Ellis ran off down the field with ball in hand. The rest as they say is history.

I didn't get to see the famous school. In fact, all I saw was the Rugby Cement factory and a traffic roundabout advertising the fact that "Mr Kipling" makes his "exceedingly nice cakes" in Rugby. A fact that didn't go unnoticed. Rugby, cement and cherry bakewell tarts. I am pleased to note that Mr Kipling cakes website has a "cookies policy".

The only reference to the great, global, sport of rugby was a roadside sign letting me know when to turn for the Webb Ellis Industrial Estate.

Like most of urban Britain, the town centre was a mixture of familiar retail chains, independent local stores, charity shops and people going about their business. They were totally oblivious of my quest to find the birth-place of a significant sport. I didn't even see a rugby pitch.

Standing in a car park looking at the back of the local bank and a small parade of shops, it was hard to imagine anything originating here - let alone the global phenomenon that is rugby. The remarkable thing is it did. Here in this small town in the middle of England. The truth of the matter is: everything starts somewhere.

The bible notes something about a town very similar to Rugby. It records a conversation between two men. They were talking about a man one of them had just met. The town: Nazareth. The man: Jesus Christ. "Where was he from? Nazareth? Can anything good come from there?" There was a familiarity about it. Jesus? Isn't he the carpenter? Rugby? Isn't that where they make cakes and cement?

The man's man Jesus lived in Nazareth. He had spent 30 years learning his trade and working as a carpenter. But his job, his town, his family circumstances didn't stop him taking his "catch the ball and run down the field" moment. His decision, to face whatever it would take to make us better men for knowing him, was world changing.

What decisions are we facing today? Don't let familiarity or circumstances prevent us from making choices that will change someone's world for the better; including perhaps our own. The ball is in the air. What will we do when we catch it?

It was strange to think that there, in Rugby, an ordinary town with ordinary people, something happened that changed the sporting world. Rugby has brought challenge, excitement, camaraderie and enjoyment to so many. Everything starts somewhere. And it's here, in the ordinary places, places with cement and cake factories, amongst the shops, banks, public car parks and yes the place where the great sport of rugby started, that the man's man Jesus challenges us to catch and run.

preparing for a new season?

Whatever level a team plays at, the run-in to the new season always feels like a shock to the system.  From the end of season to the point at which pre-season training starts, I think there has to be a specialised course that coaches and fitness trainers go on to discover the latest physical punishment techniques. Every pre-season seems to get worse, or is it something to do with the ageing process catching up!!

The physical demands of the sport of rugby are punishing in game situations, but the level of pain in training seems to increase year on year.  It's not as if we have suddenly become unfit from the end of the last season is it? Pre-season is a time for preparation and, as the saying goes, failing to prepare is preparing to fail.

The period before the start of a season is also a time of change and often a time of uncertainty. New players are coming in. Some of your old team mates have gone or retired. The coaching staff may have changed and you could be facing playing a completely different style of game. There could be new sponsors, different kit, even different facilities.  You will certainly be facing new teams following promotions and relegations even if you are in the same league. Nothing stays the same. Everything changes. Even the rules of the sport change from time to time. Change is inevitable. It's how we respond to change that prepares us for what comes next.

Making assumptions about the next season or about our place in the team or our going uninjured for the whole year can be a big mistake. I can remember the very first competitive game we played. A brand new team. Our opponents arrived and swaggered off their bus, buoyed by their teams results in previous years. We on the other hand had been kept firmly in place by our coach and had approached the game not knowing the team until the day before the match. We destroyed them 70-0 and that was in the days when a try was worth fewer points. It was a hard act to follow and the temptation to assume every match would be as easy was difficult to avoid. 

Toward the end of the pre-season, there is a sense of just wanting to get on with the campaign. But there is another hurdle to get over before the season can begin in earnest. Trials. Even though you have played for a team for a long time, you still have to go through the same process. New, fresh, younger up and coming players may have arrived on the scene. Everyone faces trials before the next season begins. The trials precede selection for the next season. 

It's tempting to want the start of a new season to simply roll on from the end of the last, but the new season will also have new challenges.

Life can be the same - physically and mentally demanding, change and uncertainty, making assumptions about what lies around the corner and well, full of trials. Life is also made up of seasons and those seasons do change and bring with them new challenges. A very wise man wrote in the bible in a book called Ecclesiastes - there is a time for everything, a season, everything fits in its place in its right season. How we respond determines what happens as those seasons turn. How we approach the trials will determine how we fare in the next season. 

Another great writer observed in a letter to a group of men called the Hebrews that there is one thing that doesn't change. In fact he was describing a person. The man's man Jesus Christ. Of him it was written: Jesus Christ - the same yesterday, today, forever. In other words in the middle of the demanding, the changing, the uncertain, the trials - he remains consistent in his approach and attitude towards us as men. What a great example of maintaining his composure as a man in the middle of change.  Change is difficult to accept sometimes, particularly if the impact of the change means we have to adapt or stop something to start something new. But as we approach a new season - in sport or in life, lets remember there is one who we can rely on to be totally consistent as a role model, as a mentor, but especially as a friend. The man's man Jesus Christ. 

As we face the challenge of a new season, lets meet the demands, the change, the uncertainty head on, not shying away from trial, but willing to press on in the knowledge that the trails qualify us for the next season and that we do not move forward alone. The man's man has already been there and wants to walk with us through to the other side.

Singing for the Unsung Hero

In every team, in every club, in almost any organisation, there are always people who come to be known as "stalwarts". It's a bit of an ugly sounding word, but its meaning is far from ugly. A stalwart is someone who is loyal, particularly over a long period of time, and is able to be trusted. These are the people who can be counted on in terms of reliability and hard work. Often, they are the people who have been there the longest and have seen out the highs and the lows and remain resolute supporters. Others journey through a club, for example as emerging talent, flourishing around the club stalwarts, then move on to higher and greater things. These are the lads who donate their shirts to the club, framed and with a signature. To find the stalwarts, you often have to consult the club's record books.

I always like to have a look at the photographs in club houses as I've travelled to different grounds. I look for two groups of people. The stars who have emerged from humble beginnings and those who are the club record holders - those who feature in every team photograph over a prolonged period. They are the foundations around which teams and clubs are built. Often, they are the unsung heroes, known only to those who they have helped or supported, coached or mentored.

Every team needs stalwarts who are the central spine around which teams are built and around which the emerging talent flourishes.

Recently, I decided to have a look at the number of appearances some longstanding players had made for particular rugby clubs. Starting with my old club, I discovered that there was one stand out player who had made a staggering 571 appearances. That has to be some kind of record. Unless the team were desperate for players or unless he was the chairman and held the purse strings - there has to be no other reason than total consistency for a player to sustain a position in a team for that long. It is remarkable. A stalwart.

Yet the most remarkable thing about this particular player is, outside of the club and perhaps the immediate local community, nobody would recognise his name. Yet for me he is one of a band of stalwarts that are the unsung heroes of the sporting world. But we should celebrate the unsung hero. Without them, lack of continuity would undermine cohesion and eventually the culture.  In many large organisations, the movement of people across the business operates at pace and is seen as a way of hot-housing or fast tracking key people. With such rapid turnover, few stay around long enough to establish process and to carry the accountability that attaches to responsibility. Often, accountability is left to the stalwarts. Those people often seen as the overlooked or the plodders. These are the people who need to be celebrated.

The headline in a New York Times article at the turn of the last century said this "the unsung heroes of the engine room". The article went on to describe how the stokers and the engineers of a large, stricken passenger vessel kept the boilers at full capacity and the power supply on, whilst the vessel was engaged in a rescue mission. Eventually they capitulated to the power of the sea, but without them others would have perished. Unsung heroes. Stalwarts who could be counted on for their reliability and hard work. The great writer of much of the Bible's new testament, Paul observed in his letter to a group of people in a province called Galatia "if we don't become weary in doing good, not giving up or quitting, we will bring in a great crop just at the right time" - Paul was encouraging people to keep going, to be and to become the stalwarts in their community, in the group of people that were gathering. The same is true in family, in serving other people, in businesses and in churches.

Everyone is looking for success in whatever sphere they are operating. Without the unsung heroes, they may have success for a period, but the presence of stalwarts, those whose names may never be know or whose shirts are never framed and hung on the wall - is one of the key ingredients of moving from being a successful club, team, business, church to being one of significance. Stalwarts are the carriers. Not just of the ball up the middle of the park, but of the vision and the drive. Sure, look for the portraits, the photographs, the signed shirts and representative honours and lets celebrate, but lets also give a big shout out and have a song ready for the men who make 571 appearances.

The Wisdom of the Gate

The first time a rugby referee pinged me for not entering a phase of play "through the gate" totally confused me as a young player. I was playing in a match in the south west of England - a place noted for its countryside and farming communities. I knew I had been offside - that was why he'd blown the whistle. But as I retreated the 10 yards for conceeded a penalty, I thought to myself "bit odd refering to a gate, we're playing out in the open here."

After a few coaching sessions and starting to understand the laws of the game, I realised he was referring to the area at the back of a ruck where players have to be aware of an imaginary line. This line, denotes the point beyond which if you are not already in ruck you are offside. Its usually marked by the back foot of the player furthest back in the ruck. The offside line runs at right angles to another imaginary line which forms a rectangle around the group of players competing for the ball.

The gate to which my rural referee was referring is the part of the offside line, between the two sides of the rectangle or box. Ah ha, so now, there's a box on the pitch? Confused? Effectively imagine a rectagle on the pitch with players inside it, touching the sides and the ends - the end of the box is the only area through which a player can join the play. The gate.

No wonder the breakdown area is seen as one of the games grey areas. It is ususally the zone in which mose penalties are conceeded. It's because the phases of play represent the "margins" of a game. Here players are right at the edge of a phase of play or following a tackle are at the formative stages of a new phase of play. Getting to grips with abstract concepts, imaginary lines and boxes can be the difference between retaining and conceeding possession.

I guess life has its margins too. The times when we are at the conclusion of something, or we are just starting out on a new venture. We follow similar patterns as we form or develop relationships. There are crucial points at every stage of our experience at which if we get it right we can build momentum. If we get it wrong,  it can take us a long time to regain the ground we may have conceeded. It takes a lot longer to rebuild trust than the moments it takes to break it. There is it seems a great deal of wisdom in the concept of the gate - the right way to enter a conversation, a meeting, a relationship.

Using the gate to enter a ruck is not just a technical inconvenience - there are positive advantages to playing correctly:

• you can without hinderance or penalty add your weight and momentum to a forward drive
• you can do the same to halt an advancing drive by the opposition
• you can actually drive opposition players off the ball and back beyond the gain line to take ground
• your presence prevents opposition players "coming around the side" of the ruck once the ball is about to enter a new phase of play

Doing things the right way really does make a difference. Who wouldnt want to have momentum in business or in serving people or in a friendship or relationship?

I'm reminded of the man's man Jesus Christ when he said to the team gathered around him, "anyone who doesnt enter through the gate but climbs in some other way is up to no good". He was using the illustration of a gated pen, where the farming community kept the sheep, their livelihood safe.

But he wasn't only referring to protecting the livelihood of farmers. He went on to point out the importance of protecting what is valuable to us as individuals; having security for our thoughts, our emotions, the real you, the real me. He then said something unusual - "I am the gate" - whoever uses me as a gate in life, will be safe. Who wouldn't want to safeguard their thinking and actions - oh how often I let my thoughts run riot and then let them motivate my actions. I for one am glad that the man's man offers us a right way to enter life.

I think my rural referee was spot on with his call: you can only enter life properly through "the" gate. Maybe there is some merit in learning the wisdom of the gate?

Men Need the Fight

Back in my playing days we were a mixed bunch of lads. Electricians, farmers, office workers, builders. But as soon as we pulled on the team shirt something happened. We became a team. The shirt is a great leveller. The cause is a great uniting force. There's something powerful when men unite for a common purpose. The physicality of the contact and the hits, the exertion in the scrum and driving mauls. The elation of making the tackle and turning over possession. The ecstasy or the agony at the final whistle - no matter the result we stood together. I have a feeling that whatever we did away for the game, we were better men for being part of something that required us to commit ourselves to others, to excel as individuals but acknowledge that it would take all 15 of us to prevail. We were better men having given something of ourselves to the fight. Men need the fight. But the fight needed men. Today I have to adjust to watching from fhe sidelines or coaching, but there is still enjoyment in the camaraderie and the banter on the touchline. But I still miss the hits, the physical tussles, making the tackles. Today it's a different fight. It's showing the way to the lads coming through, showing this generation the importance of the fight, how to engage as team,  how to excel firstly as men, then as players.  Men need the fight. The man's man Jesus Christ understands the importance and the longing of men to engage in the fight - he pulled together 12 guys from different backgrounds and set them on a course to change the world. He knew they would face tough opposition, criticism and open conflict. But there was a fight. The prize - the liberation of people contained by dead religion or the limitations of sad or inflicted circumstances or the cruelty of tyranny.  That early team were as different a bunch of lads as any rugby, soccer, baseball or football team, but they  were unified by the cause of "the" man.  Make no mistake, when they were asked to take up a cross and follow - they knew exactly what he was asking. But there is no gain without the fight. The great writer and follower of Christ, Paul, understood when he said to his young friend Timothy, fight the good fight of faith, lay hold of the life that really counts and will last beyond just our physical lifespan. He knew that men need the fight.  Men need the fight and perhaps as after the game, we may just be better men for engaging with the cause - better husbands, better fathers, sons, brothers, better friends. Better men. Men need the fight and....the fight needs men.