Strategy, Timing, & Execution: On the Gridiron, and in Life
Written by Niki Ghazian, Friday October 09 2009
Reaching a point of mental and emotional maturity in life occurs when you find a consistent equilibrium between your desires, and a practical approach to manifesting them through strategic execution. It's like a formula; you apply it to every situation in life. The first step is taking responsibility for every situation you are put in, and this is definitely a learning process.
You see, in life, when you land on the ground a few times, your first instinct is to look around and find someone who caused your fall, or in football, who missed their block. Freud would refer to this as a reaction stemming from the Id, or as I refer to it, a reaction driven by your "Lower Self." By Lower Self, I mean the raw, unpolished existence of a human being we are all born as. For example, my mother once told me a story about my playing habits as a toddler. She said it was very strange, that I could sit in a room by myself, ignore my cousins and sister, and build with Legos all day long. I would sit there in silence for hours, patiently building, until finally a piece wouldn't fit. At this point my behavior would take a strange turn, and I would start banging the lego piece while screaming and crying, and still trying to force it to fit. I went from calm and complacent to unreasonable and histerical in a split second. When my mother told me this story, I was well into my 20's, and I sat there and thought. That was an early expression of my lower self, and that lower self is still within me. As an adult, I saw areas in my life that I was trying to make a piece fit that would never fit, and I used that moment of realization to take a mental note and try to make a change.
There is nothing wrong with the Lower Self. As I believe within it, it retains the essence of who we are as individuals; from which we can then carve into a more astute, higher individual, downplaying our weaknesses and accentuating our strengths in accordance to the natural existence of our Lower Self. Many of our impulses transpire from the Lower Self, such as sexual attraction and aggression. (All right, now we are talking football!).
Freud however, viewed the Id as something that could figuritively speaking, be described as a walking-talking loose canon, per se. He described the Id as "the dark, inaccessible part of our personality, what little we know is of a negative character and can be described only as... chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations... It is filled with energy reaching it from the instincts, but it has no organisation, produces no collective will, but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instincts."
Using my Lego story as an example, one can draw a conclusion that within my Lower Self, as prevalent in my toddler years, I was showing Tenacity, Will, Determination and the ability at adhere to one project. These are all positive qualities, but they are not being channeled appropriately due to a lack of practical execution. I wasn't using these malleable and innate instincts, in a productive and positive manner because I couldn't draw the line on when to stop,when to go, and when the time was right. I realized I was still unable to correctly do this in my adulthood either. This is where strategy and pragmatism enters the picture.
In order to suceed in manifesting your goals and desires, you must utilize your raw instincts in a controlled manner, as derived from your Lower Self, and then mapping a strategic execution through your Higher Self. The Lower Self is what sends out the shock waves through your psyche, it is what makes you desire, it is what makes you greive, in essence it is what makes you a human being. Ask yourself what it is you want to accomplish, what it is you want to fix, or what it is that is vexing you in life. Then strategize--- timing is everything to the execution of a great play. Come up with a game plan, give yourself a time frame, get calm and ice cold, and use the maturity of your Higher Self to execute!
"Higher self is an integral and intimate aspect of ourselves that remains aware of (and actively interacts with) the whole of our being and our existence on the many planes or possibilities of life. One definition of the higher self can be: The part of ourselves that remains aware of our fragmented aspects and our wholeness simultaneously". Ronald Holt.
Reconcilling your dreams, instincts and impulses with a rationale game plan is what is going to win on and off the Gridiron.
The Lower Self is a productive tool, when properly used and controlled. It is the source of impulses that drive us to excel, and conversely, to fail. Perspective, choice, and Self-Honesty are what leads us to a victory or a defeat. Taking responsibility for every situation you are put in is the fool-proof way to make your life a positive progression in the right direction. It is empowerment, and gives you the ability to turn a negative experience into a positive lesson learned, so that you can make your future better.
Next time you get knocked on the ground, or lose, don't look around to see what everybody else did wrong, look at what you could have done differently in that situation to mitigate the damages being incurred by you. It is so easy to lay down and die, or lay the blame on other people, but where is the room for improvement in that? If you don't take responsibility, the next time you are put in that same situation, nothing will be better, and you will not be a better person for having lived through it the first time. A smart person makes changes in the only place they can,-- within themselves. So what if the refs in Denver weren't calling anything on the other team? We still won, because we dug deep, used our aggression, and took it upon ourselves to execute our game plan in a strategic manner, all while keeping in mind the Time left on the clock. :)
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2 comments
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A couple of misspellings and punctuation errors, but the message was well thought-out and intelligent in design. This should be published in a book of quotes: "Next time you get knocked on the ground, or lose, don't look around to see what everybody else did wrong, look at what you could have done differently in that situation to mitigate the damages being incurred by you. It is so easy to lay down and die, or lay the blame on other people, but where is the room for improvement in that? If you don't take responsibility, the next time you are put in that same situation, nothing will be better, and you will not be a better person for having lived through it the first time. A smart person makes changes in the only place they can,-- within themselves." -- Niki Ghazian, pro football player
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Haven't thought about this stuff in a long time. Made me really think about 'balance' and 'control' in my life. Thanks Niki.