KEEPING YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME

A friend posted something on Facebook announcing that he and his family were moving out of town, and wanted to say goodbye to everyone. His post read, in part:

I finally got a call on a position I interviewed for a month ago. I didn't mention it (before) because I (wasn't ready) to reveal it yet. I'm happy to announce that I accepted the position. We made the decision to move to X because it would be a better environment. So we will be heading out next month. I wanted to call/text everyone individually, but I thought it would be easier to post my news here. I promise to... (Read more)

Because Facebook only shows so many lines of a longer post on people's Facebook accounts, you have to click on the post to actually read the entire post.

Like many people, I tend not to do that, so after reading the above, I sent my words of congratulation to this friend.

Imagine my surprise when he texted me back and told me I should have read the WHOLE post.  Here is how it continued:

"... stay in touch with everyone, especially because this isn't real and (I invite you) to post this as your status and see how many people actually read this stuff till the end!!"

As Sheldon Cooper would say: "Bazinga!!"

It got me thinking about how in sports (and other things, too) we often react to a portion of events rather than getting the full picture.

For example, a player who misses his first few shots, starts to entertain negative thoughts, losing sight of the fact that there are many more minutes to be played - or that he has bounced back from similar episodes in the past.

Or a player who gets berated by his coach, may not see the larger picture, which includes coaches (if not this one, then typically other coaches in the past) who have encouraged him and helped him.

When we form our "picture of things" prematurely, we undermine the likelihood of turning things around by simply staying in the game.  

I previously addressed this topic in an earlier post that you may find of value: "What Are You Looking At?"

So here is a reminder that things sometimes take a different turn, so it pays to be sure that you have the WHOLE picture before you prematurely react, or you may well find that your reaction is based on incorrect information and end up heading AWAY from your goal.