Words that match the pattern ...

One of the bits of our extended memory in the faculty of language is the dictionary - plus, if we are a bit of a crossword buff or geek, a thesaurus. With the arrival of computers and the interweb of course, came the super-extend dictionary facility – where we can put in wildcards to get a variety of answers and then use our brains for the rest.
Our brains are geared to pattern recognition anyway and it is this plus our connective and perceptive ability that still keeps us out in front of even the most sophisticated computers.
However, I do sometimes indulge in this post-modernist method of crossword solving – which is less absorbed fun, but more solution and, therefore, goal-oriented. This is where the credo is “I solve therefore I am.” Or, in self development terms, Attract more crossword solving abundance into your life and build your self-esteem for a bigger, brighter, bolder YOU!

Now, getting away from cross words slightly - these days written and auditory vituperations are two-a-penny, whereas back in the day I hadn’t been long at boarding school when someone mentioned Isaiah 36:12 and we all hurried to have a look and learn. Of course today, when I put in

 “f???ing ?h?t”

into my online dictionary – just for fun – I knew exactly where I was coming from. And yet there was still a felt moment of anticipated youth revisited, as I looked at the screen:-

Words that match the pattern ...

So, what - apart from the obvious - came up in my latter-day trip to Isaiah and the Old Testament?

Forcing Shot

Here was something familiar to me as a cricket coach! It was all beginning to fall into place! Here was an online dictionary so brilliant that it could not only serve me a variety of answers from wildcards, but could also read my Mind and know the best possible contextual language through which to present those answers personally to me!
Sport – uncanny; Cricket - brilliant!

So I followed the online link to find out what else my “extended brain” could tell me about Forcing Shot. Finding what else I might discover in knowledge terms, could be useful to me at some point further down my time line, after all!

Shock, horror!
Sadly, it seems that the world, according to Sports Definitions dotcom, is not the same as mybrain.org. Forcing shot, apparently, is a snooker term meaning a shot that is considerably above medium pace.

No cricket mentioned at all. I felt crestfallen – and in the act of falling from my crest I got a definite sense of the way I was now feeling;   ?*@t.

 

Doppler Shift

In a recent rugby training session I took the players back to the basics of running, passing, catching.
Basics, in both life and sport, are always very good to revisit from time to time, because we layer up our lives in general, and our sporting lives in particular, to such a degree, to such an extent, that we fail to see the wood for the trees. Mostly we do this metaphorically and yet – as the players discovered – we can also do this physically!

One of our drills involved two players – A and B – running on the ‘outer’ side of two lines of poles. The lines of poles are about 8m width apart and the poles are spaced roughly 2m apart lengthways.  The players each run along a straight line path as shown, passing across the grid to each other – with the route of the ball as per the dotted lines.

This is a perspective and a focus exercise – where we release a pass, whilst moving, to a target that is also moving. We need to make sure the ball avoids hitting the poles, which are static.

The basics here are – how perfect can we, as players, do this - if there were no poles.

 

There are parallels in other parts of our lives for such a drill, such an exercise. Such as public speaking, asking someone for a date, taking a driving test – in fact, the doing of anything under pressure – where the pressure seems to be all  becoming from the poles.

After varying degrees of success and failure I paused for some player feedback. One perceptive guy wondered “why are we getting so hung up on some tubes of metal only an inch in diameter?”
This is a very good question, especially in terms of where the focus is and where the attention is being taken.

This is a classic case of where we can just get in our own way. Of course, when we do it and fail, by the ball hitting the poles, we have actually made the poles much bigger than one inch in diameter – in our Minds. We’ve made them so big, in our perception, that hitting them regularly is an easy thing to do!
So – as you read on – Don’t Think of a Black Cat!

Paradox or Secret

I want to do something that involves not doing X. And I’ll qualify X as avoiding hitting poles with the ball, in this instance. So I’m going to try and NOT hit the poles. And if I go very slowly I can get it right.
But I’m required here to go a little bit faster, there are speed demands and time constraints – so I speed up and, no matter how hard I try, I can’t help but hit the poles.
However, I’m a smart chap because I know we all get what we focus on; so if I focus on something else, just change what I’m focussing on, then all will be well. Won’t it? I just need to try and be positive. Don’t I?

Well as I see it, the secret is this:-
You need to consider HOW you are focussing rather more than on WHAT you are focussing. If you can’t see the wood for the trees, then focussing on the wood instead just changes the focal content and not the focal nature. Remember, too, that trying is all part of that focus.

 

?*@t

Throughout the session, I would know when the players had success or failure – even with my eyes closed. In fact, I would know, especially with my eyes closed – because of their language.
When players try and fail, especially with things they THINK they should be able to do ‘properly’ – there is always auditory feedback. Occasionally there is accompanying action, but there is always feedback. They all have what I’ve come to describe as “?*@t” moments.

Now there’s an interesting statistical correlation between the level and consistency of failure and the number of “?*@t” utterances. Sometimes players will grow the vehemence of their utterances in both severity and volume. And the trouble with “?*@t” like that, is that it is never good
“?*@t”; it is always bad “?*@t”.

Conclusion

So if we ARE going to use words that match the pattern, we need to be aware of the pernicious effect our language can have upon our performance, whether that be just in practice, or in “the real thing.”

Even something simple like stubbing our toe, can elicit a number of different responses – from a simple “ouch” right up to words that match the pattern. Now, the person who always chooses the latter will focus purely on a world populated by those particular trees – the trees of “?*@t” shall we say!

His (or her) world will always be a battleground, a world of failure, a world of nothing goes right, a not very nice world where things and people are always against us.

If we want to do well and operate smoothly as we pass through the days of our life, there is a secret and simple little bit of metaphorical patterning we can apply to shape our view of the world:-

The poles will always be there, come what may. It is ourselves who can turn their size from one inch in diameter into something else. The words we use will always match a pattern. It is ourselves who choose to either play a Forcing Shot, or something else.