Obstacles Are Necessary

posted on: August 25, 2022
author: Brian Lomax, Ed.D.

Obstacle. Your immediate reaction to this word is probably somewhat negative. That’s understandable given the common definition of obstacle as “something that impedes progress or achievement” (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). Who wants progress or achievement impeded? I think many people would prefer to achieve their goals without too many obstacles. How about you?

The Obstacle Is the Way

In his popular book, The Obstacle Is the Way, Ryan Holiday (2014) leaned on the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius to reframe the perspective on obstacles in life. Holiday noted that obstacles weren’t things to be avoided; they should be embraced as necessary challenges for growth. This ancient wisdom resonated with a number of coaches in elite sport, and it became a rallying cry for NFL teams like the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks.

To fully understand the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius, it’s important to distinguish between three different versions of YOU: who you were, who you are, and who you are becoming. Which version of YOU is most important? I would like you to consider that who you are becoming is the most important version of YOU. This YOU is who Marcus Aurelius is addressing in the following passage from Meditations: “… and that which is an obstacle on the road helps us on this road” (Aurelius, 2015, p. 31).

The Road

The road in the above passage is the road of life; it is your journey through life. And obstacles are opportunities to forge yourself into a tougher and stronger person of character. That’s how they help you. You face an obstacle, you overcome it (eventually), and you become wiser and stronger for the experience. So, like it or not, you need obstacles. They are necessary if your journey toward who you are becoming is important to you.

Your Performance

Now that you have some understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of why obstacles are necessary, I want to relate this back to performance.

A useful way to analyze performance is to consider the following equation:

[Actual Performance] = [Potential Performance] – [Interference] (Gallwey, n.d.).

Let’s assume that your potential performance is 100 – rate your last actual performance using this scale: 0 = horrible, 50 = average, and 100 = awesome. For this example, let’s say that you rated your last performance as a 70, and therefore you have an Interference score of 30.

What is Interference?

Take a look in the mirror. Say hello to interference. More often than not, you’re getting in your own way. Interference is often referred to as “cognitive interference” because it is your thoughts and feelings that block you from trusting yourself during your performance.

Although obstacles can be explained as things or situations that impede progress, the real interference is what YOU think of those obstacles. It is not the obstacle itself. Your experience of the obstacle is paramount.

In the above example in which your Interference score was 30, it’s important to determine the sources of that interference and how you were thinking of each source. Sources that you identify could be the opponent cheated, people were watching, it was windy, or you couldn’t close the set/match. However, as stated in the previous paragraph, the real interference resides in how you perceive and experience these unique sources. The “obstacle” (the situation) is not what is impeding you. You are impeding yourself, and you can change your perceptions and responses if you want to.

Your Perception

Let’s use an example to understand this more deeply. Perhaps your performance falters when you are trying to close a set/match. This is very common and it is something that all tennis players must learn to overcome. Remember, the situation is not the issue. How you perceive the situation is the issue. So, if you have a 5-2 lead and you tell yourself that you always blow 5-2 leads, then your perception is the obstacle. Blowing the lead becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is critical to determine how you were thinking of this situation, so that you can alter it in the future.

Until you reframe your perspective on this score, you will likely continue to experience this problem. If you are continually focusing on what blowing a 5-2 lead says about you as a player (“I’m terrible, my UTR will go down, I never win”), you will continue to have this experience.

Making You Better

But here is how the obstacle can make you better. What if you focused more on who you are becoming? And what if you considered that this experience is actually trying to teach you something? The experience is telling you that you have an opportunity to improve your approach and yourself. Your current way of thinking isn’t cutting it. All you have to do is be open to changing how you think. Don’t worry so much about who you are. Be excited for who you can become, because if you want to be a great competitor, you need this experience. You need to learn how to cope with this situation. In fact, embracing your future self may help you to relieve the pressure of the current situation.

Improving your ability to close matches is a process. And that’s true for overcoming all obstacles. You may fail a number of times in these situations before you figure them out, and even then, you probably won’t be perfect at them. However, if you look at this as a learning process, you’ll notice improvements along the way. You will be on the way to enlightenment. Perhaps you’ll reach a moment when it clicks. And then, additional necessary experiences will present themselves pushing you to continuously learn, improve, and become a stronger player and person.

Mastery and Achievement Are Discovered on the Road of Difficult Necessary Experiences

Your lived experiences are your best teacher on the path to self-mastery, and many lessons have to be experienced before you can actually know and understand them. As a coach, I could try and tell you how to close matches, but ultimately, you have to figure out what works for you and experience that for yourself. Although coaches can provide guidance, they can’t do it for you. The knowledge resides in the doing. This is true for so much of tennis (and life). Focus more on who you are becoming so that you can take advantage of these experiences.

References

Aurelius, M. (2015). The meditations of Marcus Aurelius (G. Long Trans.). Wisehouse.

Gallwey, T. (n.d.). The inner game of work: Building capability in the workplace. The Systems Thinker https://thesystemsthinker.com/the-inner-game-of-work-building-capability-in-the-workplace/

Holiday, R. (2014). The obstacle is the way: The timeless art of turning trials into triumph. Portfolio/Penguin.

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Obstacle. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved August 11, 2022, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/obstacle