On finding flow: Everyone needs to find their football

Watching France put Croatia to the sword in the 2018 World Cup final, I was reminded of the ten years or so I spent playing football in 5, 7 and 11-a-side games and from there came inspiration for putting pen to paper for this post. I never played to professional level, but can share some of my disruptive highs of the game as a player.

Football reignited something inside of which may have fallen victim to suppression through schooling and early corporate life. Being able to come back from three or four goals down, football created a never say die attitude. Football taught me that even when you think you’re running on empty, if your will to win is strong enough, you will find a way to outrun their defenders. Football taught me something we only see in small children, who are so present to their “mission” i.e. playing together, that holding grudges is an alien concept. Through football, I made new friends, learnt of the benefits of cold water/ ice immersion and travelled overseas to play. Most importantly, football taught me how to create a mental frame of no noise. Of pure present moment being like nothing I had experienced before, which I later came to learn from meditation teachers and authors is about being in the now. It is this concept I would like to expand on. It started for me after graduation and landing a role at a large US investment bank. I should have been the envy of everyone and maybe I was. I mean, that was my life sorted, right? Two weeks in and it became abundantly clear that this role is this large organisation was pure pigeon holing. My jobs throughout university were all within small firms who encouraged entrepreneurial input and were agile enough to test new ideas. This particular team was run by procedures manuals and “we don’t do it that way”. The only way I made it through the two years in that role was through playing football and helping to set up their Basketball team. I threw myself into both and not being content, went onto set up football matches on weekends with anyone local and interested. The professionalism was comical at first. Dribbling the ball around dog sh!t in local parks. Jumpers for goal posts and no concept of a rectangular pitch. As the level of professionalism evolved we started to book pitches and in time our list of interested players grew until we routinely started turning people away. At its peak it became like a religion for me, such that I threw myself into it. The pre-game mental preparation, the superstitions (if you’re a sports person, I know you know what I mean) through to post match cool down and cold showers. Within this, that perfect window to switch off “the noise” was created. We all have “stuff” we are dealing with in life and for many people it can manifest itself as those tapes of conversations playing over in our minds. Our mind has this incessant desire to replay tapes from the past or try to anticipate the future. What we said to that person, what they said back to us, what did she think of me, have I pissed so and so off… The mind tries what it can to escape the present. Not when I was playing football though. None of that came into my mind from kick off, through to an hour or two after the game. It did not occur to this way when I first started playing, but was very apparent when I wasn’t playing - i.e. Why am I getting annoyed at a situation when on Sundays (game day) I’m usually super chilled. That present moment window was gold. Not only did it provide that quietness, but also inspiration. The window of quietness was as if by magic, when my greatest ideas and inspiration hit me. It was also the time I spoke my deepest truth to myself. Shall I date her? Should I break up with her? If I had been stuck on an idea at work. If I was challenged with a difficult relationship situation. If I was unable to decide a way forward, this would provide a bit of clarity which otherwise would not have occurred. I had tried meditation before – okay more like dipped in once or twice, but it never compared to this. I had no interest in playing football for health reasons. As an ectomorph, that much running would only work against any bulking phase. I left the large bank and moved to a smaller (50 man) UK company and excelled rapidly – at life. I began dating someone who nobody in my circle would approve of. I had a go at property and business ventures, which okay the latter failed, but that fire was ignited. That ability to find calmness, clarity, focus but also to bring the intensity, the passion and drive when called on. Fast forward a few years and several injuries later, I knew I had to move on to something else for that present moment fix. Eckhart Tolle talks about this in his great book, “The Power of Now” where he mentions athletes can find themselves in that present moment state while practising their sport, but it is momentary. It started to dawn on me that football had introduced me to an experience which is vital for living a full life, but that the sport was a crutch which I needed to move on from. And this is the message I want to share. Go and explore your passions. Go and try things – an art or craft, a discipline or as in my case a sport and lose yourself. Lose the programming that world has been working so hard to impose upon you and let something deep in your core – your body, not your mind, drive you. Get in touch with something instinctual and allow the thinking mind some time off to see how that changes your outlook on life. Even if you are not ready to start practising Eckhart’s version of being in the now, you can at least start a practice which shows you that you are not your thoughts and not a slave to the messages the world gives you. Something powerful I got from this present moment awareness was what I called "the truth test". After playing and getting out of the intense present moment of the game, my thoughts would slowly come back and I soon realised that my first response to those problems was my true response. That first response was pure love in me talking. No fear, no calculating or agenda driven. I knew the first response was what I needed to act on. It may not make you a billionaire over night and it will will probably kick off your own crazy journey of following your truth. Steve jobs once spoke about how you cannot join the dots going forwards. I would agree. There are so many things which are out of our control and all we can do in this crazy amazing world is take charge of what we can control and listen to our gut. You will look back on the journey you’ve been on and your growth will be miles ahead of those who became slaves to their minds and the voices of others.