#003 | THE PIVOT: Kick-off your new season

Get ready for the whistle to blow

As the start of the premiership season approaches, we are again preparing to champion our favourite teams in the hope of silverware and those glory moments against the historical rivals we always take most pride over beating.

It’s amazing how passionate we can get when it comes to supporting a team local / national / international – there is something about competition, community and following that is unique in our human psychology.

Maybe it’s an escape for many; a few hours a week where the worries and woes of day-to-day life can be forgotten and a chance to cheer and celebrate ‘our team’.

Regardless of the sport or the team; I think there is a lesson in this that we can apply in our everyday lives which I will come back to at the end of this blog.

New season is beginning and it coincides soon with the start of a new academic year for many in the UK.  So in reality we are in a position to treat this as a ‘new year’ in the sense that we can start afresh with goals and vision boards. 

I’ve yet to come across anyone pushing this as a chance to define new resolutions.  In fact who even decided that a resolution can only come at new year time.  It’s absolutely absurd that we pin our plans for the year at the single most depressing time of the year in that it’s dark, its cold, its post Christmas and post new year and yet we are ready to conquer the world.

Its like we are the phoenix rising from the proverbial ashes of the festive period.  The reality is that most of the goals and vision boards fail to inspire beyond January and certainly by the time valentines day comes along we are no longer in love with those thoughtful ideas but instead are now far more interested in the next calendar highlight which almost comes with great relief as a moment to relax and cherish.

So lets go with the premise that the majority of resolutions do not progress beyond mid-February which is around 6 weeks. Given this rate of resolution decay in January, we can say a resolution has a half-life of 1 week. Which basically means the energy behind it seems to diminish every week by ½ until it’s close to nil by mid to late February.

That basically leaves the majority of us mere mortals who had all the best of intentions on the 1^st of January with 46 weeks where we are potentially goalless, lost and purposeless. This is surely frightening because we surely can’t make progress year on year.

We shouldn't give ourselves only one officially recognised opportunity each year to reset. So we need every trick, hack or mindset re-frame we can apply in order to make the rest of the year count and instead of it being something that fizzles out, we can create milestones through the year to provide the energy needed to continue through the year.

We can use this moment to mark a brand new dawn just like new years but in the height of a beautiful summer with long days with the chance to grow our passion projects and importantly to use the energy that this time of year brings but without the seasonal pressures that the end of year presents.

Aside from this the other opportunity for reflection followed by direction would be our birthdays. Especially the ones that come as we approach or pass mid-life.  These are the pivotal moments when we are searching for the illusive purpose and our responsibility we feel in our life.  Faith calendars or cultural calendars are also a chance to take stock and reset. Essentially, any milestone that works is good enough; we just have to give it importance on a similar scale to the advent.  So there really are several opportunities to kick off a new season.

Every season gives us permission to begin again and perhaps the greatest team we can learn to support is ourselves.

Coming back to the point about cheering on our favourite teams.  If we could get behind ourselves in even a fraction of the way we get behind our favourite teams or sporting heroes we would be boosted as if we have our very own cheerleaders.

If we could dial up the voice of the inner hero every time we feel low on energy and silence the voice of the inner villain what would ‘Team M.E.’ be able to achieve. So as the stadiums start to fill with expectant fans, teams come onto the pitch with the new season kit and the kick off whistle finally blows; we can be grateful for the start of another opportunity to re-energise for at least the next 6 weeks of productivity boosts and dream building. We don't have to wait for January, Monday or the perfect moment as the reality that may never appear. Our next season can begin whenever you decide to show up for yourself.

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