“Present, not Perfect”
A sports-psych related look into the biathlon mental battle by Jake Brown
Jake Brown at the finish of the Ostersund World Cup Pursuit with Paul Schommer and Max Durtchi. Photo credit: Nordic Focus
For the last four years my primary athletic focus has been on improvement. Since I went on a five-week training and racing trip with two US Biathlon teammates in Norway in 2018, I’ve been convinced that the best path toward becoming the best athlete I can be is to simply focus on what I can do today to be better- even if “today” is a race day. On that trip to Norway, we started each day saying it “Starts Now” – meaning, the road to becoming better in the future, no matter what happened yesterday or however apparently imperfect our present circumstances may be today, begins now. In a twist on a great Teddy Roosevelt quote, we must simply do the best with what we have, where we are. No more, no less.
This mentality has been very productive for me. Over the past four years, more days than not I have aspired to improve more than I have aspired to prove- to myself and to others- that I belong on a team or at a place on a results page. However, I find that the more I improve, getting back to that productive “Starts Now” mentality has become more and more difficult. Don’t get me wrong, in my training sessions I have no problem staying focused on doing simply what I need to do to improve. I love doing that work. But I also love competing, and I love racing. I enjoy trying to fight for results. It’s fun, and results are motivating for me.
Yet, sometimes chasing results become too motivating (is that even possible? Most certainly!) and I start to try to force an amazing result by accepting only perfection in my shooting, for example by only squeezing the trigger when everything looks perfect in my sights. Especially in a sport like biathlon, where trying harder on the shooting range doesn’t equate to performing any better, greediness for the perfect result can become a hindrance to performance. Lately I’ve found myself wanting my shooting to make the jump that my skiing has, and instead of just executing my current ability on the range, I try for something extra, something special, and then I often miss shots I really shouldn’t. I’ve had a few instances now where I’ve come into the range knowing that I’m “in it”, and trying to focus on just doing the process, see black target, squeeeezetrigger, just like I’m supposed to. But I think I need to do it perfectly in order to stay competitive in the race. A couple times this has resulted in me holding my breath too long and “overholding” on a target, then subsequently running out of air by the end of the shooting stage and missing more than once. Which is kind of a bummer.
Jake trying to take the perfect shot….and missing the last two.
After one of these races I had a conversation with Dr. Mara, a sports psych with the USOPC and a maestro of mental maxims. She dropped the phrase “present, not perfect.” Bam. It hit me, that, even when I try to “focus on the process” like everyone says you’re supposed to do, I had been demanding a perfect process. Heck, I just need to get back to embracing where I am as an athlete in the present and strive to execute my current ability, which I can promise is far from perfect. Just like the “Starts Now” mentality has helped me to improve from race to race, I hope that the “Present, not perfect” mentality will help me to take another step into the uncertainty of shooting andhave the faith to simply put my present ability on the (firing) line and let the targets fall as they will. “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” Wherever that lands me on the results page, I’ll start from that place when I get back to work tomorrow.