The Power of Momentum in the Game of Staying Healthy

Switching back and forth between watching the World Cup and Wimbledon over these past few weeks, I realized why I enjoy watching sports so much.

It’s not just to find out which team or player won the game. I can check ESPN for the score any time after the game is over.

What drives me to watch these games is the human drama, the conflict, the ebbs and flow of how the game plays out with each team or player alternating between playing brilliantly one moment and then, suddenly, having the wheels come off the next. This sudden shift of momentum from flawless execution to committing a series of miscues could be brought about by a bad call from a referee, a mental lapse that allows an opponent an easy point, or simply a failure to execute a basic move or shot that causes a loss of confidence.

Each player in the game has to constantly contend with this fluctuation between success and failure. The fortunes of the game can swing like a pendulum between two extremes. At one end, we see flawless displays of execution where everything goes just right to, at the other extreme, moments when it appears the player is struggling just to stay in the game. 

This back and forth quality to most athletic contests seems to characterize not only games played by amateurs, but those played by professionals as well.

What can explain this inconsistency in performance by athletes, even by those lucky enough who play games for a living? The simple answer is because they, just like the rest of us, are human, imperfect and flawed, susceptible to their emotions and the breaks of the game that can turn against them at any moment.

This explains why a professional basketball player like J.R. Smith of the Cleveland Cavaliers could lose track of the score in the waning seconds of Game 1 of the 2018 NBA Finals?

With the score tied and a few seconds remaining, Smith grabbed a rebound, and instead of taking a shot to win the game, he dribbled the ball away from the basket to run the clock out. Why would he do such a thing? He mistakenly thought his team was ahead by a point, not tied, so naturally he wanted to run the remaining seconds off the clock to maintain possession of the ball and secure the victory.

His mental lapse cost his team a shot at winning the game. They went on to lose the game in overtime and eventually the championship series to the Golden State Warriors. Keep in mind that J.R. Smith is a professional basketball player, someone who has played in the NBA since he was 19. Today he is 32.

His blunder at such a critical time in the game illustrates how even the most experienced professional athletes cannot play at the height of their abilities all the time. They are going to commit their share of errors and, in some cases, experience some heartbreaking defeats because of them.

But this is not much different than in real life when we let ourselves down by making bad choices or failing to live up to our own standards. We have days when it feels like we are doing everything right. We eat all the right foods, have a great workout, and get great blood glucose numbers. We feel like we are on the right track and we feel great about ourselves and our progress.

But just as soon we feel that everything is going right, we slip. We miss our workout. We fail to resist that donut staring back at us from the Krispy Kreme box a coworker brought in. We don’t get enough sleep. We see higher blood sugar numbers as a confirmation that we have failed to follow through on our promises.

Our ability to frame these failures as nothing more than temporary setbacks—not permanent character flaws—is critical if we want bounce back, regain our confidence, and keep making progress.

Giving into temptation and grabbing that bag of Doritos or deciding to stay on the couch binge-watching Game of Thrones instead of heading for the gym is going to happen from time to time because we are imperfect. We are going to experience our share of momentary lapses of willpower, resulting in making poor choices or failing to do what we know we should have done.

If J.R. Smith, a multi-millionaire professional basketball player, can lose his focus and forget what the score is during the most critical part of a championship game, who are we to expect perfect execution and discipline in achieving our health goals? Why do many of us allow one or two bad choices to derail our progress and make us lose our motivation? What separates us from professional athletes who must deal with these inconsistencies of performance throughout their entire careers?

The difference is that professional athletes have been trained to frame their errors and setbacks as temporary, negative swings of momentum that will eventually swing back in his or her favor if, that is, they don’t allow themselves to become unraveled and lose their confidence when these breaks of the game go against them.

These professionals have been trained to mentally frame the expected shifts in momentum as part of the game. Rather than allowing themselves to lose their confidence and question their ability after a series of setbacks, professional athletes find a way to survive the bad breaks and come back even stronger. This kind of attitude and mental resiliency is what makes these athletes highly-paid professionals who make millions of dollars every year, but we can adopt this same kind of attitude after we experience our own setbacks and reversals.

Imagine if we adopted this same mindset after we fail to stick to our diet or get too comfortable on the couch and don’t exercise? Instead of beating ourselves up with negative thoughts that will undermine our confidence and motivation, we can tell ourselves that this negative momentum can be turned around in our favor if we simply keep ourselves in the game and not give up.

A great example of this attitude was on display at this year’s Wimbledon quarterfinals.

Kevin Anderson had lost the first two sets and was one point away from losing the match to the tournament’s eight-time champion Roger Federer.

From the beginning of the match to the moment when Federer was on the brink of victory in the third set, the momentum had been continually with Federer and against Anderson. A lesser player who was incapable of viewing the match as a series of momentum swings might have thrown in the towel after losing the second set. After all, imagine losing the first two sets of a Wimbledon quarterfinal match to one of the greatest tennis players to have ever played the game and still believe you can still win. 

But with his back against the wall, Anderson staved off defeat by managing to take the third set 7-5 and eventually the next two sets to secure the victory. The match took over four hours to complete.

So even though Anderson struggled early in the match and was just one point away from losing it, he never lost faith that the momentum of the game could eventually break in his favor, and when it did, he would be ready for it.

Watching these types of comeback victories reminds me that victory is rarely easy and there are always going to be ups and downs, advances and retreats.

I keep this in mind whenever I begin to feel discouraged by my own failures to eat healthy and exercise. I can have days and weeks where I feel extremely disciplined and do everything I should be doing; eating lots of vegetables, drinking plenty of water, avoiding carbs, and working out.

But then these productive periods of discipline and accomplishments can sometimes be followed by days, even weeks, of slacking off on my healthy diet and skipping my workouts.

If I allow myself to give in to negative thinking, I can begin to second-guess my self-discipline and ability to stay motivated.

Why did I not follow through on my plan? Why did I give in to temptation and decide to lounge on the couch all night watching TV when I should have been at the gym working out? Why couldn’t I say no to that bag of Doritos that someone left on the coffee table right in front of me?

But just as these thoughts begin to emerge and establish a foothold in my brain, I think back to those comeback victories like Kevin Anderson at Wimbledon and realize that I can still turn things around and get back on track. I just have to do something that will help the momentum shift back in my favor.

By viewing the challenge of eating healthy and exercising as simply a game where there will always be ups and downs and swings of momentum, I can quickly recover from my mistakes and get back on track.