If there's one thing I wish I'd done more of in my youth, it's playing sports. It does so much to build discipline, resilience, and integrity. I've been thinking about something Michelle Obama shared in her memoir. When she started dating Barack, she asked her brother Craig, an Ivy League basketball player, to play a pickup game with Barack to evaluate him. They are a sporting family and believe that valuable lessons can be learned through sports. Craig observed that on the court, Barack wasn’t a ball hog. He knew when to pass, but he also wasn’t afraid to shoot when he had the chance. He was respectful, a team player, and he had guts. This basketball game was meant to test his character, and he impressed Craig in every way.

I didn’t think about that story again until this past year, when I started playing sports seriously. At my gym, I began basketball training and played pickleball at the same time. Basketball demands teamwork: you rise together or you fall together. Pickleball, played in singles or doubles, is fast-paced and directly competitive. I've put basketball on the backburner for now to focus on pickleball, but in playing both sports, I quickly learned how to read people on the court. Sports have given me a front-row seat to human behavior, including my own.

On the Court, Character Comes Through

You really can’t hide on the court. The pressure of competition reveals how you handle frustration, whether you're quick to anger, how you treat others, how honest you are, and how graciously or badly you handle defeat.

I play recreational pickleball multiple times a week, and I will say that most people are friendly and chill, because I wouldn't be there if they weren't. The best players have both the skills and the right attitude. They stay calm under pressure. They bring out the best in their partners, even if they are weaker. They aim to win, but it doesn't kill them if they don't. They shrug off mistakes and quietly take note of what they need to work on later.

And there are players who want to win at all costs. They get irritated when they lose a point. They secretly or openly resent partnering with weaker players, finding subtle or obvious ways to pair only with stronger players, even if it means skipping the rotation or cutting the line. They make bad line calls in their favor and get argumentative when challenged. Some might even outright cheat. When they lose, they beat themselves up. Their faces get visibly twisted.

In observing their traits, I’ve become clear on the kind of person I don’t want to be, and the kind of player I do: someone who is patient, persistent, and present. I’ve also learned a lot about myself, like that I’m a stickler for rules and feel a sense of injustice when people break them. I also realized I had some old programming that tied my performance to my worth. These beliefs surfaced during competitive play, and I was able to heal them through energy work.

I sometimes find it jarring how certain people can seem so different off the court. They might appear friendly and charming, but once the game starts, they start exhibiting some of these negative behaviors. It’s hard to fake composure, integrity, or humility in sports when emotions run so high.

Pin

The Pressure to Win and Where It Comes From

The worst people to play with are the ones who take the game too seriously. Even when I'm on the winning side, it's not fun. They seem to feel that every point won against them is a personal attack. If winning matters so much, it must be due to something bigger than a recreational game.

I got some clarity a couple of months ago when I was playing ping pong with a friend. Every time she missed a shot, she seemed to want to break the paddle. Later at dinner, she told us that if she didn’t push herself to win, she felt like she would lose everything. If she failed, she believed she might even become destitute. We laughed at how dramatic and far-fetched that reaction was over a game of ping pong, but perhaps it uncovered the ancestral burden of having to achieve pride for our family or community. Especially as children of immigrants, we grow up believing we have to overachieve to earn our place. We feel responsible for making our parents’ sacrifices mean something.

So even a silly little game can tap into that pressure to perform. Winning and being the best seem linked to self-respect and being eligible for love and value. In this mindset, losing means failure, bringing shame to the family or community, getting cast out from society. The fear feels very real because it has roots in the past.

The Inner Game and Mental Resilience

So how do we overcome the past? By being in the present. Playing sports has a lot in common with meditation. Both require mental focus to stay in the moment. You can’t control your opponents, your partner, or the playing conditions, but you can control your mindset.

If we start thinking about the past, about how things went wrong, how we missed that last shot, how stupid it was, we psych ourselves out. If we focus too much on the future, how many points we need to win or being afraid of losing, we also tense up and make desperate moves. This lack of mental focus is how so many highly skilled athletes end up sabotaging their own game.

The book The Inner Game of Tennis changed how I view competition. It’s surprisingly spiritual, and the lessons can be applied to life beyond the tennis court. The author describes two parts of ourselves that sound a lot like the ego and the soul. Self 1 is the mind, the part that tries to control everything by overthinking, judging, and criticizing. Self 2 is the body’s natural intelligence. It learns by watching, experiencing, and staying present. The challenge is to get Self 1 out of the way and let Self 2 play without fear or hesitation, and the best way to do that is with relaxed concentration. That requires distracting Self 1. The author offers tips on how to do this, including focusing on watching the ball and other ways to stay completely present.

My favorite chapter from the book is about the meaning of competition. In sports, winning or losing is so measurable, but there will always be someone better than you. It seems foolish to tie your self-esteem to being the winner. So then what is the point of winning? The author explains it clearly: you want your opponent to be good, because only then will you unleash your greatest effort, all your skill, courage, and concentration. That is how you rise to your highest potential. Until that happens, your potential might stay hidden within you, a secret even to yourself.

"In true competition, no one is defeated. Both players benefit from their efforts to overcome the obstacles presented by the other." I experienced this in my first pickleball tournament. To qualify for the semifinals, we played a really close match. Even though the other team lost, they were so happy because we had all brought out the best in each other. It's in those kinds of games when both teams can walk away feeling like winners.

In the semifinals, we got destroyed, but I felt proud of myself overall. In moments of intense concentration, I felt my Self 1 step aside and let Self 2 take over. I love that feeling of being in the zone, when the crowd noise fades and it’s just me and the ball. It is meditation in motion. It is not easy to get there, but when I do, it is beautiful.

Pin