Tuesday July 15th, 2008

The exercise:

My ultimate team has now lost six games in a row over the last four weeks and that has got me thinking about momentum. So that's the topic of the day.

Mine:

I really don't understand momentum in sports - winning streaks, losing streaks, a string of points within a single game, whatever. Okay, so you lost your last game... so what? This is a new game, it starts out 0-0 like every other game, it's against a different team even!

I find the psychological aspect of momentum fascinating in this context - I wonder if anyone has done a proper study on it. I guess it would be similar to athletes who get into a "zone", or teams having the "home field advantage"... which I also don't get, but we'll leave that alone for now.

People respond to momentum differently - some try harder if their team is on a losing streak, some give up; some start to coast during a winning streak while others play with more and more confidence and skill. I would love to know the words that could transform the coasters and quitters into the motivated and confident.

I guess if I ever get it figured out I could make some serious cash as a motivational speaker for professional sports teams. Maybe I should go look into that right now...

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