The TWAIN blog

My game has been off the past few weeks.

I play racquetball three times a week with a colleague. The sad thing is that this is a colleague whom I taught how to play racquetball just within the past year.

He is consistently beating me now. Knocking the crap outta me!

I kind of laugh it off but it is really start to annoy me. I keep trying different moves, switch hits, and adjusting my swing. I invested in new equipment too.

But…my game suffers because I keep playing the same serves. I can’t get over that hump. I do watch some online videos showing new serves but I don’t attempt them as often as I should. I picked up a business card for a local coach in the area and may invest in some training to get me to the next level.

But racquetball isn’t the only game where I have been off and not changing my plays.

Work is where I have been consistently losing the most ground. I haven’t been challenging myself as I thought I should. I have been in a rut and didn’t know it until I was challenged this week. This isn’t about the substitute situation. That was merely pointing me in the direction to change my perspective to some inner reflection.

My weakness here is also in my serv(ice). I feel I am strung out in so many directions and on so many projects that I am not getting anything done. I am not helping anyone. I am really just stretching myself thin. This isn’t new. This isn’t something I picked up in a new role. This is a pattern of mine.

The symptoms are all the same each time: frustration to depression to going numb. I experienced the numbing two days ago when I realized I had been sitting on my couch for two hours without TV, radio, computer, interaction. I had completely phased out somehow just staring at the clock. Two hours is a long time to go without sleeping or stimulus but that’s what the numbness is to me. That is the rut. That is the barrier.

I immediately cussed myself out (internally) and ended with something like “Snap Out of It!!” (I live alone so therefore I get to yell and cuss myself out.) My pouting was over. It was time to get back into it. It was time to rise up.

And to do so, I have to kick myself in the rear and own up to the fact that I need to do as Alvin Toffler suggested in his quote about 21st century literacy: I need to learn, unlearn, and relearn. I have some work to do.

I played racquetball tonight with this idea of unlearning and relearning. At one point, I actually ran to the ball instead of waiting for it to come to me. I was out of breath. I pulled a muscle. My wrist was sore. I had sweat dripping more than usual. But I realized by doing this step, I had changed my game. In my game, I have been complacent and I stand right in the middle waiting for the ball to come to me. I haven’t been moving. I haven’t been running. I haven’t been out of breath.

I still lost tonight but I feel so much better because I tried; I moved; I ran; I was out of breath; and I tried a new serve.

And I can see so many similarities between this silly game and the silly work game. Can you?