How to play the inner game of mind

Photo by Jaryd Rice from Unsplash

If we want to play the inner game of mind, we must get equipped. To get equipped, we must understand our mind, and the rules by which our mind functions. Psychologists have discovered that we have three minds: experiencing mind, narrative mind and thinking mind. Each of this mind performs different ‘functions’. Each of this mind works with its unique rules. We have to learn these rules if we want to utilise them for our benefit.

Keith Stanovich and Daniel Kahneman (Noble prize winner) brought these minds into limelight. For an individual who has limited knowledge of psychology, Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking fast and slow will considerably help.  Here is a brief recap to help you understand the functions and rules of these three minds:

• Experiencing mind is the mind that functions in the ‘present moment’. Whether we are in relationships, or whether we are privately designing a creative plan, our experiencing mind is in action. This mind produces results by ‘pausing’ so that, instead of reacting, it can respond to the situation/event. When we cannot ‘pause’, we often make mental errors derailing our results.
•  Narrative mind is always in action. When our mind has inadequate information about reality, it helps us make ‘sense’ of a situation so that we can move forward. To make sense of situation, narrative mind constructs ‘beliefs’ (or assumptions). For instance, you may adopt the belief ‘Be proactive’ to ensure success. But beliefs are beliefs; they are useful in certain situation, but dysfunctional in others.  For instance, ‘positive mindset’ may help in certain instances. But it also promotes suppression of ‘emotions’ which damages thinking mind’s capacity to find ‘better solutions’. In other words, we must learn to ‘pause’ our narrative mind, identify the invisible beliefs we unknowingly use, take the effort to ‘verify’ them, and if necessary, modify them.  
• Thinking mind helps achieve external goals like making a business plan, designing a bridge, or writing a software program. This is our most-trained mind. But this mind also has a blind spot. It has a tendency to simplify complexity by ignoring the unintended consequences. Due to this blind spot, thinking mind can help man reach moon, but cannot help eradicate poverty. Due to same reason, thinking mind can help us achieve internal goals like happiness in personal life and relationships, only if  we 'pause'  the thinking mind and use it smartly. In other words, instead of using our thinking mind blindly, we must Pause and use it judiciously.

Across all three minds, one theme is common. If we learn to “Pause”, we can play the inner game. We have developed three Pausetive tools to help you play the inner game with these three minds. These tools are developed like Monitors. Like a heart-rate monitor measures your heart-rate, we have developed three monitors to help you track your progress of playing with these three minds. It will therefore help you identify the gaps, if any, and take the next step to equip your mind better. This will help you play the inner game smartly. Once, you can play it, you can more than likely win the outer game of external goals.

All this is psychology. Terms will be initially difficult to grasp. But the effort is not very much. You may have spent considerable time in understanding stock market and financial instruments to maximise the return of your money. We promise you that you will spend even lesser time in understanding psychology to maximise the returns from your limited life. Not only will this effort help you achieve big results, but it will also help you achieve the results that you intend.   

In the next blog, we shall describe the three Pausetive Monitors.

Play the Inner game

In the introduction to his classic book, The Inner Game of Tennis, Tennis coach W. Timothy Gallwey asks us to imagine our life as a series of games. Sometimes it is real game like playing tennis. Or it could be “games” like writing a software program, launching a new training program, or even nurturing a child. In order to play these games well, he argues, we need to understand that every game has two parts: an outer game and an inner game.

The outer game is played against an external opponent to overcome external obstacles and to reach an external goal. Mastering this game is the subject of many books offering instructions on how to swing a racket, club or bat, and how to position arms, legs or torso to achieve the best results.

Most of us are fairly comfortable playing many of the outer games in our lives. Some of us have even achieved a lot of success in, for instance, in work, sports,  or music. 

But Gallwey claims that it is the inner game that often prevents people from playing the outer game. One may achieve a one-time success in a business or a work. But to consistently produce results in work, one must be good in playing the inner game.

Inner game  takes place in the mind of the player, and it is played against such obstacles as lapses in concentration, nervousness, self-doubt, and self-condemnation. In short, it is played to overcome all habits of mind which inhibit excellence in performance.

And it is our inability to play the inner game which thwarts our results, be it in work, relationships or personal life.  We surprisingly spend huge time and effort – in schools, colleges and work – to play the outer game. If we are in knowledge industry ( doctors, engineers, or administrators), we spend huge efforts in learning medicine, arithmetic or science. If we are in sports, we spend huge time in perfecting the physics of game and creating the body required to maintain the game. If we are in entertainment industry we spend huge time in perfecting the musical notes, for instance.

But we surprisingly spend little or negligible time in learning the rules of inner game.  For instance, do you know the difference between thought and emotion? Or understand the difference between fear and anxiety? Or empathy and sympathy? Or assertive communication and aggressive communication? Or beliefs and values? Instead of understanding our feelings, we often club all the feelings in one label, such as “I am upset”. Or “I am bored’. All these feelings tell us something about ‘us’. But because we are not ‘trained’ to hear it, we often ignore, suppress or bypass them.

If we spend years in learning Algebra, History or Geography, why don’t we spend at least a little time learning about our own minds? Because, if we do that, it will open to us our huge potential of which we are capable of. This blog will help you understand the rules of Inner game and how to play it.