Identity

There was a time when I thought two things in my life would be non-negotiable dislikes: country music, and cricket. The cricket one changed gradually, triggered by what was probably to the country a historic Ashes series, but to me just a sporting event that broke through enough for me to appreciate its worth as exactly that – a sporting event. As a teenager starting to find her tentative feet in elite sport, some combination of the characters (vaguely Pietersen, Flintoff, Anderson, Ponting, Warne), and the intensity, and the general eliteness of the whole thing captured me.

Me, someone who was trying to align mindset with skill; forming a belief system that meant external skill and success could be dictated by internal attitudes and thoughts. Seeing that within sport – whatever the sport – was something that turned from a gravitational pull to an outright addiction.

I don’t know what year that Ashes series was, but I’ve spent probably the following decade wrestling with the same questions in subtly different forms – not just whether mindset shapes skill, but whether they are inextricably linked. Can you have elite skill without an elite mindset? Can you have an elite mindset without elite skill? Of course you can. But more than that: does mindset have the power to actually create skill? And then, in turn, destroy it? Which of those things is most defining in a professional sportspersons’ career?

(There are now also four or five country songs that I like.)

Another preoccupation over the past two years has been the concept of identity. When professional sportspeople have success after a period of struggle, how often do we hear “I had to learn to separate myself as a person from myself as a -insert sport here-“?. I understand the concept, and it’s a powerful and important one. It’s why so many people struggle when they retire. But its something I found incredibly difficult to reconcile when I was at my lowest. Because a large part of the reason I became a successful and elite professional golfer was my identity. Not my identity as a golfer, but my identity as a person. At least that’s something I have long believed and will continue to.

Now that I’m in position where I believe my most successful years are ahead of me, rather than behind me, I’m able to understand some of the reasons why I ended up in as dark of a place as I did. Professional sport is really f***ing hard. Particularly golf. But at the time, when you’re in the middle of it, none of it makes sense.

If you spend most of your life believing that certain aspects of your personality are integral to your success, where does that leave you when you don’t recognise the version of yourself trying to perform week in and week out? There’s a difference between having a few bad weeks, even months, versus having your entire identity crashing in tidal waves of despair around you. In every terror ridden par 3 tee shot, in every green missed with a 50yd pitch, in every shaking hand signing a card in scoring, in every shameful walk away from a practice ground because someone else is there. How can you continue to believe that your mindset and your attitude and your brain are part of what make you elite when by no measure can you continue to call yourself elite? It’s your skill that disappears when you’re performing, but skill isn’t an isolated thing. Not in my opinion anyway.

I was listening to James Anderson and Matt Prior discussing their frustrations and confusions around this England team. The culture that they came from and competed in, while I’m sure wasn’t perfect, was elite. Their identities were, and are, elite. Things such as effort levels and energy and body language were part of being an England cricketer, presumably without being told it should be that way. Presumably because it was part of their identities as elite sportspeople. Different things make different people successful, and I cannot fathom how difficult it must be to manage a team of any kind, never mind one of elite sportspeople. Ben Stokes is one of the people I admire most in English sport, primarily because his mindset is so undeniably elite. And yet the individuals that make up the team of which he is a captain do not all seem to share that. Their skills are elite – maybe not elite enough to beat Australia – but skills do not exist in a vacuum. Skill is influenced by innumerable factors – and in my opinion, your identity is perhaps the most pivotal.

Those innumerable factors (including myself) dragged me down into a darkness I wasn’t sure I could crawl out of. But being elite is an identity. I was right to believe that my identity is part of what me successful in the first place, and it’s why I believe I’ll be successful again. Elite skill alone isn’t enough. But the question turns into what you believe ‘enough’ is. Individuals within the same team may have different definitions of ‘enough’. Everyone’s version of ‘enough’ is different, because everyone has a different ceiling. Not everyone is meant for the extraordinary. Not everyone is meant for the elite. But for me, a huge part of my identity is definitely trying to be.