Midpoints and Motivation
Can motivation overcome mathematics in sport?
I recently finished reading When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, written by Daniel H. Pink, which explores how “good” timing can help us to succeed in both our personal and professional lives.
In one chapter Pink discusses the midpoint, and how things can go one of two ways when we reach the halfway point in something.
“When we reach a midpoint, sometimes we slump, but other times we jump. A mental siren alerts us that we’ve squandered half of our time. That injects a healthy dose of stress – uh oh, we’re running out of time! – that revives our motivation and reshapes our strategy,” Pink writes.
The idea of using the midpoint to review and regroup will be familiar to most people who have played or watched sports – how often have you been in or seen a team that’s trailing at half time come out…