🚣 Mastering Your Inner Game
How I Paddled Through Self-Doubt and Why You Can Too
🌊 The Kayak That Capsized
My hands were swollen. Puffy and red from paddling in my kayak for hours. Yet we were still the last kayak in the expedition.
When I was in my 20s, I joined a 3-week Outward Bound Program in Singapore. The ultimate challenge was a four-day, three-night kayak expedition in the open seas, going a full circle around the island of Singapore.
I am not a swimmer, and parts of the route cut through choppy open seas where massive cargo ships crossed the Straits Channel between Singapore and Malaysia. Capsizing was a real threat. Even with a life jacket, you’d have to flip the kayak back, climb in, and hope the currents didn’t drag you away. I was terrified from the start.
My kayak partner was this confident and muscular person who looked like he’d done this a hundred times. Which made it obvious: I was the problem. We were falling behind because of me. The expedition leaders kept shouting for us to paddle harder. We were lagging so far behind that my anxiety quickly turned into a deep sense of failure.
My mind was flooded with these thoughts:
We’ll never catch up. It’s my fault we’re last.
The leaders are annoyed with me. Everyone thinks I’m holding the team back.
I’ll capsize in the open water. I can’t swim. I’m going to drown.
In my head, my kayak had capsized. I had already drowned.
When we finally beached that evening, my expedition leader decided to switch out my partner to balance the weight on my kayak.
Wait, so it may not be my fault?
I looked at my swollen and blistered hands and realized something: I was doing the work.
That realization shifted everything. The next day, we caught up to the middle of the pack. On the third day, I found my rhythm, pace, and confidence. By day four, we finished the loop around Singapore successfully.
At the time, I didn’t know it yet. That was my first lesson in the inner game.
⚖️ The Two Games Of High Performance
In every challenge we face, we are playing two games simultaneously:
The Outer Game: This is what we do to overcome external obstacles. It requires skills, strategy, and effort. For me, it was my paddling skills, the ocean, and the 4-day deadline.
The Inner Game: This is the battle taking place in our mental arena. It’s the thoughts and stories that shape our potential, focus, and performance.
We spend our lives focusing on the Outer Game, e.g., learning a skill, winning a customer, or getting the promotion. But it’s the Inner Game that determines how much of that potential we actually get to use.
That day, I was paddling for my life in the ocean, but the real danger was the story I was telling myself.
When an event happens, our mind assigns meaning and creates a story. Two people can experience the same event and walk away with completely different stories.
Our thoughts are our interpretation of events, not facts.
But in the moment, our thoughts feel like facts. And that’s the trap.
⚠️ The Thinking Traps That Sink Us
The thoughts that held me back on the kayak are thinking traps. These are common, faulty patterns of reasoning that feel true but are actually just distortions of reality.
These are the five common thinking traps I’ve come across:
Catastrophizing: Predicting a negative future outcome and spiraling to the absolute worst-case scenario. (”My client looks unhappy. I’m going to lose the deal. Then I’ll be fired. I won’t be able to pay my rent and I’ll be homeless.”)
Mind Reading: Assuming you know what others are thinking without seeking evidence or feedback. (”I received blank stares from my colleagues when I made a comment in the meeting. They must think my comment is useless.”)
Self-Blame: Over-estimating your influence on negative events and blaming yourself for things that are outside of your control. (“There was an escalation from the partner on the project. It must be all my fault.”)
Discounting Positives: Downplaying wins and focusing only on the negative. (”My promotion was just luck. I had a negative comment in my performance evaluation. That means I’m not good enough.”)
Should-ing: Having rigid rules about how you or others must behave, leading to guilt, shame, and blame when those rules are inevitably broken. I’ve found this trap to be more common in Asian cultures where we grew up with societal norms on how we or others should behave. (”I should have spoken up sooner. I shouldn’t have said that. He should have consulted me first.”)
In my kayak example, I was trapped by catastrophizing, mind reading, and self-blame, which made me perform worse. My partner in the same kayak was probably thinking about something entirely different.
Once I noticed the story I was telling myself, I started to win my Inner Game.
In my coaching practice, my coachees usually come asking for help with the Outer Game, e.g., communication skills, executive presence, strategic thinking, etc. Yet we almost always end up working on the Inner Game because that’s the main obstacle to overcome first. You can have all the right skills, but if your mind is telling you that you’re going to fail, you probably will.
Our thoughts have the power to shape our emotions. Our emotions, in turn, drive our actions, which determine the level of our performance. Hence, it is important to learn how to master our Inner Game before we can succeed at our Outer Game.
💡 Your 3R Framework to Win the Inner Game
Mastering the Inner Game isn’t about eliminating negative thoughts. It’s about recognizing that a thought is just a thought, and you have the power to choose the one that moves you forward.
To win the Inner Game, I’ve co-created a simple and practical technique with Marriot Winquist that we call the 3R Framework: Recognize, Review, Reframe.
1. Recognize. When an incident triggers a shift in emotion or if you can’t stop thinking about the incident, that is your signal. Pause. Ask yourself: What happened? What did I think? What did I feel?
2. Review. Identify and label the thinking traps. Name it to tame it. Then ask yourself: What’s the evidence for this thought? What’s the evidence against it? This simple review process interrupts the spiral.
3. Reframe. Finally, using the evidence you reviewed, reframe your initial thought to an alternative thought that moves you forward. Instead of: “I’m going to fail,” try: “This project is a challenge, but I have succeeded in many similar projects in the past. I will focus on the next step to make progress.”
This isn’t about positive thinking or pretending problems don’t exist. It’s about testing whether your thoughts are actually true and finding a different thought that is also true and serves you better. The goal is to get unstuck and move forward.
💪 Your Inner Game Challenge
Think of an incident that still lingers in your mind. Which of the five thinking traps were you caught in? Identify them and then use the 3R framework to reframe your next step.
The strongest people aren’t the ones who never doubt themselves.
They’re the ones who learn to question their own thoughts and paddle on anyway.
When you master your Inner Game, you’ll unlock your true potential.