Tiny point deductions and hundredths of seconds often make the difference between standing on a podium to accept a medal or watching the award ceremony from a seat in the audience. During the Milano Cortina Olympics taking place in Italy, it’s inspiring to see how athletes, on their way to stirring performances, navigate forward through those mistakes and deductions.
Truly successful athletes practice learning from and letting go of errors they’ve made so that they don’t detract from their future efforts. Five-time Olympian and tennis great Roger Federer won almost 80% of the 1,526 singles matches he played. Yet, as remarkable as his record is, he shared in a recent commencement speech that he won only 54% of the points in those matches! In other words, 46% of his efforts ended up in failure.
He taught himself not to dwell on mistakes. He said that “this mindset is really crucial, because it frees you to fully commit to the next point and the next point after that, with intensity, clarity and focus.”
Even if we’re not Olympic athletes, we can practice doing our very best and not dwelling on mistakes. And doing so can be more than a mental exercise; it can have a powerful, prayerful basis. Notice how the Apostle Paul’s words line up with this practice: “This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13, 14).
“The high calling of God” can be seen as performing the roles we each are called to fulfill as God’s creations. God, who Christian Science teaches is Love, Mind, and Life, created us to show forth His powerful and loving nature. That is the real point of our existence. Christ Jesus certainly understood this, and stated, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work” (John 5:17).
God doesn’t view us as flawed individuals who are trying someday to become humanly perfect; no, God knows that we already reflect His nature alone. In God’s eyes we are spiritual, perfect, and so loved. And we should only say to ourselves what God would say about us.
As we are discovering our God-given spiritual perfection and loving goodness, we may make mistakes along the way. If we obsess over those missteps, we may not be ready in the next moment to fully commit to progress with clarity and focus.
As a teenager, I once made the mistake of believing a well-meaning athletic coach who said that he had very low expectations for me. For the next six months or so, I carried this heavy decree like a stone around my neck. My athletic performances fulfilled his predictions and I really stopped liking myself.
I knew I couldn’t keep going on this way and, one day, a friend of mine pointed out an amazing statement from the textbook of Christian Science, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.” Author Mary Baker Eddy reassures readers that “God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis” (p. 258).
The heavy stone fell away as I committed from that point forward to watching only for what God was expressing in me. I learned from my mistakes, yet I also looked forward with relish to seeing more how, for God’s glory, I was created to rise “higher and higher from a boundless basis.” And soon my performances surpassed my greatest hopes.
We each exist to show forth what God is doing and what God is being. The divine Mind who is God is absolutely perfect and we all are included in Mind’s self-expression. Science and Health states, “Omnipotent and infinite Mind made all and includes all. This Mind does not make mistakes and subsequently correct them” (p. 206).
In athletics and beyond, it’s worth it to turn our thoughts now in productive directions. We don’t need to let the mistakes of yesterday take up too much of today. We can be stronger because of them and love ourselves more. Nothing can take from us our God-reflecting ability to “walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work … strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power” (Colossians 1:10, 11).
