Saturday was one of those days that reminds you why sports are so unpredictable.

Five of the top seven teams lost - GA, TX, AL, IU, ND.

Think about that for a second. These were teams expected to win, teams carrying rankings and expectations into the weekend. Yet all over the country, favorites went down while underdogs walked into games with seemingly less to lose and took their swings.

There’s a mental-performance lesson buried in that.

Pressure changes when you become the favorite.

When you’re the underdog, you can often just play. Nobody expects much from you, so there’s freedom in taking a chance, attacking instead of protecting, and seeing what happens.

Then you become the team everybody expects to win, and suddenly the conversation changes.

We can’t lose this game.

What if we blow this?

Everybody expects us to win.

Notice what happened there. The athlete went from trying to win to trying not to lose.

Those sound almost identical, but they don’t feel the same when you compete.

Paul Was Talking About a Much Bigger Race

Paul understood competition. In 1 Corinthians 9, he uses the athletic world his readers knew to explain the discipline required of someone pursuing Christ.

A runner doesn’t enter a race casually. He trains for it. He gives something up for it. And when the race begins, he runs with purpose.

But Paul’s point wasn’t that Christians should chase trophies. In fact, a few verses later he makes the contrast clear: athletes compete for a crown that eventually fades, while followers of Christ are pursuing something eternal.

So when Paul says, “Run in such a way as to get the prize,” he is talking about intentionality.

Don’t drift through the race.

Know what you’re running toward.

That translates beautifully to competition because pressure gets much harder to handle when your attention shifts away from your purpose.

Playing to Win Is Different From Playing Not to Lose

You can usually see when an athlete starts protecting an outcome.

A quarterback who normally trusts his arm starts double-clutching because he’s afraid of throwing the interception. A basketball player passes up the open three because she doesn’t want to miss. A tennis player who attacked all afternoon suddenly starts pushing the ball back over the net because she can see the finish line.

The skill didn’t disappear.

Attention changed.

Instead of being absorbed in the task, the athlete is thinking about what the result might mean.

That’s where Believe matters.

Believe isn’t convincing yourself that you’re definitely going to win. You don’t know that.

It’s trusting your preparation enough to keep competing the way you trained to compete, even when the stakes get uncomfortable.

If you spent all week practicing the throw, make the throw.

If the shot is yours, take it.

If your job is to attack the line of scrimmage, attack it.

Pressure becomes a lot more manageable when you stop asking yourself to guarantee the result and get back to doing your job.

And Don't Lose the Part of You That Loves Competing

This is also where Have Fun gets misunderstood.

I’m not talking about laughing when you’re losing or pretending the game doesn’t matter. The best competitors care deeply.

I'm talking about playing with the freedom that probably made you good in the first place.

Remember what it felt like before every game became a referendum on your ranking, playing time, recruiting profile, or future?

You competed.

You saw an opportunity and went.

That's often what makes underdogs so dangerous. They aren't carrying the same expectation, so they can play aggressively while the favorite starts protecting what it already has.

But you shouldn't need to be an underdog to compete freely.

You can care about winning without becoming afraid of losing.

That's a big part of Mind Grit. Believe gives you something solid to compete from. Have Fun keeps you connected to the joy and freedom of actually competing.

And 1 Corinthians 9:24 gives us the direction:

Run toward something. Don't spend the race running away from what you're afraid might happen.

The Daily Faith Rep

When you notice yourself getting tight because the outcome suddenly feels too important, take one breath and ask:

“Am I attacking, or am I protecting?”

Then find the next opportunity and compete.

Take the shot. Make the read. Swing at your pitch. Trust the work you've already done.

You don't control whether you get the prize.

You do control how you run the race.

Pressure is coming. Train for it.

For more information about Mind Grit and Mental Performance training with me, check out my website.

If you would like to download a free book, check out 5 Pillars here.

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