What Being At A Football Match Taught Me About Lockdown

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The FA Cup Semi-Final 2014. Jordi Gomez had converted a penalty fifteen minutes before to put Wigan Athletic in front against Arsenal. If Latics could survive these last few minutes, they would reach the final for only the second time in their history. What a moment for our little club as we hoped for a feat to match the previous year’s achievement, lifting the trophy against the might of Manchester City.

There was only one problem for my family, friends and me. We couldn’t see.

A Little Trick

In the row of seats in front of us was a large group of young men, who were thoroughly enjoying themselves. They were on their feet constantly and my 5’0″ daughter couldn’t see above them even if she stood too. So we dug deep into our psychological armoury to get them to sit down.

We shouted at them.

The results were pretty much as you might imagine. They stayed on their feet, partly as they couldn’t hear us above the din of the crowd and partly because they chose to ignore the people shouting at them. Their actions had led to a reaction by us but it wasn’t enough. We felt powerless and as the seconds ticked by, the frustration grew.

The I remembered something. A little trick my wife used when she was a school teacher.

I waited for a slightly quieter moment and then called, “Thanks for sitting down lads”. They looked at each other, wondered what they should say in response, and then peaceably just sat down. Result!¹

And a thought provoking incident on cause and effect.

Cause and Effect

There are certain things in the physical world that we know to be true. For example, thanks to Isaac Newtown, we know that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. We also know that if we heat water to 100 degrees celsius at sea level, it will evaporate.

This cause and effect is a basic principle of physics. However, it has its limitations in other fields. For example, while the causes of lung cancer are well-known, it is not an absolute given that if you smoke you will develop lung cancer. 

More accurately, smoking hugely increases the probability of your succumbing to lung cancer. In other words, there is no simple cause and effect, partly because there are approximately 60,000 ways our 13 organs can malfunction.

Taking things a step further, if we attempt to apply cause and effect to human mental processes, we quickly find that the principle is of almost no use whatsoever. This lack of cause and effect is perhaps our greatest psychological weakness. 

And our greatest strength.

Stimulus and Response

In 1963, the psychologist Rollo May wrote,

“I would define mental health as the capacity to be aware of the gap between stimulus and response, together with the capacity to use this gap constructively.”²

Stimulus and response? Cause and effect? Sound similar, right? Certainly, at the match, there was a cause which I thought led to an effect. It was only when I chose a different response that it brought it home to me that the effect of shouting at someone to sit down is not set in stone. And therefore in psychological terms, there may be one cause, but many possible effects. So it is with stimulus and response.

Stephen Covey simplified May’s statement by saying, 

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies your freedom and power to choose your response. In those responses lie your growth and your happiness.”³

Psychological Weakness

Generally speaking, few people are aware there is a gap between stimulus and response. Hence why it is our greatest psychological weakness. Just as we thought there was only one way to respond when we couldn’t see at Wembley, so many people go their whole lives responding in the same way to the same stimuli without ever considering that other responses are possible. 

• If someone insults us, we insult them back.
• If we get critical feedback, we feel downhearted.
• If the day doesn’t go as expected, we feel frustrated.

But does everyone respond the same way?

• Some people don’t reply with an insult but rather keep their counsel.
• Some people use critical feedback to improve.
• If the day doesn’t pass as expected, then some people rejoice in the unpredictability of life.

Unhelpful To Us

When I have asked people in my seminars and workshops, how they would respond to a particular situation, the answers are almost as varied as the number of people in the room. I often use a scenario of experiencing rude or dangerous driving, something we’re nearly all familiar with. The attendees are often surprised at how many possible ways to respond there are, especially if they only can imagine using the same one.

What really makes this lack of awareness into a weakness is that very often we choose responses unhelpful to ourselves. 

• If we choose anger at our company for not being promoted, we lose sight of how we can empower ourselves to learn and develop
• If we choose to feel sorry for ourselves because we are ill, our focus is not on how we can get better
• If we choose to blame our partner because of problems in our relationship, resentment builds and solutions are further away

Our Greatest Strength

However, as Rollo May and Stephen Covey recognised, this ability to choose is not only our source of happiness and growth, it is our greatest strength. The knowledge that we can choose our response to any event and then act on this knowledge is the source of our future destiny.

We become solution seekers instead of victims of circumstance. We can take initiative instead of remaining passive. We can see possibilities where once there was only gloom. 

• If we are made redundant, we can use the event as a stimulus for a new career
• If we are bereaved, we can choose to use the future to honour our loved one.
• If there is a crisis, we can look for opportunities to show leadership

And never did it seem more appropriate to examine our responses to an event, than it does right now, in the Covid-19 pandemic. And we can start with my own.

Lockdown Starts

When the current crisis started and the UK went into lockdown, like many other people, I felt scared, almost to the point of paralysis. However, remembering the incident at Wembley, I soon realised I’d been in this position before.

My initial response to the pandemic was about as helpful to me as shouting at those lads. So, after a while, I thought about it some more and I chose a different response. I decided to take back some control over a situation which threatened to overwhelm me. I took a sheet of paper and wrote down “What Can I Do About It?” and then a long list of ways I could take back some control over this threatening situation. I felt uplifted and was soon able to move forward again.⁴

Three Thinking

If you’d like to think about your own experience of the lockdown and what it tells you about your ability to choose your response to a stimulus then consider the questions below.

1. What was your initial response to the spread of the virus?
2. How have your responses changed since lockdown started?
3. How do you think you could have responded better at the beginning?

I hope your answers are enlightening and that they open up possibilities for you in your life. And next time you have someone in front of you at a football match …. well, you’ll know what to do.

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1. Unfortunately that was the only result which went in our favour that day. We conceded a late goal and then lost on penalties at the end of extra time. No FA Cup Final that year.
2. From Freedom and Responsibility Re–examined in “Behavioral science and guidance:proposals and perspectives” edited by Esther Lloyd-Jones and Esther M. Westervel New York : Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1963.
3. In his seminal book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I’m a big admirer of this book but I feel confident that had Stephen Covey been at Wembley, he’d have shouted at those lads too.
4. Since you ask, I wrote down mainly things to do with looking after myself, my attitude and what opportunities there could be for my work.