I recently wrote a post about the nature of progress. One of the points was about the psychological challenge of trusting that work is being accomplished even when, for the time being, no improvements are visible. There is a companion challenge to this: learning to trust yourself. Periodically, you encounter points where progress requires a certain commitment of confidence, and at these points the caution and circumspection that might otherwise serve you well need to be laid aside in favour of a certain boldness. You need to trust in the abilities you’ve acquired so as to apply them without reservation.

A couple of years ago, I read a book that revolutionized my approach to learning tennis technique. The Inner Game of Tennis, by Timothy Gallwey, outlines an unconventional method of practice based on insights from Eastern philosophy. One of the main tenets of Gallwey’s method is that the body has an intelligence of its own, which is an intuitive and kinetic intelligence distinct from the rational and logical intelligence of the conscious mind. Technique is best learned by giving the body the opportunity to apply and develop its special intelligence in a natural way unconstrained by explicit mental rules. This is difficult because learning technique is usually dominated by technical rules that outline in punctilious detail what you’re supposed to do, how, and when. According to Gallwey, you should learn to let go of the need to follow these rules consciously because you handicap yourself through overthinking. Instead, you should allow yourself to deploy your natural and acquired physical instincts. Similarly, when you’re playing, you unlock the highest level of performance by being “in the zone”, that elusive state where you play without thinking, unconsciously implementing your game sense.

This method is marked by a constant struggle with the tension between control and letting go. You labour under the illusion that doing things deliberately and meticulously observing rules will improve performance, but in reality it stifles you. You become hamstrung by reticence, too insecure to believe that you have the skill to execute. There comes a time at which you have to make a small leap of faith by exercising the belief that you know how to do it. For example, I’m trying to develop a good top spin serve. When I’m just practising and nothing’s at stake, I freely throw my arm and pronate my wrist, arcing the ball beautifully. But in a pressure situation like a match, I cramp up. I haven’t yet learned to trust my serve, and so I revert to the stiff, overly wrought style of someone following a textbook. Until I make the leap, my serve will stagnate.

As observed by Ben Hogan in The Modern Fundamentals of Golf, much of practice is not really about developing technique but rather about gaining confidence. The ability to repeat at will a particular movement, such as a drop shot, rests on this trust. For a long time I actually thought this idea was absurd because I saw it as presupposing a kind of schizophrenic internal division. I’ve come to realize, however, that there is an executive part of a person, which observes and makes higher-order decisions, such as whether to intervene deliberately in an instinctual response or action. You trust yourself when this executive part chooses to abstain from interference, on the supposition that rational guidance is no longer warranted because the other parts of you have a self-sufficient natural fluency. Only once you advance this trust can you experience what you’re really capable of. Slowly, I’ve been learning this essential skill.