{"id":8474,"date":"2021-08-31T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-31T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/?post_type=article&p=8474"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:11:45","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:11:45","slug":"six-considerations-when-seeking-to-understand-the-self","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/six-considerations-when-seeking-to-understand-the-self\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Considerations When Seeking to Understand ‘the Self’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n 31 Aug 2021 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

Six Considerations When Seeking to Understand ‘the Self’<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Category<\/div>\n Leadership & Culture<\/a> <\/div>\n
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Anthony ‘Harry’ Moffitt is a recently retired Australian Special Air Service Regiment [SAS] Team Commander. During a career that spanned almost 30 years he designed, planned, and carried out hundreds of combat missions and lead dozens of sensitive military programs.<\/em><\/h4>\n

Moffitt completed his time in the SAS as its Director of High-Performance. He now practises as a registered psychologist across sports and industry and recently authored his memoir <\/em>Eleven Bats: A story of Combat, Cricket, and the SAS<\/a>. It will be released in the UK on September 11.<\/em><\/p>\n

In an exclusive series for the Leaders Performance Institute, Moffitt shares what his experiences and mistakes have taught him about leadership, the self, and team culture. The focus for part two is ‘the self’ and he offers six considerations. <\/em>Part one, which hones in on leadership, is available here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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By Harry Moffitt<\/h6>\n

Something I took a while to acknowledge was that I was only half as good as I thought I was, and, that I know nothing. As critical elements of self-awareness and as the predecessor of situational-awareness, these are important first steps on the unending journey to self-mastery.<\/p>\n

Having gained this understanding, I humbly offer six considerations of ‘the self’ that I learned during the course of my SAS career.<\/p>\n

1. Self first, team second, unit last<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I first joined the SAS, the mantra was clear: unit first, team second, and self last. I was happy with that as optimal, or so it seemed. At this end of my career, I have come to believe that to optimally contribute to the team it may be the other way around. Analogous to fitting the aircraft oxygen mask on yourself before your children in an emergency, I believe you must be optimised yourself before you can bring your best to the team. And if the team is optimised, then there is not much more you can do to contribute. Often, challenges in another area of one\u2019s life have implications for the team, especially if that person is in a position of responsibility. Self-care is an essential characteristic of high performance \u2013 you are no good to the team if you can\u2019t perform. Isn\u2019t a team only as \u2018strong as its weakest link\u2019?<\/p>\n

2. Be selfish about your ‘third thing’<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is OK to be selfish sometimes. It is OK to be selfish about sleep, time with your kids, or time spent laughing with your mates. It is also OK to be selfish about yourself sometimes. If you agree that your family and friends are your \u2018first thing\u2019. And that your \u2018second thing\u2019 is your vocation or profession. Your \u2018third thing\u2019 is something that contributes to your individual identity and sense of being. Away from home and career it might be an activity (mine might be surfing), a place, such as a sports club, or simply time-well-spent (for me, it might be gardening). It will almost always be associated with a habitat and or community. Many of us, whose identities are inextricably entwined with our profession, can suffer a crisis of identity should it come to an end; we see this a lot in sports and military populations. I believe a \u2018third thing\u2019 provides consistency and comfort and can be a crucial bridge in such transitional periods, helping in the liminality of the transformation process. That is, changing from what you once were into what you are yet to be.<\/p>\n

3. You must learn to master the ‘commentator’<\/strong><\/p>\n

We can observe that 90 percent of what we say is to ourselves and largely in our head \u2013 though I find talking to myself a therapeutic exercise. Mastering the voice in our head, the \u2018commentator\u2019, is important to our ability to reflect and rationalise our experience of the world. I talk a lot about the commentator in my recent book, Eleven Bats:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI learned a valuable lesson about myself in those days, that the little commentator in my head was the imposter. We all have \u2018the commentator\u2019 in our head\u2014\u2018Harry\u2019s in from the southern end, bowls on a good length and, oooooooh, just misses the outside edge over the top of off, nice delivery\u2019\u2014but mine was not always so positive. My commentator\u2019s agenda during those years was to undermine me by telling me how [useless] I was and how everyone hated me. As a psychologist, I now know that many of us struggle with the imposter commentating on our lives. While the commentator cannot be silenced, I have learned to have regular harsh words with him and to regularly put him back in his (commentary) box.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sometimes, the commentator is encouraging and passive. But often the commentator is a negative critical voice. This is completely addressable through reaching out to a psychologist. Always keep in mind that, as in real life, the commentator sits, uninvolved, detached, inconsequential to the game. It is the commentator who is the imposter.<\/p>\n

4. Be Antifragile<\/strong><\/p>\n

Also known as ‘eustress’, the definition of antifragile is \u2018that which gains from disorder or benefits from shock\u2019. Maybe one of the most important books I have read, for myriad reasons, Nassim Taleb\u2019s book Antifragile<\/em> cuts through the psycho-babble and fluff around such concepts as resilience, culture, and leadership. It has, I think, inspired a more sophisticated approach to how I think about human performance. In particular, the concept of being antifragile. Of how we might come to terms with vast implications of randomness and uncertainty. Humans, like life, are messy and unpredictable. Taleb is a good start on the modern journey toward being comfortable in chaos and embracing complexity. The book itself is hard reading, but that is another reason of why it is so good.<\/p>\n

5. Be cautious of Bro-Psych<\/strong><\/p>\n

Every SOF operator, elite athlete, and business leader on the planet has the answer to better performance \u2013 including me, apparently. The issue is evidence. The self-help industry has started a faddish revolution of ‘Bro-Psych’. Often based on a few borrowed one-liners, pseudo psychology and philosophy, it is a billion-dollar industry in a landscape where psychological issues are getting worse and not better. Amplified by social media platforms, we have all been sucked in at some time, including well-known and established academics. Fads such as positive self-talk, bio-hacks, and wellness are too often explained away through linear 2×2 models and lists. While they are useful aids in describing psychological phenomenon, they tell us nothing about the complexity, multidimensionality, and interrelatedness of humans. In the same way a windscreen wiper tells us nothing about how to drive a car, we should be cautious of anything that reduce humans (complex adaptive systems) to simple operating systems.<\/p>\n

6. Leave a legacy<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have always loved the saying: \u2018To be born a good person is an accident; to die a good person is an achievement\u2019. For me, the best way to add meaning, purpose, and satisfaction to my life has been by helping others \u2013 I rate it as a superpower. I think it the most honorable mission to explore, inspire, and improve everyone we meet and everywhere we visit. Of course, we don\u2019t always achieve our mission, but this mantra can ground us when we do inevitably fail. A legacy is not in an effigy, a bank account, or a title \u2013 indeed, these standards are often remembered for the wrong reasons \u2013 a legacy is in the humans who might whisper your name long after you go. Think David Suzuki or Edith Cowan, no one will remember how much money or awards they gained. As we know, people remember how you make them feel and if you enhanced their experience. In time, those people might go on to leave others feeling the same way, a kind of psycho-magnification. In this context, a legacy can thunder through the ages.<\/p>\n

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Harry Moffitt’s Eleven Bats: A Story of Combat, Cricket and the SAS is available from Allen & Unwin.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n

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