Are You Giving Away Your Game? The Power of Agency
“Give it away, give it away, give it away now…” We do it all the time. Not our money. Not our stuff.
Our agency.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers sang it…and we hand it to the coach. The boss. The official. The circumstances. The person making the decision. The result.
And most of the time, we don’t even realize we gave it away.
“I’m not playing, so there’s really nothing I can do.” “My boss already made up their mind, so there’s no point in saying anything.” “Coach keeps changing my role. How am I supposed to play well?” “The umpire took that at-bat away from me.” “She took my spot.” “Coach doesn’t trust me.” “Nobody communicates around here.”
Spend enough time around humans in sport or business and you hear some version of these statements all the time.
Some of them may be true.
You may not be playing. Your coach may have changed your role. The administration may have made a decision. The call may have been terrible. Someone else may have earned the spot or job you wanted. You may not feel confident today.
The problem isn’t necessarily the circumstance. The problem begins when the circumstance convinces you that you no longer have any say in what happens next.
That’s when we give away our agency…a fancy word for recognizing where you still have influence, choice and control…and using it.”
I just finished reading Nir Eyal’s Beyond Belief, and one part immediately made me think about athletes and mental performance…or anyone who performs, for that matter…but especially those who are affected by decisions they do not make.
Eyal describes the three powers of belief as:
Attention — our beliefs influence what we notice.
Anticipation — our beliefs influence what we expect.
Agency — our beliefs influence what we believe we can do.
In other words, beliefs don’t simply sit in our heads. They affect what information gets our attention, what we expect to happen and what actions we believe are available to us.
If you’ve followed the work of Stanford psychologist Alia Crum, this may sound familiar.
And it is. But it’s just different enough to be useful.
Crum studies mindsets, which she defines as core assumptions we hold about things in our lives that orient us toward certain expectations, explanations and goals.
I often describe a mindset as a lens.
What do I believe stress means? What do I believe failure means? What do I believe pressure means? What do I believe being benched means?
That lens influences how we interpret what is happening around us. Crum’s research has shown that changing the way people view things like stress can change their psychological, behavioral and even physiological responses.
Eyal’s Three Powers fit alongside that idea, but I see a slightly different question.
Crum helps us examine the lens. Eyal helps us examine what that lens does.
What does the belief cause me to notice? What does it cause me to anticipate? And perhaps most importantly, what does it make me believe I can, or cannot, do?
Crum’s stress research even makes an important distinction between a mindset and a coping strategy. A mindset shapes the meaning we give something; coping is what we actually do when we encounter it.
This distinction is huge for performance.
Imagine an athlete whose underlying belief is, “If Coach isn’t playing me, there’s nothing I can do.”
That belief becomes the lens. Then the Three A’s can start showing up. Attention goes to noticing every piece of evidence that "Coach doesn’t believe in me.” We anticipate and expect that nothing is going to change. Then comes agency…or lack thereof, and I stop believing my preparation, communication, response or development can make any difference.
One belief has started shaping an entire experience…and everything I do!
If we can change the belief to, “I don’t control the lineup, but there are still things here that belong to me,”, suddenly we may notice different information, anticipate different
possibilities, and, most importantly, act differently.
That’s where agency really interests me.
Because I think athletes give their agency away far more often than they realize. Agency isn’t believing that I control everything. It is believing there is still something I can do.
And there is some fascinating research showing just how powerful that distinction may be. It’s one of my favorites because I can see old people moving furniture around with glee 😉!
Nearly 50 years ago, psychologists Ellen Langer and Judith Rodin conducted what has become a classic study of choice and personal responsibility with nursing-home residents.
One group of residents was encouraged to make more decisions about their lives. They could make choices about how their rooms were arranged, how they spent their time and other aspects of daily life. They were also given responsibility for caring for a plant.
Another group received a very different message. The staff was there to take care of things for them. Staff made more of the decisions on where their furniture would go and cared for their plants.
Think about that. Same nursing home. Very similar circumstances. But a very different message about who had influence over the experience.
The residents given more choice and personal responsibility subsequently showed improvements in alertness, active participation and general well-being compared with the other group.
Researchers followed them again about 18 months later, and the group originally given greater responsibility and choice continued to show advantages on measures of functioning and health. Those with more agency lived longer…that doesn’t mean we can stretch this to say that “having choices makes you live longer.” But the study is evidence of the importance of perceived control and personal responsibility.
The bottom line? When people believe they have choices, responsibility and influence, they engage differently with their experience.
THEY HAVE AGENCY!
Now think about sport. We talk constantly in sports about controlling the controllables. And it’s great advice! But I think athletes sometimes accidentally make a dangerous leap from “I can’t control this” to “There’s nothing I can do.”
Those are not the same thing.
You cannot control whether your name is written in the lineup. But you can prepare as though your number could be called on the next pitch.
You cannot control every decision your coach makes. But you can ask questions, clarify your role, study what is being asked of you, train differently, communicate and decide how you are going to respond.
You cannot control a bad call. But that call does not get to choose your next pitch, possession, serve, shot or interaction.
You cannot control whether somebody else performs well enough to get the job you want. But their performance does not eliminate your opportunity to improve yours.
You cannot manufacture the feeling of confidence whenever you want it. But you can still choose to compete.
Agency isn’t believing you control everything. Agency is recognizing that there is almost always something that is still yours.
Imagine two athletes sitting beside each other on the bench. Both want to play. Both are disappointed.
Athlete #1 believes, “Coach has already made up her mind. Nothing I do matters.”
Athlete #2 believes, “I don’t control this decision. But there are still things I can do that matter.”
Now think about what happens next.
The first athlete begins noticing every teammate who gets called instead, every interaction that feels unfair, every mistake Coach ignores in someone else. Every reason to check out.
The second athlete begins noticing what the pitcher’s doing, what tendencies she’s seeing, what the team needs, what she can learn or improve tomorrow and how to stay ready.
Same bench. Same coach. Same circumstance. But the belief changes the lens. The lens changes attention.
It changes anticipation. And it changes agency. Eventually, it changes behavior.
That is why beliefs matter.
This is also why I keep coming back to our Three Power Moves. I’ve always taught them as things we can do to help ourselves perform better.
But the more I think about agency, the more I realize that the Three Power Moves are agency training. They repeatedly remind us that we still have something available to US!
Power Move #1 says we can always choose one thought over another. We may not control which thought shows up, like “This is unfair”, “I’m blowing it” or “Coach doesn’t trust me.”
But we can notice that thought and choose where to put our attention next. What’s my job right now? That’s agency.
Power Move #2 says we have a Response-Ability. We don’t choose every event, but we do have the ability to train our response. A mistake happened. A call happened. A lineup decision happened. Feedback happened. Now what? One moment does not automatically get ownership of the next one. THAT’S AGENCY!
Power Move #3 says we can always manage our state. We may feel nervous, angry, flat, frustrated or disappointed. But we still have ways to influence our physiology and readiness through breathing, posture, vision, movement, attention and routines.
That’s agency too.
None of the Three Power Moves promises control over the outcome. They remind us where our influence still exists.
And that may be one of the most important jobs of mental performance training. Every tool we teach gives an athlete another answer to the question: What can I do now?
Breathing, self-talk, a routine, mental rehearsal, shifting attention, preparing differently and responding intentionally give us something we can DO!
Mental performance tools don’t give athletes control over everything. They give athletes evidence that they are not powerless.
People don’t develop beliefs about agency in a vacuum. As leaders, we help teach them whether they have it. That doesn’t mean they choose the lineup, set the standards or get every role they want.
It means we remind them that “there are still choices here that belong to you.” “You don’t control the lineup. What is still yours?”
Great questions to ask are, “What options do you have?” “What can you influence?” “What would be useful now?”
Agency doesn’t give athletes control of the program. It reminds them they are still active participants in their own performance.
And finally…agency does not mean everything that happens is your fault. Things can be unfair. Decisions can be wrong. You can be disappointed, frustrated or disagree completely.
And you can still have agency. Agency refuses to let what you cannot control take ownership of what you can.
We all need to try an agency audit every now and then! When we feel stuck, we can ask…
1. What is actually true? Separate the facts from the story.
2. What am I believing this means? “I’m not starting” is a fact. “Nothing I do matters” is a belief.
3. What is still mine? My preparation? Attention? Effort? Response? Communication? Next rep? THIS MAY BE THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION OF ALL!
4. What will I do with it? Because agency isn’t simply knowing you have options. It’s using one.
Then, maybe the next time, “I can’t control that” doesn’t become “I can’t influence anything.”
There is almost always something still available to you. Find what is still yours. Use it. That’s agency.
Manage the moments!
Julie
Julie Jones
Mental Performance Coach
SSB Performance
juliej@ssbperformance.com • 234-206-0946
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