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I generally resist writing about recently taking up pickleball here in my middle years, because I try to avoid clichés in my writing.

But this past weekend my spouse and I played with two friends of ours who are at least a couple of decades younger than we are, and extremely fit and sporty. I’m talking taking-vacations-to-scale-mountains sporty. I’m talking Iron Man sporty.

I, on the other hand, am not what we would ever call sporty. I was a bookish child. PE was my nightmare, a class I struggled in and dreaded. Not only was I picked last for any sports team, but sometimes I wasn’t picked at all (it’s impressive how invisible you can make yourself when you choose to be).

Walking into most gyms gives me full-body paralysis, instantly regressing to that poor awkward adolescent I was, tripping over her own gangly limbs. (When you reach close to your full six-foot height by middle school, coordination and grace are not your strong suits.)

That said, I do enjoy being active—as long as it’s fun!—and regular readers know that in recent years I have even begun strength training with a personal trainer at a small gym…and I’m kind of loving it.

But back to this weekend’s pickleball. Walking into my trainer’s small boutique gym where I am very comfortable is quite different from walking into a giant pickleball facility where scores of incredibly athletic people are killing it on the court, to play with basically two Olympians and my husband who plays almost daily and on two separate pickleball leagues—one of which he recently won.

I felt myself tensing up as we settled in, mentally pre-comparing my basic level of play to their robust athletic competence. I knew I was the weakest link, and apologized for it in advance to my nimble courtmates.

After two hours of absolute hilarity and fun, on the way home my husband and I did our usual post-game breakdown and I said how much I’d enjoyed playing with our friends, even though I knew hadn’t done very well and held the rest of them back.

At which point the hubs issued a reality check, pointing out that I had held my own just fine, making a number of good shots and helping keep the ball in play on plenty of volleys. I was one-half of the winning team on more than half of the games—and it wasn’t because my teammate was carrying me, the hubs reminded me.

I realized that not only had I been focusing more on the shots I missed than the many I got, but that when I had made especially good ones, I was thinking of it as luck or a fluke. I was downplaying the abilities and skills and competence I actually have because I was holding myself up against everyone around me and looking only at where I fell short, rather than where I was doing just fine.

This Post Is Not Really about Pickleball

I think this is something writers do a lot: underestimating or downplaying our own work, our writing, even our own productivity because we’re looking at it against a backdrop of every other writer and myopically focusing on its perceived lacks by comparison, rather than its attributes on its own merits.

Instead of being loyal to the home team we’re doing the opposite: dogging it in favor of the visiting team.

You may recognize this impulse in many different forms: in the automatic self-effacement when someone compliments something you’ve done, in the way you may deflect the praise or diminish the giver of it, believing that they are simply being kind or don’t really know. Sometimes we may be immune to compliments altogether, painfully dwelling on all the areas where we feel we fall short instead of owning the abilities and accomplishments we have.

Talking smack at and about myself in pickleball results in my tensing up and having to overcome the additional hurdle of being in my head instead of in the game, and worrying too much about my prowess.

Versus what happens when I let go, enjoy, and focus on the pleasure of playing and improving rather than beating myself up for my shortcomings in it: I enjoy it a hell of a lot more. And I get better.

Creativity responds only to the carrot,
never the stick.

In writing, this kind of self-smack-talk can freeze you up, fill you with self-doubt, and chip away not only at your creativity but at the very part of you that can access it. And it undercuts your enjoyment in an interest that most of us pursue because we’re passionate about it. Creativity responds only to the carrot, never the stick.

Whereas letting go of all that nonsense, enjoying your own creative efforts, and focusing on the pleasure of engaging in it and improving lets you relish the process.

And yes…you get a whole lot better.

A healthy sense of competition can be helpful and positive and help you to grow and learn. Playing with three strong players this weekend certainly upped my game. Run amok, though, it can have the opposite effect, shutting you down completely.

So what can you do to get out of the mindset of the home-team disadvantage and stop knocking your own writing?

How to Root for Your Own Team

Start by not taking things that seriously. Our pickleball session was full of weekend-warrior heroics on everyone’s part, plenty of good-natured trash talk on the court at each other, and so much laughter that at one point two of us were prone on the court, incapacitated by it. Ultimately, it’s a game.

As important as our writing is to us, ultimately it’s make-believe—at its best a delicious, fun, fiercely free exploration of our imaginations and our psyches. While you may find yourself going after the ball (metaphorically speaking) so doggedly that you wipe out face-first on the ground, you can get back to your feet laughing—what a blast to chase after it that hard! Damn, you really gave it up! Now pick up your paddle and get ready for the next ball.

That approach lets you take a step back and assess the truth more objectively. How is your work really—irrespective of anyone else’s? Given that I’ve been playing only a few months, and only once a week, I’m actually doing pretty well—and every time I play I see how much better I’m getting.

It lets you be more rational and constructive in your assessment of your work too—to more accurately consider its strengths, not just its perceived weaknesses. Did you turn a gorgeous phrase, write just the right scene, find a delightfully unexpected plot twist to get your story where you wanted it to go? Then celebrate that—whether or not the whole thing is “perfect.” (There’s no such thing as perfect.) A great shot is a great shot, regardless of the rest of the game.

Don’t apologize for yourself. I apologized to both my teammates, but the truth was that when I played with each one, we won more games than we lost. And I wasn’t just riding coattails. I had nothing to apologize for, and doing so only undermined me unnecessarily—to them and to myself.

Finally, no matter what, be your own champion—because if you don’t, how can you expect anyone else to? And because you’re the home team, baby…and no matter what, you always stay loyal and root for the home team.

Tell it to me, authors—and be honest: Are you always in your own corner? If not, how does your home team disadvantage manifest? Do you recognize it when you’re doing it—and if so, what do you do to stop it?

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