Like millions of people today I am bitterly disappointed by England’s defeat in the European championships final on Sunday night. Not on penalties. No, not AGAIN!
On 26th June 1996 after we lost the Euro ‘96 semi-final against Germany on penalties my disappointment was profound. At the time I was deeply depressed due to two horrendous bereavements that happened in the April of that year. I didn’t just want the feel good feeling from an England victory; I really NEEDED it.
It was not to be. I vowed that night I would never again let football be the difference between feeling good and being thoroughly, unreachably, miserable.
Fans can’t win a game
There is nothing as a fan you can do to affect the result of a football game. Nothing. You may think you can make a difference with your various superstitions watching the game on TV or being at the match and yelling yourself hoarse, the 12th man as it’s known. None of it makes any difference. It can’t. Only the players on the pitch win or lose a game. The hope, the hype, the longing, the yearning, none of it affects the result.
It’s healthy to enjoy sport - though even healthier to take part in one or some kind of exercise. What isn’t healthy, what is possibly detrimental to your health and sense of wellbeing, is placing too much emphasis on the result you want. Yes sport can lift a down mood, depending upon which sport you follow and who you support. But relying on it to do so, hoping it will make all the difference to a down point in your life, can actually make you feel much worse. “Nothing ever goes right for me.” “Why do I always back the losers.” “Typical of my life.” etc etc.
Your goals matter most
It’s much healthier to set your own goals and try to achieve them than to set too much store by other people’s goals. No matter how much you wanted England to win you couldn’t make it happen. But you can make goals in your own life happen. You can set yourself achievable targets, work hard towards them, then feel the wonderful sense of accomplishment when you get there.
I didn’t have anything alcoholic to drink last night watching the game. I’d made room for it in my daily calorie allowance then I decided I didn’t want a drink, or three or four... I knew it would blow my goal of losing weight and I’d be annoyed with myself the next day. It was much more important to me that I didn’t face the penalty of a weight gain from drinking to calm my nerves. then drinking some more to calm them some more, then some more, then drinking to drown my sorrows.
Don’t link your happiness to a football game
So I feel sad the day after but I know it’ll go. I’ll concentrate on what I can do to make my life better. Linking personal happiness to what happens on a football pitch is something I don’t ever want to do again. I haven’t entirely succeeded - that’s why I’m sad and feeling low today as I know millions of others are. But our team will bounce back and we will bounce back. And the best way to do that is to set your own personal goals and work hard to achieve them. Those scores, those results, are by far the sweetest. Because you did it. No one did it for you. You did.