Getting Out of Our Own Way

By Paul Yung

I have been playing quite a bit of pickleball recently, and I discovered something rather strange.

The harder I tried to play well, the worse I played. There were games where I would tell myself, paddle up, move your feet, drive this ball, drop the next one, watch the angle. And almost immediately, the ball would fly somewhere it had absolutely no business going.

Then came the second mistake. “OH SHIT! That was terrible!” Followed, naturally, by another terrible shot.

But on other days, something completely different happened. I stopped thinking. I stopped giving myself instructions. I stopped judging every shot.

I just played. And suddenly, I was better.

This fascinated me because logically, it makes absolutely no sense. Surely using more of your brain should make you better at something, not worse?

Apparently, not always.

I started reading about what psychologists sometimes call excessive conscious control. Once we have practised something enough, whether it is swinging a racket, playing a musical instrument or delivering a presentation, parts of that skill become automatic. Our body has learned what to do.

Psychologist Sian Beilock and her colleagues have studied what happens when skilled performers “choke”. Once a movement has become learned and automatic, consciously controlling every component can interfere with something the body already knows how to do.

Think about walking down a staircase. You probably do it effortlessly every day. But imagine consciously instructing yourself: lift right foot 15 centimetres, extend forward, lower heel, transfer weight, now left foot.

Suddenly I have probably made walking downstairs more dangerous.This also explains why athletes develop rituals.

I now bounce the pickleball against my paddle two or three times before serving. Basketball players bounce the ball. Golfers rehearse their swing. Research on sporting routines has found that consistency before execution can support performance.

But rituals do not belong only on the sporting field.

Before I walk on stage to give a speech, I take three deep breaths. Someone else might straighten their jacket, repeat a phrase to themselves or simply pause for five seconds before beginning an important presentation.

The ritual itself is not magic. It is a signal.

It tells the noisy, conscious part of our mind, “Thank you very much, I’ll take it from here.”

We have already prepared the slides. We know the subject. We have rehearsed the speech. Just like an athlete has practised the serve thousands of times, there comes a moment when preparation must give way to performance.

Perhaps that is what a good ritual does. It creates a small bridge between the two. It quietens the instructions, settles us into the moment and allows our training and experience to take over.

And this is where I realised the lesson goes far beyond sport. I have experienced it many times in business.

Should I hire this person? Should I buy this property? Should I enter this partnership?

Sometimes all the numbers look right, yet something feels wrong.

Daniel Kahneman and Gary Klein studied intuition and found something important. Good intuition is not magic. It becomes more reliable when we have spent enough time in an environment to recognise patterns and have received enough feedback to learn from them.

In other words, your gut may actually be years of experience speaking before your conscious brain has found the words.

But please do not misunderstand me.

I am not suggesting you withdraw your life savings tomorrow because your stomach told you Bitcoin looks exciting.

As the joke goes, you cannot always trust your gut. Sometimes it is full of shit. Do the homework. Study the numbers. Gather the facts. Perform the due diligence. Train. Practise. Prepare.

But eventually, thinking has completed its job.

That may be the real lesson.

We spend years teaching ourselves what to do, only to spend the important moments talking ourselves out of doing it. Perhaps mastery is knowing when to think, and more importantly, knowing when to stop.

As we enter the final quarter of 2026, maybe there is something you already know you need to do. You have studied it, prepared for it and thought about it long enough. Perhaps now it is time to trust yourself and take the shot.

Wishing all my fellow Subang Jaya residents a strong final quarter. With the haze we have experienced recently, please keep an eye on the API and take care when air quality deteriorates.

Here is to good health, clear skies, quieter minds and a fantastic finish to the year.