Alec Ingold is a fullback for the Miami Dolphins and the author of the book, “The Seven Crucibles: An Inspirational Game Plan for Overcoming Adversity in Your Life.”
The thing I relied on to get to the NFL was my preparation.
It was a great mindset to have, and it served me well for a long time. I wanted to see how far into the deep end I could go, push myself to my limit and see if I could surpass it every single day.
If game day didn’t turn out exactly the way I had expected or prepared for, I would get frustrated because I had done everything I could to be my best. If every single play didn’t hit, I’d get frustrated.
The frustration of not playing to my potential every snap used to motivate me to work harder, but now I was running on an empty tank, without answers. I literally wrote a book about overcoming adversity. I was supposed to know the answers to this test, but found myself struggling to find a way to add value to the guys around me.
That’s the lesson I learned this season: to remove expectations from performance.
Earlier this season, we played a game against Atlanta. We were 1-6 at the time, and I had to change how I played football. We were introducing all these new shifts and motions to the offense, so I had to change my stance and a lot of what I had always done on the field.
I exhausted myself in preparation. I was like: I’m going to control my effort and really go after this thing. There were practices where I was just absolutely gassed.
We got to the game and the offense did great. We blew out the Falcons, and everyone was happy. But on the plane back to Miami, I watched the tape and thought: Man, I sucked.
I didn’t sustain my blocks up to my standard. Everything we had just installed, I wasn’t good at yet. I dug deep to give more than I thought possible and still felt like I let the team down.
I talked with coach Mike McDaniel on the plane. He has a way of opening my perspective. I watched the tape with him and he showed me the big picture of the offense: the blocking angles for the offensive linemen, the pocket for the quarterback, the lanes for the running backs. He showed me how we were able to improve from one week to the next.
And I talked to Frank Smith, my offensive coordinator. He harped on letting go of expectations. He told me not to walk into anything expecting it to be easy or simple or what I want it to be.
That was a lightbulb moment for me, and I started to change my perspective.
I had to let go. I had to remove my expectation that I needed to block every single guy. I had to embrace change and the challenge of whatever happens.
After the Atlanta game, communication shifted from frustration to urgency: “This guy was here but that’s not what he showed on tape. How are we going to fix this?” That has allowed one bad moment to stay one bad moment. Rather than becoming frustrated and emotionally distracted by a new wrinkle, I became a problem-solver.
It’s a challenge every single day. You can have all the positive self-talk you want. You can practice what you preach right up until s— hits the fan. But how do you respond when s— does happen?
You can’t control your initial knee-jerk reaction of emotion. You can’t control being frustrated when things don’t go your way. That’s human nature. But you can control your response to that frustration.
The key for me is to be able to break those frustrating moments down into smaller and smaller pieces. Now I don’t need a full day to respond. I just need to clap my hands. That sound, that touch, is an intentional reminder I’ve developed mentally: OK, let’s reset. Let’s go back to embracing change, not being perfect, letting go and go find a solution to this problem as fast as possible.
I’ll give you an example. We played the Washington Commanders in Spain this season. The jet lag was kicking my butt. We were in a different country. In the second half, I gave up a sack, my first of the year. One of my goals was to not give up a sack this season.
The Commanders’ defense showed something I hadn’t seen on film before — and they got me. I was absolutely ticked off at myself. I was so pissed.
I had done all the preparation I could, but things didn’t go my way and the other team got me. How do you respond to that? How do you finish the job?
Before, I would have thought I let the team down. It took a moment of my intention and presence to let that play go, solve the problem, and get back on the attack, so I clapped my hands to reset.
The game went into overtime. Our defense made some amazing plays. We got the ball back in overtime, and I hadn’t been on the field very much after the sack.
I ran out there with all the guys on the final drive and had a huge block to spring De’Von Achane, our running back, and we kicked a game-winning field goal. Ironically, on that big run play, I was tasked to use one of the new motions we had installed before the Atlanta game and which had so frustrated me. But this time I didn’t even think about it. I just went out there and executed at my best when my best was required.
Looking back, that was the epitome of everything I’ve learned this season about how to let go of perfection and expectations, get back to the present moment and play the next snap.
— As told to Jayson Jenks