Penalty kicks and resolutions

2006, Oslo, Norway.

Geir Jordet, Director of Psychology at the Norwegian Center of Football Excellence, has just spent five years of his life watching video clips of penalty shots from every international men's soccer tournament for the last half century. He wanted to know what factors, if any, affect accuracy when kicking a penalty shot.

Not surprisingly, anxiety plays a huge role, so factors that either mitigate or enhance anxiety have a significant effect on accuracy. For instance, when a player puts the ball down, if he turns his back on the goalie and walks away to his starting spot, his accuracy suffers. If he backs away from the ball while facing the goalie, his accuracy improves. [Apparently, there's less opportunity to consider one's circumstances (anxiety!) while staring down an opponent.]

One useful finding involves the moment after the whistle blows and before the player kicks the ball. Players who pause less than 200 milliseconds (less than half the time it takes to blink) score 57% of the time. But players who pause for longer - even just a second - score 80% of the time. A huge increase in accuracy for those who take a moment to pause, and be still, before taking action.

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According to our Gregorian calendar, tomorrow is the first day of a new year. Never one for a cliché, I've often resisted New Year's resolutions. But it turns out there's some good science behind temporal landmarks and their power to motivate (aka. the Fresh Start Effect).

Tomorrow, I will pause these notes to take a moment of stillness before starting our 2025 agenda.

But then, I hope you will join me in embracing a cliché and using the Fresh Start Effect to empower some courageous changes.

(If you prefer a podcast to a study, here's a The Happiness Lab episode about the Fresh Start Effect.)