What does it mean to achieve?
In the 2019 documentary The Edge, you watch a lowly ranked England cricket team battle over four years to become the number one team in the world. The players recognise they’re underachieving, they work hard, they practise intentionally, they play for one another and then they beat (almost) everyone in their path. Cue much champagne and dancing.
But then the film asks: what next?
The narrative turns its attention to the dark side of sporting psychology. After the high of reaching their goal, players experience a harrowing emptiness, alongside an increasing sense of pressure to “do it again but better”. The relentless pressure for continual improvement takes its toll; team spirit evaporates, love of the game dissipates, results collapse.
Jonathan Trott, one of the most high-profile players of that period, describes how he worked harder and harder, striving for marginal gains but losing his sense of purpose on the way, eventually succumbing to a stress-related illness and premature retirement from the
