The Two Arrows: A Buddhist Idea That Every Performer Should Know

Dr Harvey Smith | Sport and Exercise Psychologist | Glasgow

There is a parable from Buddhism that I always come back to in my work. It goes something like this.

Imagine you are walking through a forest. Out of nowhere, an arrow hits you. The pain is sharp, sudden, and entirely real. You did not see it coming and you could not have stopped it. But the parable does not end there. A second arrow follows. And this is where the teaching becomes interesting; because the second arrow, unlike the first, is not beyond your control.

The first arrow is the bad event. The second arrow is your reaction to it; the self-criticism, the shame, the spiral of "why did that happen" and "I should be better than this." The first arrow causes pain. The second arrow causes suffering. And the second one, with practice, can be avoided.

The first arrow

Every performer gets hit by the first arrow. The gymnast who makes an error in competition. The footballer who misses a penalty in front of thousands of people. The business professional who loses a client they were counting on. These things are painful, and they are part of any high-performance environment. You cannot control them, and pretending they do not hurt does not help either.

The first arrow is not the problem. Pain is a normal and expected part of high performance. Research supports this; performance environments are inherently failure-rich, and the psychological challenge is not to avoid difficulty but to respond to it well.

The second arrow

Every performer is also at risk from the second. The gymnast who spends the rest of her routine mentally replaying the mistake she just made. The footballer who carries that missed penalty into training for the rest of the week. The business professional who loses one client and begins to question whether they are good enough at all.

The second arrow is not a sign of weakness. It is an understandable human response. But it is also avoidable; and that distinction matters enormously.

Research into self-compassion in sport suggests that performers who respond to failure with self-criticism rather than self-kindness show greater rumination, more negative affect, and poorer recovery from setbacks. The performers who manage the second arrow well do not care less; they care just as much, but they respond with perspective rather than punishment.

What to do with this

In my work, the first step is simply noticing. In Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, we call these automatic thoughts; the fast, habitual reactions that follow a difficult event. The second arrow often lands before we even realise it has. Learning to pause and ask "is this thought helpful right now?" is a foundational skill. You do not have to believe every thought you have about yourself after a poor performance.

Alongside this, I draw on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help performers build psychological flexibility; the ability to feel what is real without being consumed by it. ACT has a strong evidence base in sport, with research demonstrating benefits for performance anxiety, emotional regulation, and resilience

You cannot always avoid the first arrow. But you can learn to step aside from the second.

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This post draws on peer-reviewed research. Key sources are listed below.

Neff, K. D. (2003). Self-compassion: An alternative conceptualisation of a healthy attitude toward oneself. Self and Identity, 2(2), 85–101. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298860309032

Mosewich, A. D., Kowalski, K. C., Sabiston, C. M., Sedgwick, W. A., & Tracy, J. L. (2011). Self-compassion: A potential resource for young women athletes. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 33(1), 103–123. https://doi.org/10.1123/jsep.33.1.103

Mosewich, A. D., Crocker, P. R. E., Kowalski, K. C., & Delongis, A. (2013). Applying self-compassion in sport: An intervention with women athletes. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 35(5), 514–524. https://doi.org/10.1123/jsep.35.5.514

Gardner, F. L., & Moore, Z. E. (2007). The psychology of enhancing human performance: The Mindfulness-Acceptance-Commitment (MAC) approach. Springer.

Nicolardi, V., et al. (2022). The two arrows of pain: Mechanisms of pain related to meditation and mental states of aversion and identification. Mindfulness.https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/16188/

Olusoga, P., & Yousuf, S. (2023). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) in sport psychology. Sheffield Hallam University. https://shura.shu.ac.uk/33205/