• Worry - to torment oneself with or suffer from disturbing thoughts; fret. (Dictionary)
• Worry - a cause of uneasiness or anxiety; trouble. (Google search)
• Worry - the thoughts, images, and emotions of a negative nature in a repetitive, uncontrollable manner that results from a proactive cognitive risk analysis made to avoid or solve anticipated potential threats and their potential consequences. (Wikipedia)
• Worry - a response to a moderate challenge for when the subject has inadequate skills.  (more Wikipedia)
• "Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength."  Corrie Ten Boom
• "Do Not Worry ..."  Matthew 6:24-35
• "No one can pray and worry at the same time."  Max Lucado

Worry should not be an attitude or a condition or a lifestyle.  Worry should not be an uncontrollable behavior that prevents us from finding peace.  Worry should be a flashing light and blaring siren that has one function - it alerts us to the value that we place on something in our life and our feeling of inadequacy to properly deal with that something in that moment of time.  Once alerted, our attention should then move away from the loud noise and bright lights and turn to controlling what we can control in the situation and then pray about those things that we have no control over.

Two very important lists exist around Christmas time:  Santa's "Naughty or Nice" list and our own Christmas list.  As a kid, our Christmas list was a huge deal.  We wanted those items really bad.  We also wanted to make sure that Santa knew how much we wanted those items and that is why we put crayon to paper.  As we grew up, our Christmas list lost it's purpose, for many reasons.  However, we still want things.  In athletics, we want things.  A good routine to get into is to make a list.  Make a list of things you want to accomplish or to get better at.  Add to the list.  Work to achieve the things on the list.  Check off those items on the list that you achieve.  Add more stuff to the list.  And don't complain if all you get in your stocking is underwear if you don't take the time to make a list of what you really want.

Algebra refresher:  1X = 10 when X is 10.   1X equals 5 when X is 5.  1X equals 0 when X is zero.  X is the variable.  

Unfortunately, many of us limit ourselves by being too smart.  Our academic preparation has given us tools to figure out answers to questions.  This helps us in school and even in life, but often debilitates us in activities like sports.  We try to think our way to success.  Our brains then get in the way.  Sports are not a chemical formula where you add a mixture of chemicals together to create a specific product.  Sports are not a simple math equation where 1 + 1 = 2.  Sports are not linked to astronomy where, when every planet is aligned, only then will peak performance occur.  Sports include more than one variable or even two.  There are a lot of variables in sports.  Effort.  Motivation.  Heart.  Mental toughness.  And yes, talent.  However, Talent x Effort does not always equal success if the equation also includes other variables such as confidence, belief, competitiveness, joy, patience and any of these variables equal Zero (as we know, anything multiplied by zero equals zero).  As an athlete, we need to increase the value of every variable but also insure that there are no Zero value variables that negate all of our time and talents.  Lack of confidence and believe are the most often variables that turn a 10 to a 0.  Furthermore, if we can take a variable and increase it dramatically above all others (such as confidence), we can turn a small number into a huge number.  Self-Confidence at a 20 can take value 1 talent to 20.  And that is why Self-confidence is the X-Factor for many as they pursue success.

Did you fail today?  If so, you are not a bad person, but you are a human being.  Failure occurs more than succeeding (unless you sit around and do nothing of importance and never take risks but then again, that is the ultimate failure).  When we attempt to improve ourselves and strive to achieve more than we have, we will fail.  Failure is only a waste if we don't choose to learn from that failure.  Our attitude when we fail should be a combination of frustration mixed with motivation.  We are frustrated (emotion) for not achieving what we wanted to achieve but then motivated (action) by that frustration to learn and to grow and to try again.  Failure should not be a combination of frustration and pity/demotivation/discouragement (lack of action).  Those attitudes simply demonstrate our ego and lack of humility to think that we are too good to ever fail.  

"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink".  You can even push the horses head into the water and hold it there for a long time and some horses would rather drown than drink.  There are those who drink right away, and unfortunately, there are those who choose to drown.  And then there is a vast majority who either stare at the water in hopes it will turn into something more attractive (or consumable) or more likely, those who allow there head to be stuck in the water for a long period of time to finally give up and drink and then realize that they lost a lot of time and experienced more trauma than required.   What is your 'water' today and what is keeping you from drinking?

"If you want results, you need to work hard?"  This is not necessarily true.  If your goal is to be LAZY, then you need to avoid working hard.  If your goal is to be COMFORTABLE, then hard work usually brings discomfort.  If HAPPINESS is your goal, then hard work typically doesn't make you laugh.  Want to FEEL GOOD or FEEL BETTER or FEEL RIGHT?  Working hard tends to bring soreness, if not worse and often feels anything but "right".  If our goal is to OBTAIN SOMETHING CLOSE TO OUR FULL POTENTIAL, then HARD WORK, and SACRIFICE, and being UNCOMFORTABLE and even PAIN should be the priority.  If you desire a fruit salad, I suggest using fruit to make it.  If you want to be a champion, I suggest using a champion mindset and champion behavior and champion priorities.

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book "Outliers", introduces the concept of "10,000 hours".  The idea is that to become an expert or achieve mastery of a skill, it takes about 10,000 hours.  That is a lot of hours.  2 hours of practice a day, 6 days a week.  12 hours.  16 weeks in a typical season.  192 hours.  52 seasons to get to 10,000 hours.   That won't work unless you plan on getting a third major.  How about ... 2 hours of practice a day, 6 days a week for 50 weeks a year.  600 hours a year.  17 years.  That is a lot better ... assuming we work hard during the summer, off season and only take a day off each week.  17 years is a lot more than one week or one season or one career for most people and unfortunately, most people get frustrated for their lack of progress or their failure to reach goals in too short of a period of time.  But that 17 years is a lot shorter when we put in more time each day through workouts, visualization and mental preparation.  That 17 years is a lot shorter when focusing on progression and improvement and not merely the end goal.  ”The thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That’s it. And what’s more, the people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.”  Malcolm Gladwell 

"Omelets are not made without breaking eggs"  François de Charette.  An idiom used to emphasize that most things worth having come at a cost.  A similar quote "Laws are like sausage, it's better not to see them made"  Otto Von Bismarck.   In other words, we like to see the results but don't really want to see the process that renders those results.  And finally, "You can't have your cake and eat it too"  Proverb.  This one I don't agree with.  You can have both ... merely bake two cakes and eat one and save the other.  Besides food, what do these three common phrases have in common?  Success is not easy, it comes with sacrifice and struggle, and it requires a lot more effort and intention than many people are willing to give.  And that is why success "tastes" so good when we achieve it.

Breathing detoxifies and releases toxins.  Breathing releases tension.  Breathing relaxes the mind and bring clarity.  Breathing relieves emotional problems.  Breathing relieves pain.  Breathing strengthens your immune system.  Breathing improves posture.  Breathing improves quality of blood.  Breathing increases digestion and assimilation of food.  Breathing improves your nervous system.  Breathing strengthens your lungs.  Breathing boosts energy levels.  Breathing improves cellular generation.  Breathing elevates mood.  Breathing forces us to pause and be patient.  Breathing keeps us alive.  Take a DEEP breath.

I lost my favorite pair of gloves a year ago.  I looked everywhere for that pair of gloves.  I looked in every possible place.  I even spent some time recently in an attempt to find them.  I loved that pair of gloves.  Unfortunately, "they gone".  I really don't enjoy snow, especially this time of year.  It disrupts my life and my work and my free time (I have a large driveway and no snowblower).  It snowed over 8" at my house this morning.  It is Valentine's Day so leaving the driveway to my wife to shovel is not a wise marital decision.  I put on my "garage jacket" that hangs in my garage for when I shovel the driveway and I spent an hour shoveling heavy, wet snow.  My day didn't start out the way that I wanted and I had the right to have a bad attitude.  The driveway got shoveled.  Oh, and I found my favorite pair of gloves in my "garage jacket".  Thanks God for loving me and for not caring about whether I like snow or not.

Lesson:  We think we know what is best for us and we complain about a lot of things in our life because, in the grand scheme of things, our lives aren't that bad, they are merely inconvenienced.