Gold medals are awarded to the athlete, only. In fact, all three of the medals (gold, silver and bronze) are awarded to only the athletes. Coaches do not receive medals in the Olympics. Neither do trainers, or doctors or parents or training partners. The reason is that the athlete is the one who earns the medal. The athlete is the one who trains and pushes themselves beyond limits to execute their plan. Coaches are critical in the success of an athlete. Most athletes would not reach their potential without a coach. However, the coach is an aid or assistance to the athlete. It is the athlete who is responsible for executing the plan. Often times, athletes expect the coach to "make them into" an athlete. The athlete must realize that they are the ones who are responsible for their ultimate success and they are responsible to utilize their resources, but not rely on those resources to reach their potential.
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The longer I spend time on this earth, the more I realize two things: we are all more alike than we are different and we spend more time pointing out our differences than our similarities. We all experience sadness. We all experience joy. We have all or will experience a deep sense of loss. We all will get frustrated, upset and struggle to forgive. We will all become passionate about something or someone. We will all bleed and cry. We all feel insignificant at times and suffer a lack of confidence. We all do stupid things. We all have talents. We all think we are "right" and others are "wrong". We have many similarities with everyone else around us, we just focus on the small and typically insignificant details. That person doesn't look like me. That person doesn't act like me in this situation at this specific time or space. That person annoys me (again another similarity because I am certain we all annoy others). If we can see the similarities in others and spend less time manufacturing or over emphasizing differences, the more likely we will have less conflict.
There are people who have a hard time saying "No!" These people either find themselves working beyond their capacity and find themselves overwhelmed, or they are the type of person that backs out at the last minute when they find that they can't fulfill their obligation. Saying "No" may seem selfish or "mean" but saying "No" is actually helpful and responsible. Very few people enjoy when someone either backs out of a promise to help or they do the job but at a sub-par quality due to being overwhelmed. Saying "No" can not only help with your own sanity but also with your relationships with others. "Under promise and over deliver" is a good rule of thumb. It is better to say "No" or even "Maybe" and the come through and help than to back out from a promise when someone is counting on you.
Thermometers read the environment and indicate the temperature of the room. Thermostats adjust and control the temperature of the room to return it to the desired state. Thermometers are fairly simplistic devices that do one thing. Thermostats are more complex and are able to either heat up or cool down an environment, depending on what is required. Thermometers react to the environment. Thermostats change the environment. We can be thermometers that allows our attitude to merely be a reaction to our situation. We get hot when we are upset or we curl up in a ball when things don't go our way. That is what a Thermometer does. However, we can choose to be a thermostat that reads the situation and then adjusts our attitude to bring the environment back to the proper condition. We have more functions than merely one and we have the ability to adjust.
We all go through situations in our lives where we are required to cope. These events may be few and fair between or they may be too frequent than we would prefer. The specifics may be relatively small or very grand in nature. Regardless of the scope or frequency, when we experience loss or some kind of difficulty, coping is required. Ignoring is not coping. Running away and avoidance is not coping. There are several other "coping mechanisms" which in reality, are not actually coping (ie - drugs, alcohol, or other diversions that are not healthy). Coping requires four steps and can be remembered with this acronym. Controlling Emotions, Organizing thoughts and feelings, Planning a response and the Executing (COPE). The first three steps are difficult, especially when we are sick, tired or overwhelmed. Even on our best day, controlling emotions is not easy. However, all four steps and in order are critical in the success to coping with difficult situations. Unfortunately, many of us may start the process but stop before the final step. If this happens, we "COP" out. We quit. We don't complete the process because we don't execute the plan and begin moving forward. As we encounter loss, whether it be a broken relationship, death, injury, identity, confidence or even our car keys or wallet, we must deal with that loss through coping and be resilient enough to carrying through the entire process.
After attending a Christmas Eve service at church when I was little kid, my family was driving home and my mom asked the typical question to me and my brothers, "what did you boys think about the service?" In all honesty, the service was not very good. Music. Readings. Sermon. All were not presented very well. We all knew it. One of my brothers spoke up, "The pastor has all year to prepare for this one day and that is as good as he can do?! He has one job to do and he didn't do it". The church was packed. It was Christmas. Many where there for their one time a year appearance at church. The pastor had a captive audience. One would expect that this was the Superbowl for pastors (along with Easter). What went wrong? We can probably come up with a lot of reasons and excuses but the fact remains, we all have busy lives and a lot on our plate at times and we have "bad days" but we also have responsibilities. Despite all of tasks that we have to perform each day, we need to prioritize and make sure that we don't lose focus of our main "job". Some opportunities only come around occasionally and even as infrequent as once a year. We need to make sure that we treat every day as if it is game day so we don't miss out on those opportunities and so we are even more prepared for those Superbowl Sundays.
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AuthorCOACH. FATHER. HUSBAND. SON OF THE KING. WHITWORTH UNIVERSITY. Archives
November 2023
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