The exciting two-game winning streak has, alas, been broken. It was difficult as a parent to watch the loss of momentum for both the Jr. High and the Varsity teams last week, especially witnessing some of the players succumb to the “we are losers” attitude too early in the game.
I know it’s easy for me to shout “Get your heads up, boys! You are still in this game!” when I’m not the one getting tackled, and I don’t have referees making horrible calls on me and my teammates. (We have supposed holding and personal fouls on film and they are bogus – just saying’.)
The concern is that now, with the wind out of their sails, some of these young men won’t pick their heads back up, even though they lost to last year’s division champs, played a decent game, and have no reason to think they can’t win this week.
So what can I take away from this? What can I learn from a negative outcome? In this case, I think I can learn to break bad mental habits. I tend to feel guilty a lot. I feel like I should be doing something else, no matter how productive I am. There are times when other people in my life think I should be doing something else and that only adds to the guilt. But, in the end, only I know how to craft my own success.
Looking outward, I also have to realize that only you know how to craft your success, too. I’m getting better at that with my two football players. I’ve learned that they just don’t want to talk about a loss right after the game. In 18-24 hours, I can start asking, make some observations, but I no longer give advice (as if I was ever qualified to do that!) And then, this Wednesday and Friday, I simply give them room to do their best to succeed, in the way only they know how to do.
“I think this team is beatable. Have fun and be safe!”
Do you have a bad mental habit that is holding you back? Do you project it onto other people in your life, inadvertently holding them back?
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