Attitude matters...

I was never the biggest or fastest athlete. In fact, I was always one of the guys on the other side of the spectrum. Which means, I had to work twice as hard just to be as good as the rest of some of the competitors. I remember my swim coach telling me one time, “By the time you enter the water and surface for your first stroke, you are already losing the race.” Ouch! But hey, a good coach will help an athlete live in a world of realism rather than to be stuck in the fantasy world of idealism. It was a great lesson for me to have learned, and early. I decided that I would work harder.

I have been coaching young people for several years now. And I have some of the same conversations with my student athletes. Some of them are not the most talented, or the biggest or fastest even. But what each of them has is the opportunity to give her very best. One of my favorite quotes from John Wooden is, “It is not the will to win that matters, but the will to prepare to win that matters most.” Holy cow!

There is a lot of stuff in life to complain about, and most people do. But what I have made a point to do in my coaching is to help my student-athletes enter each training day with the best attitude possible. With so much else going on in life for each of them, it is a small miracle just to get them to focus on the practice sets of the day. I’m not saying that they always have to act fake and pretend that they are loving life, but consciously making an effort to enter each day with the proper attitude can make or break them for both for today, and eventually over the course of a season, or even multiple seasons.

Right now my church is going over a multiple week series on the following verses:

"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” ~Philippians 4:8-9

There is so much to unpack in just these couple of verses that if anybody chose just one of the words above that Apostle Paul is talking about, it would seriously be a game changer in that person’s life. So I guess my question is, do you think about any of the above qualities? And if so, what would this mean for your life, and the way you choose to live? My prayer is that you think about qualities and traits that would make you better, and strive for one or two of them.

Praying for you,

MO