Ken had an interesting comment today. When someone finds something too hard and they feel over challenged, the tendency is often to give up.
Conversely when the same person finds something too easy and they realize they are not stimulated they disengage... a nice way of saying they give up.
We see this all too often when we look at people who appear to have tons of potential but never seem to be going anywhere with it.
Then we started wondering why this was the case. After some reflection it occurred to us that this type of behavior is perhaps born of two sets of learned patterns.
The first is that folks who start out after a project and come up short early on in life may "learn" that life isn’t "fair" for them; that success is for other folks who are "more talented, luckier, get more breaks" and that list is very long indeed when you are looking at it from the "have not" side of the equation.
The second is that many have not learned the power of goal setting + attitude. William James said, “The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.” Goals, of course, are statements of intention. Those statements generate change. When goals are accompanied by the acceptance of personal responsibility for one’s attitude a person is set up to be a “winner” in the game of life.
The real value of sport is that with careful, dare we say impassioned guidance - coaching and parenting - youngsters can learn at a very early point in their lives the value of goals plus attitude.
Every time we as coaches come in contact with such a person who needs "enlightenment", and we fulfill that person’s need, we guarantee our spot on the beach next to the big pool. You know that one; it’s the one all the way at the end...
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