A success you can stand

When success is  in reach but requires unprecedented commitment I get nervous. As a player I used to feel fatigue creep up on me during a game and mutter, “win or lose let’s just get this thing over with.” There was a part of me that didn’t care about victory but rather more about comfort and a return to normalcy. I’ve asked players that I coach about this phenomenon and they say they encounter it. The voices I used to hear are still flooding the minds of young athletes everywhere and trying to convince them that sacrificial competition is not a must.

But something in me knew the voices were a fraud. They wanted me to believe I was too tired to go on when the truth is we rarely, if ever, know the true capacity that lies in us. Another mile, one more transition, an overtime period. There’s always more we can do but to abdicate our responsibility to the team is to avoid success.

Destiny is misleading because it sounds like the kind of thing you run into if you just stay on the road long enough. But that’s about as ridiculous as thinking that leaving a cake in an unlit oven produces dessert. The road to destiny is littered with difficult decisions that must be navigated if you are to avoid becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.  When I was tired in those games and wanted to quit it was a sign of cowardice. If I don’t try I can say, “Well we competed well today, just came up short.” You can say that because no one would ever know that you decided not to risk becoming more fatigued. No one will know that you desired failure rather than the possibility of embarrassment.

Competition means preparation, exhaustion, risk and faith. Let it be said that you can stand to be successful because your commitment is unmistakable.