Control What You Can Control

I want to continue this week with the theme from last week’s newsletter regarding advice I would have for my younger self if I could go back in time. It has been a busy week with a lot of activities and events coming up. I have been receiving a number of graduation invites as well as wedding invitations and it has gotten me thinking even more about advice for young people starting out their lives. Here are a couple more thoughts:

1. Control what you can control. This is easier said than done but ultimately, there are only two main things we can control in life: our effort and our attitude. We can all probably share many stories from our lives in sports or other activities where this advice would have helped us. We often times worry about something that just happened and how we were treated or how unfair something was, when we need to move on to the next play and give our best effort to that. In basketball, if you turn the ball over, you can either hang your head and pout, or move on the next play, or you can get back, play defense, and not give up a basket because of your attitude. With my teams, I often refer to this as “flipping the switch” and focusing on what is to come with the next play. Dwelling on the past is usually not an effective strategy.

   The same is true when worrying about upcoming events that are out of our control. This occurs at times when dealing with health issues, the future of our personal relationships, and what is next with our careers. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be making plans for the future or setting goals about what is to come. However, the focus should be on what we can affect and not on things that are out of our control. If we don’t have a say in the outcome of these future events, we shouldn’t worry about them.

2. Focus on processes, not outcomes. This is hard when you are involved in sports-those are very finite-we need to have a winner and a loser so the results matter. However, we should be thinking about what “winning” means with what we are doing and how are we learning or growing through the process of achieving success? Renowned former Nike trainer and now a nationally known speaker Alan Stein uses the analogy of building a brick wall to focus on process. The ultimate goal is to build a beautiful, free standing wall. However, if you don’t do a good job of selecting the right bricks or start off not putting them in the right place, the wall will not stand. If your process of placing one brick at a time correctly works, in time, you will end up with a great wall that will withstand time.

I will be the first to admit that I am not perfect that these two things at all and it is much easier to offer this as advice to others (as I have done this week!) than to implement it but it is something I continue to focus on and believe I have gotten better at it. Ultimately, we need to each hold ourselves accountable for our actions. Stein talks about that we are not responsible for circumstances and events outside our control as well as what other people might say but we are 100% responsible for our responses. Taking accountability for what we say and do seems to be more of a challenge in today’s social media world but doing more of this would solve so many issues before they become bigger than what they need to be.

May is a very stressful month with the end of the school year, graduations, and weddings taking up much of our time and attention. It is easy to get off track and have an additional amount of stress in our lives. Focusing on what we can control and the daily processes of our lives can not only make it less stressful but more enjoyable while holding ourselves accountable for our actions and responses. Have a great week!

Coach K