- deaths
- moves
- job / career changes
- relationship changes
- health issues
- injuries
- births and kid stuff
When I work on my level 3 listener skills (Vanessa tells me there's no such thing as a level 3 listener. She made it up for me, but she also tells me I'm 30% of the way there to being a full level 3 listener, so I'm making progress) its very easy to see people lost their routines if they had them, when these life events happened. And this losing of routines, ungrounds them and then its a free for all and a lot of stuff happens fast and subtly and before they know it, they look in the mirror, they try on their clothes, they go to the doctor, they try to do something that was once easy and now things are different, and they don't like it.
Tom Brady & Deflategate
Do you remember when the Patriots beat the Seahawks in the Super Bowl. Do you remember how in the playoffs preceding that Super Bowl the whole deflated football started in the Colts game? Then during the rest of the playoffs and during media week leading up to the game, there were all the distractions about the deflated footballs.
It didn't work. The NFL tried to take down the Patriots, but Malcolm Butler saved the day with his interception to seal the Patriots win.
The next year however was one of the most annoying and distracting years for everyone with all the deflategate talk and court cases. Talk about stress and pressure and challenging life events happening to a person, specifically Tom Brady. Plus his mom was going through cancer, which if you've had a love one go through any type of illness you know how gut punching it can be.
Well not only did Brady make it through, he helped his team get back to the super bowl, come back from a 28-3 deficit against the Falcons, win the super bowl and get super bowl MVP.
Brady kept showing up.
Stop Showing Up vs. Keep Showing Up
When life stress goes up, training stress goes down, but you keep showing up.
When you want more, you have to become more, therefore you have to do more.
When the going gets tough, the tough gets going, but the tough's gotta hold strongly to its compass. It's gotta hold strongly to its routines. It's gotta keep showing up. It's gotta keep its appointments and its gotta keep showing up for them. You've gotta work through the hard stuff while still taking care of yourself. Sometimes you have to fight back like Brady did by working even harder. Sometimes you gotta go more gentle when you feel your weakest like after my sons passed away.
Whichever extreme, whatever you go through, you can't skip meals. You can't stop your self care. If something hurts, you gotta train everything else and work around it. If your work schedule changes and you have to travel more, then you have to train while you travel and get back on track when you're home. You gotta keep showing up. That's how you win in the long run.
A hit is a hit in the record books, regardless of whether its a line drive in the gap or an infield grounder that you beat the throw on. You get to check the box, regardless of whether you got a great workout in or a crappy one. Whether you eat like you normally do or you eat less or different because your appetite is different. You get to check the box if you show up to the table.
Community = Support
And if you're a part of a community, and everyone's a part of a community in some way, you can't realize the benefits of all the friendship dues paid in the past if you don't show up and work through your challenges. You may want to crawl into a hole and hide, and for a short while that may be the best thing for you, but at some point you've gotta get back to your routines and work through the challenges as best you can, even if your effort is way below what you normally could do. You still get to check the box.
Can you go?
In sports, there's hurt and there's injured. When you're injured you can't play, but when you're hurt you can. Sometimes its difficult to tell. Sometimes its easy to tell. Broken femur bone. You probably can't go. Broken finger. You might be able to go.
Injured or hurt, whether physically, emotionally or psychologically at some point you have to ask yourself or someone else needs to ask you, "Can you go?".
Yes this all happened and it sucks. It's awful. Nobody wants to go through it. I'm sorry it happened to you.
But can you go? Can you still show up for your meal time? Can you still show up for your workout even if your effort sucks. Can you do it anyways? Can you still make time to take care of yourself? Life's gonna go on and if you show up, you might feel a little better whereas if you don't you'll probably feel just as miserable.
Bet on you. Show up. Keep showing up. Keep your routine. Follow your compass. Lean on your community. Stay the course. Check the box. Use all the emotions for fuel and make something beautiful. It's a 50/50 choice. No I can't or Yes I can.
You can do it. Say it with me. "Yeah. I can go."
Coach Mike
