SEASON 3 – TRACK 2 – LESSONS 19-36 Family
Week 19: Run Hard
When you want something really bad, you’re willing to run hard to get it. Running hard may look like actual running in practice, or it might look like studying when you’d rather play video games. Running hard means pursuing what matters in your life. Run hard after your
passions. Run hard after your talent. But run hardest after what matters most: your character.
Week 20: Competitive Greatness
When you compare yourself to others, your greatness can only be comparative. But when you focus instead on growing and becoming the best that you can be, then you embrace competitive greatness. Competition fuels growth while comparison fuels shame. Shame will hold you back from achieving all that you can achieve, but a growth mindset will propel you forward to do things you can only imagine.
Week 21: Praise or Pride
Whether you are driven by praise or pride makes a huge difference in how tough you are. If you are driven by praise, there will come a day when there’s not enough praise in the world to get you to do what needs to be done. But if you’re driven by pride, your sense of self worth will always be enough to help you overcome the obstacles in front of you. As with anything else, it’s a choice.
Week 22: Elite Encourager
When someone gives up, it’s usually not because they are incapable of continuing, but because they become discouraged. As Daniel Eckstein said, “Encouragement closes the gap between a person’s potential and their self-imposed limitations.” To be good teammates, we need to help our teammates close the gap. To do that, we’ve got to become elite encouragers.
Week 23: Your Best
We live in a world that’s obsessed with being THE best. And that can make you forget that what really matters is being YOUR best. Comparison to others and expecting perfection from yourself are traps that will try to prevent you from achieving your best. But your best is enough to reach your goals and dreams, so long as you consistently do the required and unrequired work.
Week 24: Control Freak
We all feel like life is chaotic sometimes. If you want to feel in control of your life, you’ve got to control the controllables. Instead of being a control freak about things that you can’t control, be a control freak about the things you CAN control. That’s things like preparation, effort, and focus. When you feel like life is chaos, let go of what you can’t control, and become a control freak about what you can control.
Week 25: Say Thanks
The common response to adversity, challenges, or bad days is to blame others or to say something like: Why me? This isn’t fair! But when we instead decide to be uncommon, we say Thanks to adversity, challenges, and bad days. Life is happening for you, not to you. When you choose to believe that, when you choose to say Thanks for the hardships that come your way, you open yourself up to growth.
Week 26: One Thing
Hoping, wishing, and wanting will not help you achieve your goals. You’ve got to actually do the work to make your dreams come true. The One Day goal matters, but it is the next one thing that is going to get you there. Success is built over time by doing the next one thing that will help you reach your goal. What that one thing is will change, but the mindset that it matters never does.
Week 27: Speak Up
Coach calls you out because he or she loves you too much to let you be less than your best. And love is the same reason why you should call out your teammates when they aren’t meeting the standard. As uncomfortable as it might be, if you truly care about your teammates, if you love your teammates, then you’ve got to encourage them with a call out when they aren’t living to the standard. You’ve got to speak up.
Week 28: Right Size
It’s easy to compare yourself to others, but that comparison will lead you to be the wrong size. For example, when you get too big, pride leads the way and then you fall, and when you get too small, you beat yourself. But, when you’re the right size, you view yourself accurately. Instead of comparing yourself to others and trying to adjust your size accordingly, let humility and confidence guide you to be the right size.
Week 29: Three E’s
If you feel like you’re stuck on a hamster wheel, working really hard but not getting anywhere, then you need the 3 E’s in your life. Set high Expectations for yourself and pair them with Encouragement from friends, family, and teammates. Allow your coach and your teammates to call you out, so they can Equip you to use the Encouragement and meet the Expectations. If you want off the hamster wheel, remember the 3 E’s: Expectation, Encouragement, and Equipping.
Week 30: Follow First
One of the greatest leadership myths is that once you become a leader, you no longer have to follow. This is a lie because the best leaders remember what it was like to follow first. Your strength as a leader does not come from your position; it comes from your ability to bring together and work within the team. When you remember what it was like to follow first, it will make you a better leader.
Week 31: Self Talk
Most people feel the urge to curse at themselves or say something mean when they mess up. It’s so common because our society has bought the lie that we can shame ourselves into growth. But all that negative self talk is really going to do is push us down a dark road. Instead of getting angry and calling yourself a loser or a failure; replace that lie with the truth that you lost or failed, but that the event of failure does not lessen your worth as a person. If you’re going to reach your goals and dreams, then you’ve got to remove the heavy lies of negative self talk and replace them with the truth.
Week 32: Little Things
Everyone loves celebrating the big things. The trophies, the big wins, the acceptance letters. They’re all big achievements, and they are certainly worthy of celebration, but people tend to forget all of the little things that had to happen to make those big things a reality. If we want to find success on the field or court for the big wins, we need to commit to giving our best at the little things first. Over time, the little things will add up to become the big things.
Week 33: Build Trust
A team is stronger as a unit than the sum of its individual players. Or at least, it can be–so long as the team trusts one another. A team that has trust will go much farther than a group of individuals who don’t trust each other. If you want to build trust on your team, it’s going to take three things: time, truth, and testing.
Week 34: Commitment Counts
We live in a culture that is quick to quit. It’s so easy to go through life with a “Free-Trial” mentality, where you never have to commit to anything. But commitment isn’t just a tool to be used to help achieve a goal or a stepping stone in your personal journey of more. Commitment is a willingness to bring your best work to a worst case scenario. When you do that, your commitment produces perseverance, growth, service, hard work, and execution.
Week 35: Thermostat vs. Thermometer
Are you a thermometer or a thermostat? It may sound like a silly question, but it has some serious implications for your success on the field and in the game of life. Every day, you must ask yourself: “Did I set the temperature of my life, or did others set it for me? Did I let positive influences into my life, or did I hang with people who lead me away from my goals?” Only you can decide whether you’ll be a thermostat who influences those around them or a thermometer who picks the right influences to have around them.
