Goals
by Ryan Krzykowski
A short and sweet post for today. This time of year I am helping coach the 3rd grade baseball team that I wrote about in the last CFC blog post. I definitely don’t do everything right or have all the answers, but once in a while I see a Coach do something that makes me cringe, or just flat out makes me mad. That happened in the boys’ second game of the year, and after about 24 hours I got over it. I even managed to keep my mouth shut in the moment. Just barely, though.
On a happier note,
sometimes I see a Coach do something and I think, hey, what a great idea. Before the boys played their game last week, as the first inning was getting ready to begin and I was taking my spot in the first base coaching box, I could overhear the other team’s Coach talking to the boys on their bench. He went down the entire line asking each player what his goal was for the game. Goalsetting is not a new concept, and most of us have heard stats about how much more likely we are to achieve some desired outcome if we work through some kind of goalsetting process. I’m just not sure I ever saw someone ask young children about their goals right as they were preparing to go out and compete. It seemed like a pretty good idea. All upside, no downside that I can think of.
Paraphrasing Joe Ehrmann — if we define success, it’s far easier to achieve it. True for Coaches and athletes alike.
Love this, I tell my son and others, you have to “think it” and “see it” before you can do it well. Before the game, take a few minutes of quiet time to speak to your “self”.
I look good, I feel like a winner, even if we lose today, my uniform is awesome, I am grateful for my clean uniform, my cleats, my spikes, my nice glove, those that came to see the game, I am grateful for the gift of baseball, grateful that I am good enough in my daddy’s eyes, my heavenly father loves me and THIS is just the icing on the cake, to play sports.