Have you ever gone through a brutal conditioning workout? Many of us probably have. I remember August in SW Florida, early in the high school football season, running sprints that seemed to go on forever. It was hard. We were exhausted. And being the immature, selfish kid I was, I had no problem lying on the ground in agony, making sure my coaches and teammates knew how hard I was working.
From that scene, fast forward about a decade, and this time I’m one of the coaches leading our team through a similar workout at the same time of year. It was rough, and some of the kids were beginning to show it, putting on the same kind of show that I had years earlier. But then something happened to change things, and change them dramatically. I heard one of my coaching colleagues show these kids a better way. He told them that yeah, this is a tough workout. We all understand that. And then he told them what to do about it. That when it gets tough for them, to realize that it’s tough for the guy next to them. So rather than focusing on how tired you are, focus on how you can encourage your teammate and help him get through it.
In this scenario, everyone wins. The encourager has taken his mind off of himself, and the one who is being encouraged is being picked up by a teammate. If we focus on ourselves, it’s terrible. If we focus on each other and making each other stronger and better, then our ability to endure increases exponentially.
I will never forget the day I heard that idea for the first time. So simple, and yet incredibly profound and potentially transformational.
I will also never forget the very recent day when it dawned on me that we can apply this same idea in areas beyond sports practice. There is no doubt that life can be difficult. Circumstances that we may or may not have any control over can make life feel impossible sometimes. We all face challenges, some more serious than others in the grand scheme, but everyone has something they are dealing with or working through. We face challenges at work, with family relationships, temptations, health issues and the list goes on.
Not to minimize the challenge itself, but as a means of using it for good, what if, when faced with something difficult, rather than focusing inwardly, we turned our attention to another person who we know is facing something similar? Reach out to that person. Give them a call or send a note letting them know you are thinking of them or praying for them. When we can turn our struggle or difficulty into something that builds up another person, that feels like a best-case scenario.
80’s Lyric