THE HUDDLE
Calgary, AB – May 19, 2020. After each on-field or on-floor session at ELEV8 Lacrosse, we bring the student-athletes into a “huddle” and discuss topics relative to not only athletics and sports but life. Periodically, we will share with student-athletes and their families pieces on adversity, growth, leadership and mindset, and working through the day to day challenges that life can throw at us.
EFFORT and ATTITUDE
Effort and attitude; these are two essential characteristics in reaching success in any endeavour you may be working towards. Sometimes, things don’t always go as planned, and external factors come knocking at the door, ready to take us off course, or worse, completely stop us in our tracks. Regardless of what external factors may try and stop you, or whatever speed bumps you encounter on the way to reaching your goals, effort and attitude are two critical components to managing external factors. These two simple things may be the only cornerstone to fall back on when your world gets turned upside down. They may be the only two things we can control when things go sideways.
We have all seen or experienced a situation in sports where there has been an impactful event outside of our control. Maybe it was a bad call by a referee or a missed opportunity to help put your team on the advantage.
Perhaps the team bus broke down during an out-of-town road trip, leading to a missed warm-up and lack of pre-game preparation. Possibly injuries have occurred to multiple athletes mid-game, and the roster has now been shortened. Whatever external factors try to dismantle our progress, it is vital to maintain focus on both our effort and attitude in times of controversy and stress.
Applying the principles of effort and attitude to our lives can help us stay on track to achieve our goals and maintain our focus. There will always be obstacles and outside events looking to derail us. The bad news, we have zero control of these external factors. The good news, we can always control our effort and our attitude. You can’t control the wind, but you can always adjust the sails.
