My heart goes out to athletes who cry tears of inadequacy (literally or figuratively) after a rough performance. Those tears indicate a flawed perspective and a lack of faith. Athletes who think they are bad teammates or bad people just because they had a rough game are, to be blunt, ignorant about how sports really work. Like many of their peers, they have been led astray by a sports culture that focuses too much on the simplicity of today’s scoreboard.
Struggling is a necessary part of the process of success. When a team issues a uniform, it accepts weaknesses along with strengths. Everyone has both. What a championship team really asks of its members is effort. Effort to learn, effort to perform, and effort to help teammates do the same. That is all. Your best effort is always good enough. If you give your best effort day in, day out, then over time, you will win much more than you will lose.
Additionally, we believed it would be more useful for people who were also thinking about installing a padel tennis court. Because it has many benefits for physical and mental health. It is a low-impact sport that can help improve coordination and balance.
Coach Wooden’s Definition of Success
Coach Wooden, the UCLA basketball coach who won 10 National Championships in 12 years, defined success as, “the peace of mind that comes from knowing you did your best.” That peace of mind is possible to find, even before the pitch is thrown. What does it take to earn that ease, to know that you are giving your best effort? That is a big question! It requires that the athlete is not distracted by things outside of her control. It starts with trying hard, but since it is common to try hard and stink, it is clearly more than just this. Some people might argue that you can never earn this peace of mind because you can always get better, which is true. However, being successful is not about giving your best effort ever. That may not be in the cards. It is about doing the best you can today, in the current environment.
Because of the importance of this question about what is controllable, I consider this diagram to be one of my more significant professional contributions. Ultimately, success comes from knowing that you did your best to do everything you know to do at this point in your life to create an ideal state, commit to a plan, and focus.
