Start with Something—and Do It Right

Make your bed!  One thing I disliked doing as a kid.  It was simple and quick, but I did not like doing it.  In his book “Make Your Bed”, Admiral William H. McRaven stated the first task of the day in Navy Seal training was to make your bed.  Now, making his bed as a Navy Seal was a lot different than the way I made my bed as a kid and even today.  In Navy Seal training, there was a standard to making your bed and any deviation from the exact requirements resulted in “punishment”.

Admiral McRaven explained that making his bed was the one constant task he could count on completing each day.  The rest of the day could be filled with accomplishments, disappointments, failures, set-backs etc. But, when he came back to the barracks, he could atleast see he accomplished one thing—making his bed.

During games, we have ups and downs.  If we feel something did not go right--we missed a call, and/or our focus is not where it needs to be--we need to find one thing that we can count on to do right every play.  When we feel ourselves losing focus, decide for yourself what one simple thing you can accomplish every play to get your focus back.  For me, it is counting players.  When I find myself thinking about a previous play/call, I focus on counting to get myself back on the task/play at hand.

Proverbs 4:25 

²⁵ Let your eyes look directly forward,
    and your gaze be straight before you.

This Proverb tells us "To look right on" and "to look straight before one".  We need to fix our eyes/thoughts steadily (without swerving) upon the task before us. Don’t allow our “gaze” to deflect either to the right hand or to the left—focus on what’s ahead of us during the game.

Start with something simple and do it right!