bcg blog

At Your Best

The music is blaring. Anticipation fills the air. The excitement is palbable. Friday night locker rooms are a special place. Relationships are forged for lifetimes while dreams are sometimes realized, other times crushed. Oddly enough, the repugnant smell draws you in.

Forty minutes before tip-off I make a pass through - in part to make sure our pre-game notes are on the board, but more importantly to check-in on the guys. I find them all in significantly different stages of preparation: some still in their sweatpants, some in just their game shorts, and some fully dressed with shoes laced and uniform on. I’ve noticed this discrepancy with other teams in the past, but it's still interesting nonetheless.

While the variance of physical attire is of little concern, each player’s mental preparation is always vitally important. Even in team sports each individual player’s job before a game is to get themselves into the mindset that will allow them to be at their best when game time arrives. This requires a heightened level of awareness and discipline that young players sometimes struggle with and older players sometimes dismiss. Honestly, it’s reserved for the elite competitors at every level, in every arena.

It seems the locker room has just the right imbalance. A few players are in the back gym with headphones on shooting, a few others are off to themselves stretching with no music playing, and a few more are singing and dancing in the locker room to the undistinguishable mumblings blasting from the speaker. 

We’re all over the board, which is exactly where most teams should be.

Why Should We Care?
Similar to the preparation for a game, our best varies significantly from person to person. However, there are some common areas of focus depending on the season of life you are in. Each new phase offers drastically varying perspectives on being at your best, at least from my observations. Yours may differ, but I think with some reflection you will come to similar conclusions.

• From zero to two years old our best is surviving - eat, sleep, poop … repeat.
  
• From two to eight years old our best is exploring. Now that we’re pretty confident we’re going to survive we can turn our attention to more important things - like, what the heck is that?!
  
• From eight to fourteen years old our best is pleasing. We have a pretty good guess on what might happen next so we turn our focus to making sure we’re appeasing those people that seem to matter … which, silly us, we think is everyone.
  
• From fourteen to twenty years old our best is proving. At this point some people like us and some people don’t. We feign acceptance of this and set out to prove we’re good enough. Enough for what, you might ask? Good question. We have no idea, but we’ll prove it.
  
• From twenty to thirty years old our best is striving. The fight for more is on - more responsibility, more money, more power, more fun, more stuff … more, more, more. We’re on a full blown race to the top - to the top of what, we’re not sure, but we’re going there.
  
• From thirty to forty years old our best is building. A dose of perspective has set in and we may actually see which wall we want our ladder of success leaning against … or maybe not. In any case, we’re set on climbing it.
  
• From forty to fifty years old our best is thanking. We’ve been striving and building for so long that we’ve neglected to appreciate all the people that have helped us get to where we are. So, we finally make amends, show appreciation, and realize this whole thing may not be only about us.
  
• From fifty to sixty years old your best is surrendering. Real perspective has now set in. The realization that the majority of life is now a reflection rather than a dream is accompanied by the full understanding that we control very few things. This acceptance is more freeing and empowering than we ever imagined.
  
• From sixty years old and on our best is giving. Now we freely give. Obviously things, we know they don’t matter. Clearly thoughts, often more than our listeners care to hear. But, most importantly, our time. Afterall, it is our most precious commodity - we’re not sure it’s not the only one … that matters anyway.
  

REAL TALK - Action Steps
Not surprisingly, we would all be at our best if we had the awareness to join the fifty and older crowds much earlier in life. Surrendering and giving hold far more power than we’re capable of realizing in our twenties. Here are a few benefits that I hope will speed your progression:

• Surrendering is strength, not weakness. 
  
  • Popular culture tries to tell us that surrendering is a sign of weakness and futility. Life will show us that it’s the complete opposite. Surrendering isn’t saying we give up or aren’t capable. It’s saying we’re going to be fine regardless. When our identity and worth are tied to something immovable by the opinions and influences of society, we are stronger than most will ever understand.
    
  • Surrendering, however, does require experience. It’s not something that we would ever immediately choose. We first need to experience the shallow emptiness all the building and striving produces in order to fully embrace surrendering. So, if you aren’t there yet it’s ok - just keep going.
    

• Giving is all we have.
  
  • It’s not possible to be at our best if we aren’t giving. We can accumulate all the best ‘things’ in the world, but for what? We can’t take them with us. What are we going to do, give them to our kids? Why, so they can get the misguided message that all those ‘things’ matter?  If we’re really stuck on things, it’s far better for us to give them away with time to see the joy they bring to others.
    
  • No one who cares about you wants your things. They want your time. Give them that.
    

Being at your best is the pursuit in life. The sooner we understand what that looks like for ourselves, the longer we can live at our best. And, it’s only at our best that we can help others be their best.

Checkout Surrender the Outcome on Amazon and order The Score That Matters with Ryan Hawk & Brook Cupps. The latest blog from Blue Collar Grit can be found here!