bcg blog

Love the Fight

As part of our preseason conditioning program at Centerville, we will do a number of different workouts designed to physically better our performance on the basketball court. Anything from sprints on the track, hill climbs, weightlifting sessions, and Crossfit workouts could be on the schedule. 

Of course, we play a lot of basketball too. We don’t like to make it too complicated. We believe the best way to get better at basketball is to play basketball. As simple as that sounds, it transcends sports.

The preseason is obviously a time where we are not only trying to get players into the necessary shape to compete at a high level, but we’re also evaluating. Skill, potential, and possible roles are all things we look at as coaches. 

However, there is one trait we believe is critical for a player to reach his potential and a team to surpass its ceiling: a love for competition.

Why Should We Care?
A passion for your craft is no doubt a powerful motivator. A strong enough passion for something helps us view adversity as merely a part of the process rather than as a true obstacle to be overcome. One of the natural problems that arise for passionately driven individuals is that it often ends up being compartmentalized.

I may be passionate for basketball, for example, so anything that has to do specifically with basketball, I’m all in for. The problem arises when I realize there are numerous things outside the arena of basketball that impact my performance within basketball. Sometimes this passion is strong enough to spill over and influence other areas of my life, but rarely will it have the ability to sustain my focus, discipline, and personal accountability long enough for me to reach my potential.

People who are able to maximize their potential are typically not passionate about a specific thing - sport, occupation, or career. They’re passionate about a process. And, that process is always centered around pushing and challenging themselves. 

They don’t love basketball. 
They love the fight to become the best basketball player they can become.

This is the mindset that transcends a sport or career. The world has enough people that are great at their sport yet terrible husbands, incredible at their job but absent in the lives of their kids, climbing the corporate ladder at the expense of everyone around them. This is a compartmentalized mentality with a selfish focus on one’s self.

It’s also a clear indication of an external comparison rather than an internal competition. When we love the fight, the fulfillment is rooted in the process. When we love our job, our identity tends to get sucked into our position, status, or salary.

The fight is the process.
The struggle is the reward.

REAL TALK - Action Steps
Truly enjoying the fight isn’t something that comes naturally to most people. We are so conditioned to seek things that we conveniently disregard how we get those very things we seek. Awareness is the first step to change, so here are a few ideas on where we need to learn to love the fight.

• Fight for Right
  • Right is right. We need to be more willing to stand up for it, support those doing it, and confront the absence of it. Silence is more than acceptance. When right or wrong is involved, silence is promotion. The courage to face right and wrong head on is the foundation for the integrity we each aspire to feel. It’s the fulfillment you are looking for.

 

• Fight for Us
  • Will you choose the discomfort of challenging a teammate to give more? Or, will you accept less than their best effort? Will you address destructive behaviors and attitudes from team members? Or will you address them, knowing their actions are a reflection of the entire team, not just themselves? Will you eliminate your selfish desires in order to prioritize the needs of the team?

 

• Fight for The Standard
  • The standard you walk by is the standard you allow. This is unequivocally true. The standard of the team is not that of the highest performer. It’s not even the average of the group. The standard of the team is the lowest standard you accept without saying, “Do that again, that’s not good enough.” That’s when you know where your standard is.

Loving the fight is a form of embracing the process. Everyone loves the accolades and bonuses that go with being successful, but most people don’t love the fight. But, most people are not striving to be excellent either.

For more information on building excellence in your teams, visit us at www.bluecollargrit.com. 
We would love to know how we could help!

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