Sounds like a winner to me. Winners are there from the beginning to the end … and then some. Winners are those that seem invincible and as if everything they do is flawless as regardless if someone falls off the bandwagon and speaks out, there is an army that attacks and looks to seize and destroy. Sounds a bit like social media icon disease worship but, that is not what this is about. Sorry to disappoint but this is about being there to the end. I can equate it to a fan who is the eternal optimist that never gives up on rooting for the team or the person who never pays much mind to the amount of followers they have, they just are there consistently giving it their all. We all want to be a winner or why would we be here or why would anyone wake up every day and go to work, or plug in to what is going on in the world? We want to win at something. We sometimes may loathe our job but we go every day to collect that ever so special pay check. We can call in sick, we can use vacation time but the grass is not always greener as we still have to go back because we want to make it somewhere, somehow.
The Beginning
Beginnings are insightful and full of a force inside us that drives us to want. We are excited about the new and all that it brings, even the fear as we know we can conquer it. We want to win. We want to excel, we want and want. We can only win by being better than everyone else. The beginning is hard as we are filled with so many emotions, ideas and want/need as we try and learn the ins and outs and how we can make our mark. In the beginning, we want people to notice and then after a while are pretty much ashamed as to now new and for lack of a better term, messy we were. Our posts were naive, our abilities and stamina were lacking but, at the time, it was stellar to us. We all cringe when we think about it. I think back to my first day of cross country practice and how great I felt being a part of the team but how awful I really was. I was a winner to me as I actually jogged a few miles but really looking back on that day, I was full of energy and wanting … wanting to please and show that I could be a member of the elite team.
How We Train
We train and practice to win. This is in everything we do. Not sure? Let’s say it this way. We learn how to win by becoming familiar and pushing ourselves. This can be physically or mentally. Physically we feel it more than mentally. Physically we feel it in every morsel of our body but, mentally we feel it in overload. We become frozen and all of our thoughts are mushed together where we feel we cannot form a thought that makes sense. In both instances, we feel that we need time away but the reality is that we need to stretch the body to rid it of the lactic acid that has built up and, for the brain, write out the thoughts to move on to others. It is how we train to become better. We cannot become better and win unless we train. Sure, there are some that have a talent like no other (singers, sprinters, swimmers, baseball players, pianists, writers, etc) but they all train to become better. Their talent is there but regardless they still have to train to become better as you cannot go from zero to sixty without a lot of understanding of the mechanisms behind it. The best of the best train and continue to as ok is just that ok. And, who just wants to be ok? I know I do not.
Being There To The End
Being there to the end is what makes a winner a winner. But, then again, it is more that being there to the end. It is being there before everyone, working harder than anyone and hitting the ground running. I have re-learned this though my son, Andrew. As we have recently relocated to New Jersey he just wanted to play football. Pretty simple I suppose as he thought it was going to be like his soccer league in Las Vegas. Well, it is not. His practices for the first 2 weeks are 2 hour practices which consist of conditioning which is required by the state. He is in drills with the “big” kids. Stretching, running, jumping, mock blocking, catching, throwing and more running. He has never been so tired but yet when they said they had practice on Saturday at 10, he was up at 7, watching the clock until it was time to put the cleats on and go to practice. He will get in the line with the older boys so that he can watch them and try and mimic them but knowing that he is not as good and risking that they will laugh at him (and some do) but, yet, he knows he is learning from them. He could care less if a coach sees as he cares about the other players more. In is eyes they can teach him and then the coach can see him. Sounds bit like blogging where we have to earn our spot and gain an audience so that the “coaches” a/k/a the a-listers will notice.
Winners are there always. They are there first and last. They watch and listen; they get made fun of and they come back for more. Pain is secondary as the will to be a winner at what we want to achieve is always first. Sometimes we lost sight of that as we work so hard to achieve and while we may know that is next, we lose the fight. The recognition has us on air so we want to ride that wave for as long as we can because we are exhausted or for some we get this feeling inside that catapults us into that next flight that rejuvenates the fight inside us. The fight is always there if we are going to be there to the end. Hurdles are intimidating (and high for someone who is short) but never something we cannot overcome with practice. I guess the old adage of the more we give the more we get is so true. I am the luckiest person in the world watching my 6 year old with so much passion in his eyes to push so hard for a big kid to say “hey little man, nice catch.” I guess we can equate it to a blog post that gets spread around that we never thought would even make a dent.
Being there to to the end is working harder than anyone which is not easy as we dictate that by what others allow us to see. I can say I am working harder than anyone but yet my Twitter does not tell that lately but maybe being a bit absent does. It is not always what people think, it is what we do. So what are you doing to be there until the end?
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