You’re dead tired, you have nothing left, your body is telling you to quit and you’re certain that your mind is going to start sending you the same message. And then you look up. There it is. You can see it in the distance. It’s the finish line and instead of telling your body to quit your mind sends a completely different message, its say’s you can make it. Now the legs that felt numb a couple of seconds ago start to move faster, you’re no longer concentrating on the pain, you know once you get across that finish line you can rest, and that knowledge gives you just enough energy to push foward.
It’s amazing how the human brain works. All of us have probably attempted to run a mile at some point in our lives. Imagine that mile on a straight road and not on a track. On the road you will eventually see the finish line in the distance, on a track you’re running in a circle praying for that fourth lap to hurry up and come already. The difference is seeing our destination can sometimes push us past whatever adversity our body is going through. But what if there’s no destination in site? What if there’s nothing out there that we’re running towards? How do we motivate ourselves then?
Since my junior year in high school I have always had a finish line to run towards because of basketball. It was not just one race, but a series of races that I run, (figuratively speaking of course) and when one is completed I start the next one right away. The finish line is not the end of my pursuit; it’s just another opportunity for me to start another race after the current one is completed. Do you know what you’re running for, or are you blindly running in circles not sure when the race will end?
In this day and age there are a lot of people running in circles on the same figurative track, not knowing if their race will ever end. Some people don’t have a clue how to even start the race. The key is having not only goals but a purpose in your life. What are you on this earth for? Why are you here? I believe that one of the reason’s I’m here is to help kids. To get them to achieve greatness on and more importantly off the court. I have seen firsthand what a young person with goals can accomplish when motivated. We had a player that was coasting through high school, getting B/C grades with no real interest in improving them. Once she got offered a full scholarship to play basketball in college everything changed. Her B/C grades became A/B grades (mostly A’s) and now she’s thriving in college and has been one of the best students on her team for the last three years. She knew that for her to play college basketball her grades would have to improve, and once she saw that goal in front of her she changed her mind set and work ethic towards her education.
“The race starts and ends with whatever effort you decide to put into it”
Most people get burnt out in the process of finding the finish line, before they even start the race. I have so many friends that “hate” what they do, so their track resembles the oval one that I talked about before. Wake up, go to work, punch out, come back home, eat, sleep, and repeat. You can’t make your life one where threes no destination in sight. Spend time trying to discover what you want and along the way you’ll realize all the things you don’t. It’s a process of elimination sometimes and yes it’s frustrating but eventually you will start finding the right races to run. The finish line is always the furthest when you first start, but every small step you take forward it gradually gets closer to you.
The key is forward steps. When I was coaching junior college there was a point where I felt that I couldn’t go any further career wise. No matter how successful we were each season I wasn’t making any forward progress. Most the college basketball jobs at the division 1 level are not given to candidates because of their resume. It’s usually because someone (that has a well respected name) made a phone call vouching for their ability to coach or recruit. When I realized that I would never see the finish line at junior college I decided that I had to start a new race. Upon getting an assistant job at Blair Academy I immediately began meeting coaches that are currently coaching at the division 1 level. Like everything else networking is an important aspect of landing a job and now I’m at a place where networking is a lot easier for me to do.
The finish line for me is coaching division 1 basketball, and then it will be winning a conference title, a national title and so on and so on. The whole time this is going on I still have other races like, being able to read and write music, getting a black belt one day in Brazilian jiu jitsu, and other various goals I have for myself. It’s an ongoing process that gets me excited for not only what the next race will be, but also figuring out how I will go about finishing it.
