The new year is a time for reflection and anticipation. What will 2025 hold for me? All coaches will tell you that confidence is essential for players to perform well. There is no substitute. That’s a main reason for good practice, to build confidence.
I struggled with confidence most of my life. I crafted many different masks to fool the public. I’ve come to learn that almost everyone else does also. My life was a smoke and mirrors show until I found my ace in the hole. I learned to stop comparing myself to others. I don’t have to be better than anyone. I’m me, and that’s always enough. Meditation helps me live that reality. In the stillness of meditation there is nothing for comparison. It is simply myself.
However, meditation has a partner in this miracle. I view each moment as it is, rather than balancing it against what I want. It simply IS. I deal with it as such. That didn’t come easily. Practicing that over and over again made it possible. It has become second nature to me. That was the goal with my players. To practice aspects of the game so well that it became part of them, no thinking required.
This doesn’t mean I live a life without feeling. I have the advantage of deciding how I’m going to feel ahead of time. I’m not always successful at this process, but I’m much better than I used to be. When I am, my feelings are not blown about on the winds of fate.
In my post Cowboy in the Jungle, I referred to a Jimmy Buffett song by the same title. Cowboy in the Jungle There is a recurring line in the song, “plowing straight ahead come what may.” I have no predictions for this new year. I am confident in what will happen because I get to decide what it means to me. It IS, and I will treat it as such. That’s my ace in the hole. Nothing more complicated than perception. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4WIgUtXqe8
May you have enough today, one moment at a time.
THIS HELPED ME 