This article is also posted on The Coaches Toolbox

The BIG TIME is not a place; it’s the state of your heart. It’s not something you get; it’s something you become.

Book Notes by Bert DeSalvo

Each one of the concepts is like a game piece, and when we move them with a purpose, THE BIG TIME will suddenly appear. Just knowing about them has no real pay value. The key is in understanding and believing in them, for this is what motivates us to put them all together and use them.

**The BIG TIME is not something you get – it’s something you become.

The put-up game, just like a football game, takes practice – the right kind of practice. Put-ups, just like anything else, have to be learned; they have to become habit – they don’t just happen. Can be verbal, thumbs up, high five, hug, nod, smile, notes, etc. Put-downs are all around us and we can become involved in them just by association. This game actually reflects a person’s own self-centeredness and inadequacies without his even being aware of it. It can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy: By putting others down, we end up putting ourselves down. Criticism and negative put-downs become steel habits which can turn into cynicism.

It starts with those innermost feeling in your heart that actually transforms your mind. This in turn affects your actions, and it makes all the difference in the world in the way you live each day of your life, regardless of your passion.

The BIG TIME is not a place; it’s the state of your heart. It’s not something you get; it’s something you become.

Many people in our society get caught up in “#1 or No One” mindset

“A mindset of this type sees only the outcome as important – the process has to be endured.”
– Compare themselves to others
– Always have to prove themselves superior to feel secure and successful
– Tension and pressure are often present
– Fear of failure is their primary motivator

If all we do is endure or tolerate the trip to a so-called destination, we’ve really missed the boat. A better way to put it is: We’re on the boat, but we are seasick most of the time.

Potential – ‘ I can be’ zone
Performance – ‘I am’ zone

DO THESE TO CLOSE THE “GAP”!
G = Goal-sets that motivate and challenge us
A = Attitude which is our self-fulfilling prophecy for whether we think we can or think we can’t, we’re usually right
P = Perseverance which develops mental toughness and builds our character

True fulfillment of the competitive experience: bringing out the best in ourselves and others. That’s what MTBTWYA is all about.

Three-Sided Coin
The EDGE is what makes the difference in your performance in any walk of life.

Side 1 – “Best”
– Being the best
– Comparison game,
– Lose ‘the edge’ on this side

Side 2 – “Doing our best”
– Focus on ourselves
– Not concerned with winning,
– “Aim before we fire”

Side 3 – “Giving it our best shot”

– When we concentrate on giving it our best shot, we just reload and keep aiming and firing, while adjusting and adapting ourselves to each changing situation. “When we really learn to enjoy the process of giving it our BEST SHOT in all that we do – we raise the chances of DOING OUR BEST more often. This can directly result in our BEING THE BEST some of the time. That’s what the three-sided coin is all about.

Success Road is based on the trip and the quality of living, not on the destination. It doesn’t focus on the regrets of yesterday or the fears of tomorrow but on the moment-by-moment, day-by-day trip that exposes the excitement and joy in the natural highs of many ordinary things in our daily life.

IMPORTANT TO HAVE GOALS, BUT CAN CHANGE THEM DURING THE TRIP

The goal is not at the end of the story: the goal is the road.

ADJUSTING – ADAPTING – ADVENTURING
HAVE A GOOD DAY – Thermometer – Affected by external changes no control
LEARN TO ‘MAKE IT A GOOD DAY – Thermostat – We set the dial We control it!

This shows what happens when you feel good about yourself – you are willing to take some risks and give it your best shot in all that you do.”

Baseball hitting percentage analogy:
.250 vs. .330 just a 1 hit difference per week for 162 games
The longer they play, the bigger that gap gets.

With concentrated focus we can get that one one extra effort, one extra struggle, one extra anything – and up goes our average.

Sharing pride vs. Selfish pride

Sharing pride – “It’s a special quality that brings out that inner drive and motivates us to give the extra effort to make things happen. This creates an atmosphere of confidence that is contagious.

MAGIC – “Make a Greater Individual Commitment”

Character: Our Best Piece of Equipment

3 forms of Motivation

1. Fear – “The floggings will continue until morale improves.”
a. Produces quick results but soon loses its effectiveness
b. Motivates from outside rather than from withing

2. Incentive – “Carrot on the stick”
a. Produces but eventually mediocrity will set in when people are doing
the right things for the wrong reasons

3. Love – Strongest form of motivation; Genuine unselfish love; No fear – Brings out the best in ourselves. The true joy of having is in SHARING.

When you do Make The Big Time Where You Are – IT’S NOT A PLACE, IT’S NOT THE STATE OF YOUR MIND – IT’S THE STATE OF YOUR HEART.”

This post provided by Busy.Coach

Coaches often have a handful of great ideas about how to improve their program. For many coaches it is difficult to put those ideas into action. Here are some thoughts getting better at following through.

By Mandy Green

I just finished up speaking at the United Soccer Coaches Association National Soccer Convention.

A big thing that coaches were talking to me about this weekend is that they always have a lot of new ideas for how they can work better, but after the initial excitement wears off, they struggle to follow through and take action.

Although you start the day with the best of intentions, of course, you know what happens right? Life throws you a curveball. Maybe an administrator, another coach or somebody on your team stops by for an unexpected conversation.

Or maybe even for you, an addiction to distraction kicks in. Sorry if this sounds a little harsh, but coach, when you allow yourself to get distracted for long enough, you’ve essentially trained your brain to underperform. As a result, you likely struggle from a lack of focus, perhaps an inability to concentrate for long periods of time, and this near constant feeling of being totally overworked and overstretched and overcommitted.

But here’s the deal: if you want to create and contribute and experience extraordinary things in this life — and I believe you do because you are reading this newsletter — then you have to buck the status quo. You have to break cycle of these addictions and really push back against all these other distractions. You need to develop an unshakable ability to follow through on what is most important to YOU.

I mean, just think about it. When was the last time that you really completed a goal that truly mattered to you? When was the last time you set an important goal and you made it happen? I mean, doesn’t it just feel GREAT to check something off your list or complete an important project or say that something is finally DONE?

You see … no matter how enthusiastic we are at the beginning of any new day or with each new project, there’s one crucial habit that makes all the difference in the world: follow-through. And the ability to finish what we start.

As I continue to try to help you decide what’s most important, then to eliminate what’s not important, and to make doing the work that you need to do as effortless as possible, I can tell you without hesitation that THIS ability — the ability to focus on what matters, to finish what you start — has been invaluable to me as a coach, as a business owner … and quite frankly, as a human.

From my own experience, I have found that there are two big problems that get in our way of following through:

First, most of us are working on way too many things at once. We allow ourselves to be pulled in too many directions. Instead of making meaningful progress on a single project that really, really matters, we wind up feeling constantly overloaded and overstretched and get stuck doing maintenance tasks all day.

Now the second problem? Oftentimes we are fuzzy about our outcome. Meaning, most of the time, we’re just working hard and trying to keep our heads above water without a clearly defined, achievable result that we’re working towards.

The good news here is we have the power to fix both of these problems. And when we do, we gain some serious momentum and we train ourselves to become masters of follow-through.

So the very first step is this: we must decide.

Meaning, DECIDE what’s truly most important. And, to be clear — I’m not talking about several things here, I’m talking about choosing just ONE thing. One TOP priority. One single goal.

For you to develop the habit of finishing what you start – you’ve got to be willing to choose ONE important goal or ONE project that you want to get done.

Did you know that the word “decide” comes from the Latin word, “decidere,” which means “to cut off”? So when you decide on one thing, you cut yourself off from everything else except from that which you’ve said is most important.

As it is Sunday and you are hopefully preparing for kicking ass in the office this week, I want you to think about this question: What’s one thing you could focus on (a single project or goal) that, if you finished it, would make a tremendous positive impact on your program and life?

If you’re having trouble committing to JUST one thing, if you’re unwilling to commit to one thing, I want you to remember this: you’re most likely going to be distracted by EVERYTHING.

Shut off your phone, close email and eliminate all distractions. Have a great week!

If you want to challenge yourself to a Busy Coach 30 Day Productivity Challenge this month, go here to get the details.

Email me at mandy@busy.coach.com to let me know how it goes for you. I love hearing all of your success stories of how this is working for you!!!!!

If you are interested in having me help you get your program and staff organized and firing on all cylinders this year, email me at mandy@busy.coach.

Win the day!

What if you planned your entire day the same way you planned workouts? What if you planned your day so that there was no wasted time and you stayed focused on the things that mattered? The answer is that you would be more productive.

This post was provided by Busy.Coach a site designed to help coaches be more productive

By Mandy Green

I am speaking in a few weeks to all of the amazing coaches who will be at Camp Elevate.  As I am preparing my Time Management 101 speech, I am remembering a conversation that I had with a coach while we were out recruiting a few weeks ago.

It went something like this. “Mandy, I know that I am stressed, overwhelmed, busy doing random stuff all day, and not making the progress I want with my program.   I know I need to manage my time better and get organized, but I don’t even know where to begin.”

My response to this coach was that I believe all coaches need to approach time management in exactly the same way that they approach their practices.

For a typical practice:

1. Every minute of practice is accounted for and no time is wasted.
2. Everything is proactively planned in advance and organized.
3. Top priorities to work on take up the majority of practice and are worked on first.
4. Tasks have been delegated to other coaches based on their strengths.
5. There are water breaks in between activities.
6. Whistles or horns sound when it is time to move onto the next stage of practice
7. Coaches reflect after practice is done on what went well and what didn’t so they can make tomorrow better.

BUT, for some reason when it comes to getting work done in the office, a lot of coaches just simply go into their office with no plan, react to everything around them, take no scheduled breaks, and choose to do whatever grabs their attention next until it is time to leave the office! Doing things this way is very inefficient and a lot of time is wasted.  And worst of all, no progress is made towards building the program of your dreams!!

The more structure you have during your work time means you get more work done.  It means you get further ahead with your program.  It means you have to work less outside of your work time.

Ok, let’s plan your day in the office tomorrow just like you would plan practice.

When you start planning your day in the office, just like you would when planning practices for your team, make sure to strategically think about and write down what you could do during the day to move your program forward.

1. Plan everything in advance the day or night before. While there are exceptions to the rule, generally you can’t expect to just show up for practice with no plan of what you are going to do for the day and have it be a good productive practice.  The same holds true for the office.  Write down on a master to-do list all of the tasks you need to get done the next day.
2. Then decide which of those tasks that need to get done are the most important for moving your program forward and then schedule them into your calendar. Everything else can wait.
3. Coaches tend to set up their practices by doing their most important drills when they know their team is focused and has the best energy. Do the same for your most important work in the office and you will produce higher quality work in a shorter amount of time.
4. When a time limit is put on a drill, it creates urgency for coaches so they will work like crazy to get as much productive stuff done with their team in the time allotted. Like you do for your drills at practice, schedule all office tasks in 15, 30, 60, or 90 minute intervals and then keep to the clock.
5. How much more do you accomplish with your teams when they are paying attention and putting all of their focus and energy into what you are working on in practice?  The same holds true for getting stuff done in the office. The quality of your work declines and the time it takes to get tasks done increases when you not 100% focused on the task at hand.
6. Avoid multi-tasking. You would never jump from drill to drill as new drills pop into your head.  Once you start working on something in the office, continue to work on only that task until it is finished.

I could go on and on but you get the idea.

For you coach, once your to-do list is organized based on your goals and vision for your program, it becomes a map to guide you from morning to evening in the most effective and efficient way. This guide tells you what you have to do. It also helps you decide what is urgent and what is not, saving you a lot of time.  Time that you might have otherwise wasted on less important busy-work that isn’t necessarily going to move your program forward.