I’ve been beating this blog to death with the exercise practice posts. Mine mostly. Today I get to do my best to guide some actual athletes to be their best today. Nothing more. Give your best effort and it will be.

So often in life we chalk things up to luck and forces outside of control while failing to just do what we are capable of and let the cards fall. Yesterday we learned our number one boys runner couldn’t run today due to risk of further injury. As I talked to the boys my point was a simple question. How does that change how you’re going to run? The answer was also simple. It doesn’t. You can only run your best. Period.

Some people will talk of mental toughness as facing something and working through it. That’s one form I guess but for me it’s about looking at the whole picture and accepting that at a certain point it’s going to get uncomfortable. When it does, then it’s no surprise. It’s expected and you keep on going. Seems like a small difference but like just about everything in life, small differences add up and framing things differently relieves pressure.

Finally, there is luck. Or bad luck or being lucky and on and on. When we talk about luck we are really just talking about two things. Randomness and taking advantage of opportunities. In the world. Random things happen. You decide if it’s lucky or unfair or whatever. I’d argue that spending time in this headspace is idiotic and counterproductive 100% of the time. Instead I look at luck as being aware of what’s going on and acting to your advantage when opportunity arrises.

Luck happens to the consistent.

Luck happens for the hard worker.

The unlucky (like the woe is me crowd) remain unlucky.

Today we all get a chance to control one thing. Our effort. Seems like all good luck follows our best ones.

#hugsanhi5s