I am personally on a mission to help people feel the best that they can physically, mentally, and emotionally. I truly believe that our physical health has a direct correlation to the way we feel mentally as well. Tackling the concept of what it means to have a healthy mind can be very difficult to understand. For instance, it is easy to know what a healthy body looks like, it includes the obvious: lean muscle mass, high quality posture, clear skin etc. The hard part about assessing the quality of the mind is it feels as if we are always guessing. If you really begin to discern and ask yourself “do I have a healthy mind?” Our thoughts can go in so many different directions. We could have feelings of trust in ourselves, we could have doubts, and we could also be perplexed. After all the books I have read on the mind, which covered the way the brain works, performing under pressure, meditation, and decision making. The list goes on forever. After digesting all the information, I learned the most from doing it.
Doing simple things very well is something I try to live by. What I mean is that if you decide to do just three simple things that you do daily extremely well, it could be a small change that makes a big difference. These are three easy things I try to excel at every day:
- Make my bed. Each and every morning I do it; however, I take pride in doing it and I want it to look like I gave it my best effort. I believe this is important because it is something very simple that I can control. Better yet, right as I begin my day, I have already accomplished a task. This straightforward chore sets the tone for my next 24 hours by saying that I will go about doing things well with a strong intention.
- Drink water. Now everyone knows how important it is to drink proper amounts of water, although I do not believe there are that many people in the world that would be classified as “great water drinkers.” To me this is simple, hydration is the most fundamental part of our health. Without adequate hydration, it is very difficult to function properly. Just in the same fashion of making my bed right when I wake up, I always drink twenty ounces of water while I make my bed, to establish that I will stay hydrated for entirety of the day.
- Say hello to people and look them in the eye. One of my greatest joys in life is interacting with people, so many people today are so afraid to say hello to a stranger or even people that they know. Life is so much more fulfilling if you enjoy it with others. I always make it a point to say greet people, just for the pure reason of “why wouldn't you say hello?” I have countless examples of relationships that I have formed in my life that started with a simple hello or hey, how are you doing? And these instances have turned into deep meaningful relationships in my life.
When I work with my athletes, I do my best to always teach simply. I want my athletes to perfect simple movements, so they are easy to repeat under stress. The key to this though, is remembering that each person is different and has their own movements they need to perfect. A problem I ran into as a player was the fact that coaches were trying to teach something simple, but they just taught a one size fits all program. These coaches typically had the attitude of, “everyone follow these steps and it will work for you.” The problem with this is each person is unique and while the ideas that were presented may be amazing, it might not register with everyone. Now on the other end of the spectrum, I had coaches that were over analytical, while I learned so much valuable information from them, to put their advice to work in a competitive situation was almost impossible. I believe there is a sweet spot to this equation, and it lies right in the middle of both examples. I believe one if not most people know themselves and analyze what they do well and upon what they need to improve. After the diagnosis, I would recommend that they pick three things that are completely in their control that can be done at any given time. I tell the athletes I work with, if I woke you up at 3:00 in the morning and asked you what your three simple steps are, they would be able to tell me without a blink of an eye. When the pressure is high and the situation is tense you must be able to rely on your core fundamentals or, as I like to call, simply executed steps.
Now while this may be obvious, the same goes for life. There are countless books and YouTube videos out there that will say something along the lines of “follow these 12 steps and you will be rich” or “do these three 5 things for a better relationship.” Once again, this advice may be great, but it is the same as a coach telling everyone to do things identically. It may work for some; however, it most likely will not work for everyone. Then there are those who over analyze and feel that to be a healthy human, they need 47 different tasks a day to feel complete. This would be the over analytical coach. These are the types of players and people that with absolute perfect circumstances will be great and look like super humans. Although, how often in life are our circumstances perfect? As well as in sports, it seems like circumstances are almost never the way you want them to be. The reason for having simple steps that are easy to execute is for the pure fact that they build momentum.
Momentum is one of the most underrated concepts talked about in high performers. Think about the simple saying that rings true during every championship season. “It is not the best team that wins it all, it is the team that is playing the best.” Sticking with the idea of keeping things simple in life, it is important to recognize that simple steps help build momentum. When we have wind behind our sails in life, it is easier to go after big goals, complex ideas, and difficult tasks. Despite the fact that if you asked someone who felt the whole world was against them to do something complex or difficult, they most likely would not even try.
How we look at situations has a large determining factor on the way they turn out. That is the reason I always try to be optimistic towards myself and others. Looking at any given opportunity without an optimistic approach, it is very difficult to be successful. I believe optimism and confidence go hand in hand. I will give you an example, my freshman year of college I had a large scholarship to the University of Washington, a premiere university and a great baseball program. To make a long story short, I was not fond of the way certain things were going within the baseball department and the school in general. So, at the end of the season, I told my parents that I wanted to leave the University, attend a junior college, and return to a four-year school the following year. For those not familiar with the process, the NCAA had rules in place that prohibited athletes from transferring from a four-year college to another four-year school without sitting out a full season and losing a year of eligibility. The only way to keep playing your sport without the penalty of sitting out was to take the junior college route and then go back to a fouryear university for your junior season. With all that being understood, my parents told me if you decide to leave this scholarship, we will support you financially through junior college, but the next two years of school will be on you. Without hesitation I was completely secure with my decision. My thinking was that if I can land one scholarship, I should be able to do it again. I had nothing but an optimistic approach to the situation which resulted in a high amount of confidence. After being in junior college for only two months, I had 18 different scholarship opportunities to go back to a four-year program. While my results were fantastic, they were one hundred percent a result of being optimistic, being very diligent in my craft, and being hyper aggressive to the opportunity. The lesson to be learned here is that when you are confident about the value that you bring and if you are extremely focused on accomplishing one simple task after another, because they all lead to the bigger goal, then whatever the challenge is, over time it can be achieved.
