Great Habits for the 2016

To kick off the New year I’m going to be sharing some messages with you that I hope you will find inspiring, helpful, and easily to implement ideas that get you great results.  Let me know what you messages resonate with you or if you have any questions or ideas you want me to cover!

All the best and Happy New Year!

Nolan

 

Dear Future soccer star,

Last week I was listening to an interview with a guy by the name of Jocko Willink.  Yes, that’s his name – “Jocko”.  I wouldn’t make too much fun of it – the dudes a bad dude.  He’s a retired Navy Seal and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt.  While his credentials and looks may be intimidating I found his interviews to be amazingly insightful, intelligent, and extremely humble.  Plus he’s not afraid to do the work he needs to do to be successful.   

He shared some tremendous insight into what it takes to be successful – especially when your life is on the line.  One of the ideas he shared was that “Discipline equals freedom.” 

For a young soccer player there’s no-thing that could be truer.

I know that when I was in high school and college there were times it was a stuggle to keep all the balls in the air.  Heck it can be darn near impossible sometimes to try and maintain good grades, attend practice, fit in extra training for agility, strength and conditioning, mental practice, doing my chores around the house, and trying to fit in a social life with my friends. 

And today with technology the way it is and the speed everything seems to move – I can only imagine how difficult it is for you to try and keep up.  Especially with all these honors classes that seem to be the status quo for success in school today – I can see how the pressure for achieving success has multiplied. 

Can you relate?

Well hopefully this message will help put your mind at ease.  Because if you can grasp the concept of “Discipline equals freedom” and apply the idea in your life on a daily basis – you’ll eliminate a lot of the stress you experience. 

And when you eliminate stress – you perform better.  In school, on the field, and in life!

Here are two things you can do to help give you more freedom in your life.

1.    Review your goals daily

Yes, it’s so important for you to review your goals on a daily basis.  You can do it for 5 minutes, 10 minutes or even 30 seconds a few times a day.  Looking at your written goals is powerful and will keep you focused and motivated toward achieving them when things get rough or your get overwhelmed.  I write my goals on a 3x5 card and carry it with me everywhere I go. 

The next time you see me – ask me to show you my goals.  I’ll be happy to show you my goals so you can get an idea of how simple it is to write out what you want to achieve. 

 2.    Make a daily to-do list

Now that you have your goals written down and you’re looking at them all the time.  You’ve got to be sure that you set up specific times during the day to make progress on your goals. Even if it is only for 10-20 minutes. 

For example – for me - writing you a powerful and inspirational message is something I want to do and is a goal that I have.  So to be sure I get it done – I put it on my daily to-do list and spend 20-45 minutes writing.  Then I make sure that I discipline myself to do the task before I do other things that could distract me – like checking email, playing online games, or scrolling mindlessly through Facebook. 

Sometimes I have a great writing session and the message I write is powerful.  Other times the message is bunk, crap, and not worth sending.  But the fact is that I put in the effort and over time my skills at writing get better and easier to produce. 

What about you?  Is there a goal you have that you want to get really good at – really fast!?

 Maybe you want to be able to juggle the ball 100 times in a row.   

What if you wrote down the goal – “100 juggles in a row” on a 3x5 card and carried it with you all day long.  And you read the goal to yourself 3-4 times a day.  Then you scheduled a 10 minute practice juggling session for yourself at 6am, 330pm, and 730pm.   

How quickly do you think this discipline would help you achieve your goal?

I’m willing to bet that if you did this for 30 days straight you’d see amazing results!

And what if you applied this discipline for an entire year?  I bet you would look back and say “WOW, I can’t believe how much I have achieved!!!”  

The truth is when you write out your goals and set up a daily to do list – you start to realize that you are either DOING the disciplines that will help you ACHIEVE your goals or you realize you’re not as focused as you thought you were. 

Either way – when you recognize how disciplined you are – you are taking a major step toward owning your success and establishing habits that will help you be your best in 2016!

Discipline is your friend and if you want to be free – you need to be disciplined!

Talk to you again soon!

 

Coach Nolan

PS  Be on the lookout this year for a variety of messages coming your way.  My goal is to share some helpful ideas with you through Twitter, Facebook, email, blogging, etc., so you can really ramp up the success you achieve in 2016!