By Justin DeFreece
NFL Player Engagement
As if overnight, we find ourselves immersed in the simple joys, freedom, and bonding time with our families and opportunities that come with the dawn of summer. This happens, incidentally, at the 6-month marker of our New Year’s resolutions, some of which we’ve failed miserably at and others wihch we have worked valiantly to chip away at and build a foundation from which to make our next leap in the grand staircase of life.
This summer I want to challenge you to simultaneously push yourself and let go. While these two concepts may seem as though they are disharmonious, if you step back, they work perfectly with one another to promote personal and professional satisfaction, achievement, and yes, wellness in the truest sense. The “push” will come from a resolution to read and learn about your craft, put in the work, challenge yourself and your skillset, break bad habits, form good ones, and take calculated (and of course safe) risks to become your best version of yourself during or after football. Where do you see yourself at the beginning of next year? In five years? 10 years? Are you on the path you need to be? If not, start making changes today.
The second part of this strategy of reinvigorating yourself and your abilities, the “letting go,” simply refers to the notion that in order to become the best version of yourself in the future, you have to stop living in the past and beating yourself up for your failures. This begins by (at the risk of sounding corny) forgiving yourself…you are human after all. Most of us who do not bear the name of Jerry Rice are at least.
Personally, I have found this concept of “letting go” to be a common thread amongst the most successful business people and even Eastern philosophers, including the iconoclast and Kung Fu Master himself, Bruce Lee. Very simply, you have to accept all of the past as just that, the past. And move on. Flood your mind only with the potential to win, positive thinking. Plan to win and make winning automatic and a habit.What will it take to accomplish your big picture and short term goals? Begin taking those steps or gathering those tools and networking connections today. Richard Branson (renowned billionaire founder and rebel adventurer of the Virgin group) says that the “Best way to achieve great things is by setting huge goals and then going about finding how to achieve them.”
You also have to take stock of what you are doing well and what you could do better, and begin to do this on a weekly basis.
I agree; all of this this sounds intimating. Luckily, you have help in the fight to reach your maximum potential and happiness in your professional and personal life in the form of technology and indeed Mother Nature – possibly a man’s greatest source of inspiration.
Tech Support: Life and business are only moving with greater speed these days. If you are not tapping into the rich depth of tech apps available to help you learn better, faster, and be productive on the go, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage. I recommend Pocket (mobile reading and web article sync), Pulse (fully customizable news aggregation in a beautiful tile format) and Mailbox (quick email sorting and deletion). And of course iBooks & Kindle for iPad and iPhone.
Take a Walk, Change the World: Sounds crazy right? It’s not. Steve Jobs, perhaps the most revered visionary, businessman, and inventor (hotly debated) of our time was renowned for taking long walks outdoors by himself to clear his thoughts, find focus, find the hidden answer, truths, connections, see the future, and build relationships. Where can you go for a peaceful stroll to start or wind down the day? Take it, or drive to it and get out of the car.
Take five minutes each day and focus on seeing and living as the man or woman you want to be one day. How do you sound? How do you feel? Replicate that today, tomorrow, and the next day.
Getting Active: If you are one of the millions of Americans who is petrified of public speaking but understand its power as a platform for your voice and ability to impact, take the plunge! Take part in a local town hall meeting for a no-risk way to practice public speaking and engagements. Or better yet, find time to volunteer, be a great father, join an industry group, pick up a cause, become someone’s champion, become someone’s hero, whether they carry your blood or not.
The journey is the reward. Be an eternal student and philosopher and you may find the answer to your happiness or the edge you need to win is in a book or in a stroll down your own backyard or bike path. Once you figure that out, that’s when you can really start moving mountains.