Wrestling Articles
True Commitment
By Carl Adams, 28 Oct, 09 @ 12:25pm
Each new season brings with it a new set of challenges. It is a time when there is plenty of talk about new ideas, Goals and perhaps a new approach. Regardless of what happened last season, most are excited to start the new journey. We are excited because our slate is clean and we can put the past behind us. We have yet another opportunity to do it even better.
It is the new idea, the new challenge, the new Goal or perhaps an extension of an old Goal that motivates us. These are very inspiring concepts. The Wright brothers had an idea that man could fly like a bird. President John F. Kennedy had an idea that man should walk on the moon and there are engineers who came up with the idea of laser guided bombs that would allow a pilot to hit a small target from a 1000 miles away.
I mentioned three great achievements. All three of these ideas had to be mind boggling at the time they were conceived. Think about the technology that went into each. I wonder how many mistakes were made. Think about the levels of frustration that had to be overcome. The individuals that worked on these projects had tremendous will power and they were determined to finish the job. I would dare to say that these individuals never wavered from their mission and the thought of giving up never crossed their mind.
This brings me to the topic of this article. I have mentioned Goals and new ideas. These are the terms that we use when discussing achieving at a high level. These terms are easy to talk about and easy to understand. I feel that the driving force behind most high level achievements is often overlooked. We do not hear the term 'COMMITMENT' nearly as often as we hear the terms New Ideas and Goals.
If you really think about how high level achievements are accomplished, I think that you will come to the conclusion that the level of commitment is the driving force behind the achievement. Without a certain level of commitment, new ideas and Goals are worthless.
I believe it is important that coaches and wrestlers approach the preseason on two different levels. The physical preparation should be obvious to all and I will discuss this in more detail in other articles. However, the MENTAL APPROACH to preseason training and preparation should be given as much focus as anything you will do all season.
We constantly hear wrestlers and coaches discuss what their Goals are. In fact, this powerful concept is thrown around so loosely, that the purpose of setting a Goal is often lost because many are not as serious as they should be about achieving the Goal.
COMMITTING to a Goal is more difficult than setting the Goal. Imagine pursuing a Goal until every possible avenue to succeed has been exhausted. A question for wrestlers to ask themselves is whether they are willing to fully commit themselves to a Goal. If that question can be answered in the affirmative, an athlete will be well on the way.
Committing to a goal often means a total transformation of one's mindset. I have been around long enough to know that this does not happen often nor does it happen to large percentage of athletes within a single team. If a coach can get 20-30% of a team to commit to a high-level Goal, that coach should consider him self very fortunate. This does not mean that the entire team will not perform well. However, it does mean that you may only have two wrestlers on an entire team who have decided that they are willing to pay the full price to reach their full potential.
I believe that this is an important challenge for every coach. How do we get our athletes to commit themselves to achieve their highest possible Goal? This is one of the reasons why we have so much respect for my former college teammate Dan Gable. He was a true master at getting his athletes to commit to both his and their Goals. He did it with the largest percentage of his athletes and he did it year after year.
How do we know when an athlete is committed? My response is that, you can see it, feel it and you can hear it in an athlete's voice. You can see it because it comes from a level of internal motivation that is unmistakable. You can feel it because these individuals will impact everyone on the team and everyone around them. You can hear it because they speak honestly about what needs to be done. The coach knows when it happens because there is a role reversal. The coach's job becomes one of preventing his athlete from over training and now the athlete is the one motivating and pushing the coach. If you have been involved in coaching long enough, you know exactly what I am talking about.
Committed individuals have accepted the fact that they have to be honest with themselves. They know that they cannot afford to blame others for their shortcomings. When someone needs to be blamed or an excuse needs to be found, the ref, the coach, the girlfriend, the job, the mat, the location and the injury are all safe. The truly committed athlete will not look for an excuse. He knows that he has to hold the person in the mirror accountable. These are the individuals who you happen to see running, lifting or wrestling when no one else is around. They are the ones who always arrive early to and leave late. These are the individuals who do not need to show a coach how much they are training. They could care less about who sees them. They do it because it is what they have to do. These are the individuals who do not feel a need to talk about what they are doing or why they are doing it. They refuse to feel sorry for themselves and they would not let a would-be excuse get in their way. These athletes would never allow an injury to stop their progress. These athletes have a habit of returning from an injury in better shape then they were before the injury. THESE ARE THE INDIVIDUALS WHO HAVE BLENDED THEIR GOALS AND WHO THEY ARE INTO ONE.
Why is it so difficult to commit to a Goal? Committing to a high level Goal means that you might have to make that Goal the top priority in your life. This is a monumental struggle for many athletes. Most high level achievers are able to separate and prioritize Goals. In other words, they are able to make their Goal a top priority in their life.
The most daunting thought about commitment is the fact that we still might fail. For many, that is a very tough pill to swallow. The prospect of failure is not a comfortable option for many athletes. It is much easier to find an excuse as to why you might not succeed. FOR SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE, RISKING FAILURE IS A WAY OF LIFE.
Falling short of a Goal is a very important element of succeeding. Falling short provides us our best opportunity to improve and move forward. Think about it. Your deficiencies are much more dramatic when you lose. The positive spin on a loss is that it provides a great opportunity for a wrestler or any athlete to work on his weaknesses. We just need to make sure that the losses do not happen at the wrong time.
I believe that there are things that wrestlers and coaches can do to make committing to a Goal a reality. For the athlete, it is important to be realistic about what you might be able to accomplish. Set your highest possible Goal but be careful of setting a Goal so high that it causes you to compromise your commitment. I believe that the more obtainable your Goal the easier it will be to maintain your highest level of commitment.
It is also important for the athlete and the coach to be on the same page regarding individual and team objectives. A one-on-one meeting with every athlete is a very effective way for a coach to find out exactly what an athlete is thinking and what his or her Goals are. I think you will find that quite often, the athlete and the coach will misjudge what each other might be thinking. This meeting will help eliminate the guessing. When the coach and athletes are on the same page, the chance for success on both ends will improve dramatically.
Once an athlete truly commits, I believe the mental and physical pressure becomes less severe. "COMMITTING" MEANS YOU ARE NO LONGER CAUGHT BETWEEN BEING AFRAID TO FAIL AND KNOWING THAT YOU ARE NOT DOING ENOUGH TO BE YOUR BEST. When you fully commit, you only have to worry about traveling in one direction, a direction of greatness.
Set your Goal, commit yourself to the goal and do not let anyone or anything get in your way.
Carl Adams
Wrestling Coach
Boston University
www.carladams.com
www.snapandshoot.com
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