Wednesday, November 7, 2007

How Good Do You Want To Be?

After watching what I deemed to be an average performance by one of our senior swimmers the other day, I was exhorting this swimmer to improve his effort in training. "If you can learn to train better, you could be really good at that event," I said, hoping to awaken in him the desire to fulfill his potential. "But I am already pretty good," he said.
I paused for a moment. In a way, he was right. He has already ascended to the Senior I group, the top training group within NCAC. Just by doing that he proved his ability beyond probably 99.999% of the people on the planet. Still, he is only the 9th fastest swimmer on NCAC in that specific event, and nearly 2,000 swimmers in the USA his age are faster than him.
"You are missing the point," I responded. "How 'good' do you want to be? Are you satisfied with where you are at right now? Or do you want to be better?" Letting the thought sink in, he walked to the warm down pool, and I turned toward the next race which had already begun.
Each of us is faced with the same question in any endeavor we undertake; how good do we want to be? Are we so happy with what we have already accomplished that we are satisfied to sit right where we are? Or, are we willing to give ourselves a quick pat on the back for a job well done and then get back to the business of achieving our goals? Surely along the way we will experience success and we will suffer failure. Our response to success is as important as anything. Whether we sit back and stagnate or keep climbing the ascent is largely a matter of attitude. How good do you want to be?