An Eye On The Prize

Before we start in on our ‘Game Plan’, its important to think about where we are going. As I watched the Philadelphia Phillies battle for the World Series Championship last night, I thought back to what their spring training meetings might have been like, when they sat around, looked at their team and thought, ‘Hey, we might actually have a shot to win it all’. I’m sure it was spoken in hushed whispers, as superstitious as baseball players are, but that is the goal of of every team, in every sport…to win the championship.

What’s the championship in your life? What are you striving for in your business, family or personal life? What is the ‘trophy’ that you would hoist at the end of your ‘season’ and have the gratifying feeling and ‘I can wait to jump on a victory pile with my teammates’ satisfaction that comes from knowing that you have accomplished your goal, gained victory and can revel in the joy of success? It should illicit the same type of response as Brad Lidge, pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies when he said about the World Series victory, “This is the greatest moment of my life”.

Every plan and every practice is driven by a motivation to obtain something. In sports, coaches and players strategize and prepare to win a game or to win a championship. Within the overall motivation, there are miniature motivations. A player is motivated to start or to play, to be the star or to impact a team. For each motivation, there are steps that can be taken to achieve or have an opportunity to achieve every goal. In sports competition and other competitions, the dynamic is that others are competing for the same goal, a victory in a game. And so we strategize and plan not only to acheive a goal but to be one step ahead of someone else trying to achieve the same goal.

What is a clear, concrete goal to strive for? What is a change you want to make or a obtainable, measurable beacon of acheivement that you can lay out in your life or business?