Consistency is not Perfection

I had this talk with a couple of the players in my program.

We had just finished a taxing session, and I asked them how they felt.

Now, I already had an idea of what their response might be since I saw their body language during the session.

It was poor, not because they weren't trying hard, but they did not believe in themselves. 

These guys did not have it a proper mindset this day.

So when I asked, "How do you feel?" 

They told me, "We weren't consistent today."  

And I pushed for more, "Why?" 

They gave me a skeptical look, "Because we messed up the drill ."

Silently, I understood their thought process. When I played, I had so many games were I knew what to do, what to execute, and then, I would mishit a shot, let a ball fly over my head, mistime a pass. I would often dwell on these miscues and take myself out of the moment. 

What took me a long time to grasp was the need to stay focused on moving forward. 

When you have an excellent session, you stay even-keeled and hungry. When you have less than an extraordinary session, you remain even-keeled and hungry. 

 I explained, "Perfection will never be achieved in this lifetime (in anything we do). Even the best athletes, business people, creators, etc. can never say that they are perfect. Instead, they focus on getting better each day. Every day is a new chance to be a little bit better. 

Another way to look at it, they are consistent with their desire to be better than yesterday." 

Both players were a little bit buoyed after this talk. Mainly, We were talking about the "growth mindset"( I love this concept from Carol Dweck)

I want them to focus on improving day after day in everything that they do. 

That will last for a lifetime.