Fall is coming and with it some new opportunities.
Will it be a burden to pick up work again?
Will it raise some sadness that summer’s freedom and vacation-time is gone?
Or are you excited to start into a new chapter that every fall opens up?
When the leaves are falling the sky comes closer.
That’s how I like to frame it to keep a fresh mindset.
I always had an interest in what successful sports people are doing.
How is it that they manage to achieve what others can’t do?
What makes them rise to the top, be unprecedented and unique?
Lou Holtz, a famous college American football coach, trained his teams not only in the area of physical fitness. Yes of course, that’s an important part of athletic achievements!
Most of all he tought them the one necessity a person needs to adapt:
A commitment to excellence!
That’s not an option.
That’s a prerequisite to success.
Commiting to excellence means you don’t stop when things aren’t working out.
It means you keep going. Until you can push through the challenge and reach a result you are proud of. You don’t get distracted, you dedicate yourself and you persevere.
Mediocrity comes from being too content too early.
Mediocre engagement arises from lazyness or from , given your natural gifts.
When I was in school, I used to get bad scores for my writing due to a weakness called dyslexia. My teachers were not interested in WHAT I was writing, but HOW I did the spelling. Wrong spelling, bad scores. German and English were my worst subjects.
15 years after finishing school, I started writing by myself and sharing my words with the world. To my complete surprise, people all over the place told me how much they loved the writing!?
Well, the only difference was that now I used a spell checker!? My writing was the same as ever. The part a machine could do was now done by a machine. And I did what only a human can do: which was writing words that touch hearts.
Clearly at school, I was in the wrong playing field.
The one there was called correct-spelling land. I could not perform due to dyslexia, so I hated writing. Now, as an adult, I packed up camp and moved to the happy content-only-counts land. And suddenly writing felt nice – and people loved it. They are not treating me like a broken spelling automaton. But like a person capable of inspiring others.
At school I hardly made any progress in the area of writing, I had NO ambition to be a perfect spelling robot writing for people with closed hearts. Today, it’s not hard for me to commit to excellence in my little bassoonist-column-writing country.
So please, commit to excellence.
And when it seams too hard, please move camp and find your happy place!
You need that full opportunity to shine and feel the sky coming closer when the leaves are falling.
Have a beautiful, crisp and fresh new fall season,
much love,
Anselma
