How many people start something new, full of excitement and good intentions, and then quit when the first reality check comes in (the first math test, the first time trial, the first evaluation or problem or challenge)? How many kids go out for a sport and then quit before the season is over? How many people look at their skill level at a certain point, or achievements at a given moment, and then give up?
Too many.
Too many of us quit what we are doing far too early or far too often. Using our track season as an example, does not only mean quitting the team completely; quitting also means deciding that the goals are too hard and deciding for a half-hearted effort.
Thank goodness every member of the boys’ 4x400m relay team decided to work hard this season.
Check out the board below, that Coach John McKeeman posted after our first meet of the year (theRustBuster). These are the 400 times for our athletes back in March:
Add up our times back in March, and our best projection would be a 3:34.7 time for the 4×400. Decent, for sure. Yet in the CCS championships, the team recorded a 3:23.17 mark–an improvement of two to six seconds per athlete in two months!
Improvements of that magnitude do not happen by chance, and these improvements are driven by effort just as much, or more than, by raw talent. All these boys, and others on the team, made conscious choices to work very hard the last couple months. Think back to all those cold, rainy days in February and March (the weather seemed particularly harsh this track season). There were athletes out working in very bad conditions, consistently, day after wet and gloomy day. Every day, all of you faced another choice: Whether to get out on a cold damp track and work hard, or not. All athletes will have injuries and setbacks at some point, and these athletes were no exception; I remember the disappointment that Derek had with his early hamstring pull, and many of us saw Eliot in the training room working on different hip issues. Yet, all of them persevered. As Angela Duckworth writes, “Even more than the effort a gritty person puts in on a single day, what matters is that they wake up the next day, and the next, ready to … keep on going.”
Too many people give on their goals far too early. It would have been easy for all us to look at the 3:34 and say, well, that’s not bad, this season we should medal at leagues without too much effort, and settle for that goal. Yet our boys–along with many other athletes on our team, in many events–kept pushing, they continued to get up every morning and come to practice every afternoon ready to work hard and put in real effort to be the best they could become. I think too many people look at where they are, or look at modest improvement after a short period of admittedly hard effort, and then quit too early. Athletes often quit (and again, quitting means more than actual leaving the team, this also includes not committing to serious and complete effort) when success might be just around the corner. The number of athletes that have been just weeks or even days away from a real performance breakthrough when they threw in the towel and quit is an unknown, and unknowable, number. You can never know when the breakthrough will come. But I know that number of people who quit too soon is big. And the same is true in non-athletic pursuits and goals.
Trying to be the best you can be, in almost any arena, is never a trivial pursuit. The habits, the choices, you make to continue to get up and work hard to be your best day after day are never wasted and always admirable. Whether you end up with a CCS medal, or a PR, or simply are able to run farther without stopping than you were able to do back in February, that is a win. And I believe that the grit you develop during your pursuit of personal excellence in athletics will translate to the pursuit of your academic and professional goals.
I hope that you take a moment to reflect upon (and honor, and cheer for!) the improvement and achievements our 4x400m team. I encourage you to let their achievements inspire you! As you think about their achievements, I also would like you to reflect a little bit upon your own track season. If you feel like you were gritty, that you got up every day ready to work, I’d like you to nod your head a bit and give a smile and a fist pump, and feel like you did well–no matter where you finished. But if you feel like you lost focus and maybe didn’t give your best, I don’t want you to beat yourself up! I would like you to ask yourself why you don’t feel like you gave your best effort, and what you might want to do later. Remember effort is a choice, and grit can be developed; just like you can build your physical muscles through exercise, you can build your grit through conscious effort. If you think you could have given more effort and been more focused, don’t be too hard on yourself; I’d like you to simply remember that you have more seasons, and you can resolve to be more focused and give more effort–and choose to be more gritty–in the future. More than any athletic success, I’d like to hope that many of you get grittier during each season, as this grit will help you in every future goal that is important to you.
Congratulations to our gritty 4x400m relay athletes, and congratulations, again, on our gritty track and field team. Have a great summer, keep working hard! Best of luck to everyone who is graduating–be gritty in college!
