Then and only then can they learn to find value in the struggle.
“There is so much value in setting kids up to win and sending them off in a good head space every day.
When you do this, you earn (via trust) the ability to progressively scale intensity & rigor without them feeling disdain towards you.
They actually receive it (increased rigor) as empowering.”
-Ray Zingler on Twitter
Win the day.
It’s a phrase that I use regularly not only in my own life, but especially in the lives of others I am blessed with the opportunity to impact, daily.
You see most days are normal days. They are average. Typically speaking, nothing out of the ordinary happens. In between those days, which again, are most, a few really good days are sprinkled in and a few really bad days are sprinkled in.
Of course, some have more normal days than others and some may have more or less good and bad days than others, but generally speaking, by the law of averages, most days are average.
So if we know this to be true, it’s about damn near impossible to
create a really good day, every day, and even if we did, those really good days would eventually just become average days.
But can we create micro experiences that happen within each day (regardless of the caliber of the day) that might allow us to win at least some component of each given day.
Absolutely.
And this is something I find to be absolutely critical and I work to find and create these wins for our kids every single day.
The reason is because, despite most missing this point, the micro wins eventually turn into monumental macro lifestyle changes if you stack enough of them together.
These little wins can range in degree from getting a new personal record, all the way down to simply showing up and getting in 10 push-ups.
The achievement matters far less than the concept of microdosing wins.
Because the micro wins don’t typically stack up nicely overnight, most don’t pay them any mind.
Instead, most people working with young people are perfectly content with running them into the ground because #mentaltoughness, when in reality, while forced compliance for people who are appointed to your direction is easy, tangibly impacting them is much harder.
Many grown folks have no idea the type of resentment they place in young people by trying to billy bad ass their way through them.
The process of empowerment takes time, trust, & (tasteful) scale, but most will never take the time, to put in the time.
And that’s why so few make a real impact.
