Good morning, you stunning stack of sunshine!
Figured I would kick off this week’s preamble by sharing a few inspirational Instagram Reels to get your day started right.
I found these this week, was inspired to run through a brick wall, and then promptly shared them with various members of my family, including each of my kids (especially the college aged ones as it is final exam week).
WARNING: while these will definitely get you ready to tackle that holiday shopping, decorating, baking, wrapping or whatever it is you need to crush this week there may be a couple of naughty words in them not suitable for young or easily offended ears. That said, if the coast is clear, they are best enjoyed unmuted with the sound turned all the way up.
👉 Click »HERE« for the first one.
👉 Click »HERE« for another.
If you liked those, » HERE« is a whole page of them for you to click through with the volume at 11.
First it was a mashup with the Bee Gees, and now I’m convinced you could probably recite anything over the intro to AC/DC’s “Back in Black” and you would get people pumped up…..
Moving on….this week I was catching up with my youngest son, the sports nut.
A newly minted teenager, his communication with us is now largely limited to occasional grunts, mumbles and requests for large quantities of food between sports practices, whatever is going on one of his screens or doing homework or chores.
Basically, when you get a teenager willingly speaking to you in complete sentences, you lean into it. If you know, you know.
We’ve now fully transitioned from Fall sports season to Winter sports season — and for our son, that means basketball. While he’s not the most skilled shooter or dribbler on his team, he makes up for it by having a good attitude, working hard under the hoop, playing tough defense, making the most of his opportunities and distributing the ball to his teammates.
On his own, he set a goal of getting better at basketball over this past summer, and ended up playing a lot as a result. He worked to make an improvement in a lot of areas of his play. Now that the season was about to start, he was eager to get on the court and see his progress in game situations.
That opportunity finally came last week with his first game of the season and he happened to play very well. And he knew it.
Despite his team losing a close one, he came off the court with a big smile and was clearly proud of himself. As a parent, no matter what type of activity your kid does, this is exactly what you hope to see every time they complete a performance. It’s a signal that they are feeling good.
But this week, he returned to Earth — practice was intense, he was learning new plays, coaches were coaching hard. The glow of his past performance had clearly faded and it was back to work. I guess he must have struggled during one session early in the week and got in the car in a really foul mood. Let’s just say there was no smiling and there were a lot more grunts than words.
Our son is pretty hard on himself. Whether it is school or sports, we’ve seen it in just about everything he does. He hates making mistakes because he sometimes thinks he is letting everyone down — his coaches, teachers, teammates and us.
And, as a result, when he doesn’t perform as he (or others) expected, like many people, he loses confidence, becomes tentative and starts to second guess himself. Things sort of cascade from there.
A couple of days went by and he and I started to catch up one day after school.
“Hey Dad, remember that bad practice I had earlier this week? I think I figured out why it happened…”
Wow! Two complete, spoken word sentences, live and unprompted, with three dots at the end —he now had my attention.
“I was playing really tense. I was getting frustrated and I just kept tensing up. I didn’t do that during the game last week. Then I played loose and relaxed. And I played well.”
Again, it’s something every parent (or good manager for that matter) loves to see: the light bulb moment. I told him that it was a really interesting observation and I was proud of him for making it.
We sat and together unpacked it a bit, recounting other times in sports, school or life he may have gotten tense or anxious and it lead to him not meeting expectations. We also talked about the difference in how he was feeling during those times when he does really well at whatever he is doing versus how he was feeling during the times he doesn’t.
It was during this discussion with my son that I had my own light bulb moment. I thought about situations in my own life where I have had a similar experience.
The key is understanding the connection between what we are thinking in the moment and the feelings we have as a result. There are times we struggle or doubt ourselves and we get anxious and think “I am failing” or “I am letting someone/myself down” — so we tense up. We think we are protecting ourselves.
But we’re not. We’re actually expending energy in ways that hinder our performance. Instead, we really need to do the opposite — just relax. Be confident in our preparation, experience, talent and abilities and that we can handle what is being thrown at us. Accept that we may not do everything right, but that we will learn from our mistakes. Stop thinking so much and just react.
It was a great conversation, and it was good to see the relief on my son’s face as he was able to arrive at a solution to a life problem. It was one of those light bulb moments that I imagine will be recounted when needed in the future.
That said, at this point I could also tell he was beginning to exhaust the amount of complete sentences that he was capable of expressing during one sitting. He was also beginning to show clear signs of withdrawal from access to his snacks and his various screens.
So I wrapped things up by asking him how he arrived at this conclusion. He was reluctant to say, but admitted it was in the shower one night following the practice. I laughed and told him lots of people solve problems when they are in the shower — people often do their best thinking there.
Then I remembered that I was talking to my teenage son and added “Yeah…I’m glad you shared this with me…but, uh, let’s just agree that we don’t need to talk about everything you think about when you are in the shower….” If you know, you know.
Have a great one, Friends. Remember you are a stunning stack of sunshine and a champion. Take it to the next level this week….
XOXO
Dave
And now a few things to make you smarter…
Results of an annual Topline Report for 2023 show that overall physical activity among Americans has continued to increase, with the number of Americans who engaged in some type of sport or fitness growing for the fifth year in a row. The study found that 77.6% of Americans ages 6 and older participated in at least one activity in 2022, a 1.6% increase over 2021’s activity levels. Participation in team sports has also continued to rise after seeing a large drop-off during 2020 due to the pandemic. Americans participating in team sports increased to 23.2% in 2022. Check out the graphic to see which sports in America have grown the fastest between 2018 and 2022.
Our beliefs about emotions—whether we feel that they’re good or bad, controllable or uncontrollable, or useful or harmful—profoundly affect our life and relationships. Science has only recently committed itself to examining this issue, but it is now doing so with a vengeance.
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