How many of you are the type of person who will wake up in the morning and not know what to do?
First thing you start to wonder is why you woke up, and then your mind recalls all of the boring things you should be doing, so you go back to sleep. This is also partly the reason why people put their alarms on snooze.
When I was a kid my parents had a really hard time waking me up in the morning. I doze off inside the toilet until my father comes and thud! On the door. I didn’t understand why I should be going to school and was never motivated to do anything.
One day, I stayed after school as I heard our school basketball team was having a match and I wanted to spectate. A couple of friends stayed back with me and we sat close to the team. The game started, our fellows gave quite a fight but at half time the scores were 33 – 22, of-course the opponents were leading. The players walked back to their bench with a saggy face and I knew they had already given up.
The coach didn’t utter a word for the first 5 minutes of the break and then gathered his team around. I was seated by their side and overheard the coach saying something to the effect of “as a team we have come a long way, you’ve practiced hard day and night. If we lose the match today, all that effort will be in vain”.
The players were awakened by the words of the coach and with a fighting spirit they won the match that evening.
This was the first time I’ve seen a basketball match and I fell in love with the game. More importantly I liked the coach and how his attitude made sure his team won the match. When I got back home I told my parents that I wanted to join the basketball team and they allowed me to.
Three years went by, and I got the opportunity to play for the U-15 team. I was a good player but couldn’t perform when it really mattered. For instance if the scores were tied and I had 15 seconds to make the winning shot, I would hesitate and miss the shot. So the good performance during the game goes unnoticed and everyone started to complain that I missed the last shot.
This continued to happen quite frequently during the practice matches and it started to become frustrating. I practiced harder but when that moment came, all my mind told me was that I was going to miss the shot.
One day after practice, I spoke to my coach personally. I told him that I hesitate when it mattered the most and it’s frustrating. He smiled and told me “son, I thought you’ll never ask. The solution is very simple”. Now at this moment I thought that he was going to ask me to practice a few more shots but instead he told me “every night before you go to sleep, take a pen and a paper and write “I am going to lead my team to become the U15 champions”.
I started to laugh. Thought he was taking me on a ride but then he re-assured me that it was the only solution. That night I started writing. 2 weeks went by and nothing changed. But after that when I woke up in the morning this sentence was ringing in my head. I would wake up motivated, watched professional NBA matches, fixed a ring at home and started shooting at random times. At practice I would be more focused on winning the game, missed fewer shots and didn’t hesitate as before.
You won’t believe it, but we got through to the finals of the U 15 Sri Lanka inter-school basketball championship and won the cup with flying colors that year. That was such a remarkable moment in my life.
Since then I still have the practice of writing down what I want to achieve in life.
You can achieve anything in life and it all depends on how much you want it. At this point in time you might be looking to find the right partner, to complete your CC’s, the perfect job, to become an entrepreneur or even a photographer and so much more. Focus! Focus! Focus! Take a piece of paper and a pen and write what you want to achieve and work hard. This will help you to focus. I am sure there will be hundreds of obstacles but once you achieve your dream, there is no better feeling!
By
Nuski Muheeth, CC
