Heavy Little Things

 

Out Classed

Nick Saban was the head coach of Alabama's NCAA football team, where during his tenure he won six national championships, but before he was a coach at  Alabama, Saban coached at Michigan State.

One week, Michigan State was scheduled to play the Ohio State Buckeyes who were ranked number one in the nation and had ten starters who would eventually be drafted into the NFL. Saban's Michigan State team had nowhere near that level of talent, and he knew his team had little chance of winning the game.

This is a Job for a Shrink

But Saban's mission in life was winning, which was the focal point of his existence and the dominating subject of his philosophy, practices, and motivational discourses, so how could he talk about winning to his players when he knew they were overmatched?

He didn't know who to turn to for the answer, so he consulted a psychologist.

The psychologist told Saban that he was too results-oriented and put too much emphasis on winning the game when the best way to help his players was to concentrate on the process of performing at their best on every play, minute by minute.

Each player needed to do his job, focus on his individual assignment, and execute it to the best of his ability, then do it again.

The goal wasn't to win the entire game all at once, but instead, take care of the next play.

This is the same philosophy expressed by another famous championship football coach who once said:

"Take care of the little things, and the big things will take care of themselves."

It's All in Your Head

There is another story that illustrates this same mindset.

Two farmers prayed for rain, and both believed God would provide what they needed, but only one farmer went out every day and prepared his fields to receive it.

Which farmer had more faith?

God will send the rain when He is ready, but it is up to us to prepare our fields to receive it.

I have a vision for my personal business which is to make Bob Doll Studios become the primary source of my income and to build something meaningful from the talents and experience God has given me.

But I often find myself focusing too much on the end goal without paying enough attention to the daily routines required to make that vision a reality.

When I think about everything that needs to be done—finding clients, marketing, following up, improving my website, creating workshops, selling books, building relationships, and managing the business—it can become overwhelming.

Sometimes I become impatient, I get bored with the routine, sometimes hurry the process along or avoid it altogether because the distance between where I am and where I want to be seems so great.

But when I neglect the little things, I don't move closer to my objective and instead, I move further away from it.

A structure is built one brick at a time. No one builds an entire building in a single day, and each brick seems insignificant by itself, but eventually those individual bricks become something much larger.

The same is true of our lives, our faith, and our work.

I don't have to accomplish everything today; I only have to take care of today's brick.

I have to make the phone call, send an email, follow up with the client, prepare the workshop, improve one part of the website, create something useful, show up and do the work.

Those things may not feel like progress when viewed individually, but they are progress.

My responsibility is not to control the outcome, nor can I force clients to book me, I can't guarantee success or determine exactly when my business will grow.

But I can prepare my fields and can take care of the little things.

If I faithfully do what is mine to do, day after day, eventually the bricks will become the building.

The big things will take care of themselves.