Are you an athlete? Maybe you were an athlete in high school or college. The great thing about being an athlete is you learn how to win and you learn how to lose—there’s really no in between. Yes, occasionally there’s a tie, but that’s rare. And as an athlete, you go through a whole season of winning and losing. Regardless of what happens, you reconvene and then show up again, recharged for another chance to win or lose.

Life isn’t really the same. The “games” aren’t so clearly defined. Sometimes there’s a “game,” but we may decide to sit this one out because we are uncertain or afraid of losing—we decide we don’t want to take the risk. Maybe we would have won, but we’ll never know, because we skipped that “game.”

Wouldn’t it be great if we could live life like an athlete? We could make our own schedule of “games” that include opponents like “get the promotion,” “land the dream job,” “be #1 on my team,” “hit all my goals,” “be financial sound,” “lose the weight,” “reduce my stress,” “be truly happy,” etc. These would be “games” we would have to show up for and play until the buzzer. Maybe every “game” wouldn’t be a win, but we would have, at the very least, shown up and left it all on the field. Yes, I believe we should live our life like athletes—giving it our all for things we care about. And we just might find, that by showing up, we pull out a win in the end. You can’t win if you don’t show up.

With Gratitude,

Beth