"I look for role models. I've met or studied many high achievers who appear to have earned the right to be satisfied with what they already know. However, the highest achievers are consistently the people who are the most eager to learn more. For example, Michael Johnson didn't stop improving when he became a World Champion sprinter. It was his continuous drive to be the best he could be that allowed him to set World Records and stay on top for his entire professional career (all 19 of his medals in the Goodwill Games, World Championships, or Olympics are Gold Medals). It's an interesting fact of life that the people who need the most humility usually have the least, while the people who seem to need it the least usually have the most.
Life really is, as author of Peter Pan Sir James Matthew Barrie says, a "long lesson in humility." I've been learning... Experience teaches that when I am performing great and I get over-confident, something will happen very soon to cause me to lose my "flow." If I am not open to criticism, someone else will surely learn what I missed and pass me on the way up the ladder. If I am not respectful of others, I will forfeit my chance at the teamwork it takes to approach my own potential. Even in individual sports, I am much more powerful with the support of others. If I am not intense in my approach because I start believing this won't be that difficult, I will not give a best effort performance. If I lose my sense of urgency because I don't think the opponent is capable of humbling me, I sometimes get lucky - or I often pay a hefty price and lose when I easily could've (most would say "should've") won. Why take that chance?
Does the importance of humility defy the importance of confidence or interfere with aggressiveness? Not at all. Great athletes are confident, aggressive, and humble. They respect that giving a best effort performance is always difficult. Life and performance are balancing acts, but champions don't fall over because they maintain a hunger to learn and an eagerness to work. It is their preparation that allows them to consistently perform at a high level. Performance will always have ups and downs because people, by definition, are imperfect. However, with a disciplined, humble approach, great athletes achieve superior consistency because their dips in performance are shallow declines, not deep "slumps" while their peak performances occur more frequently and last longer. Their humility breeds their consistency!"
Put another way ... Selflessness breeds consistency. Humility is closely related to losing one's self in a cause greater than one person. Think about it.
To be the player you want to be ... to have the team you want to have ... be THAT guy.
Stay humble. Stay hungry. Make it about a mission larger than simply yourself.
And then watch where God takes you.
See you on the field,
Coach Rut
