the power of instructive change

Monday, July 19
 
Visualize a youth football practice. Imagine a small boy with a blocking pad held in front of him and a too-large football helmet on his head. Across from him stands a much larger boy with matching equipment. He charges into the smaller boy; the small one’s feet fly upward and his head slams to the green turf below. In an instant, a coach blows a whistle. The boy is up on his feet almost as fast as he went down, ready to go again. The coach intervenes. He gives the smaller boy instructions about his arm and leg positioning. The coach blows the whistle again. The larger boy charges a second time. This time the small boy holds his ground. He stands tall and charges back at the larger boy.
 
I didn’t invent this story. It played out in front of me while I sat on the pole vault pad in the north end zone of The Villages High School track. For me it was a real-life demonstration of the power of instructive change. The smaller boy applied a change that immediately made him more accomplished at a simple skill.
 
I dropped into a light meditation while sitting on the pad, surrounded by the warmth of a gorgeous and sunny Monday morning in Central Florida.
 
I thought about my track & field career in the context of instructive change. In earlier times, I believed that I was successful only if I won all races, beating all the competition aligned against me. I would swagger onto the track, confident that each man in the lanes around me was about to be raced right off his feet with only a haunting vision of the back of my spikes left for them to think about. Frequently this imagining proved to be a reality.
 
Then the point of view backfired
 
Only a short while later I realized this thought process was a philosophical malignancy. This philosophy could only survive in a dream world where no one else was faster than me!
 
How would I go about re-thinking such a damaging philosophy?
 
I discovered the answer after walking onto the track with athletes who were faster than me. How simple a demonstration of reality does one need? No matter how much I trained, no matter if I ran as fast as it was possible for Rick, there were still a handful of people in the world who could reach the finish line ahead of me. Time after time. Every time.
 
Which reminds me that Jordan Spieth can likely beat me at golf over and over – just to hammer home the point.
 
I began to wonder if all the training was worth it. The more I clung to that doubt, the less joy I found in competition. This conundrum grew into a treacherous force. Why strive so hard? Yet if I didn’t strive with all my energy, I wouldn’t be the best on the track. That assumes the “top of the world fast” didn’t show up to beat me. Worse yet, I would be dishonoring my own capabilities.
 
Logic told me I could never change myself enough to beat everyone. I could embrace that thought easily, because it was true.
 
Eventually this internal dialogue led to a more benevolent conclusion: I could do both! I could change with thoughtfully applied training. Even if the best in the world still beat me, then I had accomplished at least two things.

1. I had trained myself to be the best I was capable of. I had become the best me, not surrendering to apathy and sloth.
2. I had provided the best in the world with competition, a necessary ingredient to their own goal of racing at their highest capability.

 
When I walk onto the track these days, the swagger is gone. I’ve replaced it with a benevolent process in which I silently tell the competitor in each lane that I love him. Corny? Maybe, but I understand that without them there is no scheduled time or place to run as fast as I can – to do what I so earnestly train to do. Why not love them for that? Could I run as fast as I can – alone – without competitors? Yes, of course, and I do it often. What’s missing when I go at it that way is the spirit of community. How many of us would find happiness running fast in solitude every single day? Maybe an extreme introvert? The rest of us typically yearn for human contact.
 
I’m sharing this philosophy with you because it’s applicable to any athlete, at any level, in any sport. Use instructive change to find the very best you, and then let it be enough. What higher achievement is possible?
 
We learn from each other
 
Sharing ideas is the underlying process of instructive change. When we are together, we see one another’s flaws and perfections. We learn to move toward the perfection and reduce the flaws through proactive change.
 
What happens if I expand this thinking beyond my life? To imagine instructive change not only in this life, but also in any form of consciousness that might follow? To continue learning and implementing instructive change from the best teachings that surround me?
 
There’s also the conundrum of how to recognize instructive change versus damaging change. For now, I rely on my inner guide for direction on what changes to strive for, and I simultaneously dismiss the damaging belief that change is not possible.
 
Instructive change. If you are a small kiddo knocked head over heels on a random Monday, you might still end up in the NFL Hall of Fame someday. It can and does happen.
 
Meanwhile, if you see me in a lane next to you, know that I love you.
 
Rick Riddle