Discipline

Discipline is a great topic to start with because other topics stem from it. It takes discipline to succeed in most challenges. How do you become a more disciplined person? You do more disciplined tasks. Discipline builds like a muscle. Just like if you lift 15 pounds for a week and it starts to feel lighter, then the next week you’re able to lift 20 pounds. Discipline works the same way. When you do things that require discipline, like working out, after you get into a routine of working out for a month, it doesn’t take as much discipline to get yourself to go to the gym anymore because it becomes a habit. Two things that will make you a more disciplined person would be:

1. Make a schedule. It doesn’t have to be packed. Just write down a few things each day to start, like waking up, your morning routine, going to school, working out, hanging out with friends, and going to bed. You'll find yourself gradually wanting to add more. It makes it easier to do what you need to do, and it makes you feel accomplished when you check off all the things you did on your schedule that day.

2. Write down one disciplined task you did each day. It can be taking out the garbage when you didn’t feel like it or washing a dish when you didn’t want to. Just one task that takes discipline each day. You will notice by the end of the week you will feel more disciplined. After one week of doing that, do two disciplined tasks a day for the next week, then for the third week do three. And be consistent at three tasks daily for the following weeks. You will feel much more disciplined, and it will be easier to work hard towards your goals.

LEADERSHIP

There are a variety of different ways to be a leader. The most important part of being a leader is to think “what do the people around me need most to succeed”. Every person is different, a good leader reads what their teammates need. Some people respond better if you’re hard on them, some respond better if you really encourage them, and others just want you to be straight up with them. Leading by example is another crucial aspect of leadership, most great leaders will hustle, block shots, take a hit, go above and beyond with training, and will do whatever it takes to win. Other players will feed off your energy if you do that. Being positive and uplifting is crucial to being a good leader. If you’re always miserable and negative who’s follow you? Knowing your role as a leader is important. There’s many leadership roles on a team. Maybe you’re a freshman on a varsity team, you’re not gonna be the one giving the speech before the game, but you can be a leader by bringing positive energy on the bench, telling someone nice shift when they get to the bench, ect. Another importnat part of being a leader is keeping belief throughout the team when you’re facing adversity. A true test to a good leader is how they rise up when things get hard. Your leadership is defined more by how you respond to adversity than how you respond when everything is going well. There are so many ways to impact people with leadership, as long as you stay positive and understanding of the task at hand you’ll find yourself doing a good job.

Accountability

It’s very important to hold yourself accountable. Start becoming aware of when you tell yourself you’re going to do something if you do it or not. Try to be honest with yourself. When you start being honest with yourself and when you do what you say you’ll 1. Feel better and 2. Succeed more.

Drive

What is drive? Drive is when you don’t feel motivated to do something, but you do it anyway. It’s easy to workout when you’re motivated, it’s easy to go on a run when you’re amped up. Identify times when you don’t feel like doing something, then think to yourself it’s time to use drive. When someone else can’t drive you, GET IN THE CAR AND DRIVE YOURSELF! To have success we must build our drive. Do what needs to be done regardless of if you feel like it or not. The more you use drive, the easier it will become to do be driven. Drive is like a muscle, it gets stronger the more you use it. If you have enough drive, you will get to your destination.

Excuses

Excuses can kill momentum. Sometimes excuses are valid, does that mean you should say them? NO. Usually when you use an excuse it takes your eyes off the prize. For example if you’re losing in a game because the ref made a bad call, blaming the ref will only take your focus off the task at hand which is to comeback. Instead you could say “we can’t control the refs, let’s keep going and we’ll be fine”. Stay positive regardless of the excuses you can make in all situations.

Comfort Zone

The more you go out of your comfort zone the easier it will be to go through adversity, discipline tasks, challenges, and most situations that you must go through to succeed. Try adding uncomfortable tasks into your every day life. Cold showers or baths, saying hi to a stranger, difficult workouts, eating something healthy you don’t like, or any other task that makes you uncomfortable. It’s important to practice being uncomfortable so that when your goals call for you to be uncomfortable you’ll be up for the task. When you’re training, working on skills that are outside of your comfort is crucial too, because that’s how you get better, then with reps those skills will become comfortable.

Enthusiasm

Being enthusiastic is very powerful. People who respond to challenges with enthusiasm are much more likely to succeed. Maybe you don’t feel like doing a hard team workout, but you stay positive so everyone can feed off that energy. That’s what a leader does, and that’s the type of person coaches want on their team.

Short Term vs Long Term Gratification

You may have heard the saying “Sacrifice short term gratification for long term gratification.” What does that mean? It means sometimes you need to do something you don’t feel like doing so that you can get double the gratification in the future. Say your goal is to play AAA hockey and you don’t feel like training your skills that day, but you train them anyway you’re 1. Gonna feel good after, and 2. It’s gonna bring you closer to your goal. That’s a small example, but try to start doing what’s good for your goals even if you don’t feel like doing it in that exact moment and see what happens.

Emotions Come From Thoughts

Your thoughts generate your emotions which is why it’s important to try to think positively in difficult situations. It’s simple: if you get yourself to think positively during rough times, you won’t feel as bad emotionally, but if you just think negatively and let the “rough times” win you’ll feel worse. If you feel yourself overthinking about something that is bothering you, take a pause, realize you’re overthinking, acknowledge the thought and if anything else needs to be said in your head. Then move on and try to think about something positive. As long as you know what you need to do differently there’s no reason on dwelling on the past. Short statements to yourself are important. For example: “Don’t worry about it” “Be more aggressive” “Stay patient”. Find something that resinates with you. A short statement can be very powerful and it helps players not overthink. It takes time and practice, but it’s important to consistently feed your brain with positive thoughts so you can get more positive emotions.

Stress

There’s good stress and bad stress. When you feel stressed become aware of which one it is. Good stress is when you’re stressed about something in your control: Maybe you didn’t workout that day yet and you feel stressed so the stress pushes you to go workout, or maybe you have a deadline to get an assignment done and you feel stressed, so that pushes you to work on it. Bad stress is usually out of your control: Maybe you’re stressed about something you could’ve done differently in the past, or you’re worried about what someone may be thinking about you. This type of stress doesn’t give you anything positive, if you didn’t worry about it nothing bad would happen to you so why worry about it. It’s important to practice mindfulness, take a deep breath and realize this stress is not real, it’s not adding anything to your life. You can do breath work, mediation, go on a walk, go in cold water, or do any other type of mindful exercise to help with bad stress. The more mindful you are the easier it will be to deal with bad stress.