Think of Yourself as More Than You Are, and You Will Be

Prior to yesterday, over the past two seasons, my girls soccer team had played 11 games, The record? 3 wins, 3 losses, and 5 ties. Yes, that's right, almost half of the matches have ended in ties. Overall, the record is exactly even. As you might expect that puts us sqauarely in the middle of the pack: not too bad, but not really too great either.

So before the game yesterday I said, "I think we're too satisfied with being average." The reality is that the Avalanche is in a very competitive division so ties can actually be something to be proud of. On the other hand, real accomplishment comes when you break through that tendency and do whatever it takes to get just beyond the break-even point.

How many ways have I come up with to say that a tie is "good enough" when I always believe that we can do better? Can we think, collectively, that we are really better than our results show, and what would happen if we just got that in our heads right from the start?

So they tried it, and it worked. Not right away, but gradually. You could see it happening. At first, they started out slow, which is their tendency, but then you saw one or two girls really stepping up, and confidence started to spread from Allyson to Taylor and from Barta to Schwind. By the end of the game, it was happening up and down and across every inch of the field.

3-0, Avalanche wins. It pays to think big.