In the Western PA track world, this weekend was host to the 47th Annual Baldwin Invitational, arguably the most high profile track meet on this half of the state. I still remember vividly competing at Baldwin over the years while I was in high school.
Well, Friday while I was driving, I received a phone call from one of the boys who was competing, sounding frantic.
“Coach, guess what!? You won’t believe what just happened?”
“What happened? Are you okay?! Do I need to come do something?” I’m thinking he got himself in a weird situation.
“No, no...coach I ran a 1:58!!!” - in the 800m run (half a mile), that’s fast. Very fast. And it was a personal best by 3 seconds.
“Yes! Congratulations! I’m glad you pulled it off, I told you it was bound to happen.”
“Thanks! It was crazy, it felt so fast to run like that. I don’t think I can do it again though.”
“Whoa whoa whoa! If you did it once you can do it again. You need to own that YOU ran that fast”
We then had a short conversation about him living and enjoying that moment and trusting he can repeat that performance.
You have to learn to live in your moments of greatness. At our own respective levels and lifestyles, we all have moments of greatness. We do something we think of as remarkable for ourselves.
It serves NOONE to minimize that. Avoid downplaying it. That’s your moment. Humility and modesty is not about playing down your moments of greatness. If anything, it’s embracing those moments you have and using them to empower others that they too can have those moments.
Life dishes out an endless amount of challenges, and we all fall short in some way - or at least think we do.
Celebrate and own your wins