The Best of Jack’s Winning Words 2/05/24 – reprises of posts to the blog of the late Pastor Jack Freed.
“Next play!” (Mike Krzyzewski) A recent article in the Detroit Free Press told how “Coach K”, head basketball coach at Duke, has a ritual of saying to his team after every play (good or bad), “Next play!” No matter what’s happened, focus on the task at hand. We all have “downers.” We need to be able to “let go,” and concentrate on the now, not the past. Success occurs (or is lost) in the brief moment of opportunity. Whatever happens, be ready to yell, “Next play! Next play!” 😉 Jack – Originally posted February 20, 2015
We all have a tendency to linger on the past, especially when focusing upon mistakes that we’ve made. Some never get to the next play because they refuse to let go of the past. In order to move ahead, we must be able to forgive ourselves for our mistakes. We can certainly try to learn from those mistakes; however, no matter how much we may wish to, there is no going back, no “do-overs” in life. For now at least, time only moves in one direction. Next play.
The starting point for moving into your future is to get back to the here and now – the present. You must be able to snap out of those thoughts of regret or remorse and get your bearings in the present. Then you can start to plan for how to get from where you find yourself to where you want to be. Next play.
Maintaining the basketball game theme, you have probably seen many of those instances when the teams take a time out and the coaches sit in a team huddle drawing the next play on a small whiteboard. That’s actually not a bad thing to try in real life. Get yourself a small whiteboard and an erasable marker and sit down and draw out or write out what you want to do next – your Next Play.
Just the process of having to write it down will force a level of clarity into your thought process. It will also force you to think of what things might need to be done (including forgiving yourself) before you can take that next step and make that Next Play.
An interesting side benefit of doing that is that it snaps your mind from focusing upon the past and into thinking about the future. It can be a very real way to deal with the depressing thoughts that there is no future. You can see a future now. It is written down and waiting for you to get to the Next Play.
So take the advice of Coach “K” and Jack Freed. Whether what just happened in your life was good or bad, it is over. Write it down on your little whiteboard and then carefully erase it as you let go of it. Then write down where you want to be. It’s time to focus on the Next Play.
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