Score a Life Touchdown

There was a mental exercise that I used to do which was interesting and intriguing to say the least. I thought that it was beneficial in helping me to improve my own frame of mind. I’ll tell you about it and let you make the decision for yourself. Close your eyes and imagine that you are a football player during a game. I used to fancy myself as a running back with the football. You can choose to be a defender or whatever but the bottom line is this: When you run the play through your mind what is the outcome that you see? Do you make the play or not? If you are a defender do you stop the ball carrier or intercept the ball? If you imagined yourself to be a receiver did you catch the ball? Did you gain some yards? Did you score? Now if you see yourself scoring on every play you are not being realistic. This just isn’t the way things work in real life. I liked the running back because his role is more realistic. The running back has to take the handoff and navigate through a hostile defense. Sometimes he will have help in the form of blockers and sometimes he will have to rely on his own physical and/or mental skills to make yardage. Sometimes he will be fast enough to run past or around the defender. If he faces another smaller defender he may just have to blast through him. Sometimes he is not quite fast enough to run past the defender so he has to make a stutter step or head or body fake in order to make the defender move a step or two in the wrong direction. In any event he has to come up with the right action or course of action to win. Some plays will be long gainers, some will be short gainers, some will be no gainers, and sometimes he will be stopped for a loss. No matter what happens he has to get up after every play. Each time he has to dust himself off and go to the huddle for the new plan. After he gets the plan of execution he must run the next play. If the called play was the right one and he and his teammates execute correctly he will gain yards and possibly score. Once the play has been run he will repeat the procedure again with the end goal being that of scoring. The thing that stands out about the runner is that he must be determined to win. He has to be determined on every play. The other team won’t be any less determined to stop him even if he is hurt. He can’t allow the pain to affect his next effort. The hardest part of the run is blasting through the line at the beginning. If he can get through the line still standing his chances of scoring are dramatically improved. He has to have the vision to see each and every obstacle in the open field if he is going to make it to the other end. He has to break tackles and maybe use a stiff arm to beat defenders off before they can get close enough to stop him. He may pick up a blocker or two along the way. If so he has to use that blocker to help him through. He has to make quick decisions and he has to have excellent split second judgment. Once he gets into the open field he has to turn on the speed in an all out sprint to the goal line. There are some speedy defenders on each team so he can’t slow down because if he does he will be caught. He may be run down by a faster defender so he has to know what is behind him as well as ahead. If he is caught he has to be able to evade that defender until he reaches the goal line and scores. When you see yourself as the runner can you see yourself making the score? The Good Life