Today’s post is a guest post by Tim Owens. Tim helps guide, advise, and accelerate the growth of talented professionals and entrepreneurs. I read the post and asked Tim if I could re-post since I thought it was a perfect analogy to getting the most out of life.
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I’d like to share with you some thoughts I had bouncing around my ‘brain-housing group’ this past weekend. As I watched numerous NFL football games, (much to the chagrin of my wife) something struck me as fascinating. It’s the phenomenon called the ‘No Huddle, Hurry Up Offense.” Often, football teams employ this 1-2 punch tactic when they are losing the game and the clock is running down in the fourth quarter.
With pressure on to score tying or winning points in the last few minutes of the game, the offense rus
hes to the line of scrimmage without jumping into huddles between plays. The hope is to deliver a barrage of rapid knock-out blows which bewilder their opponent and ultimately score the needed points.
It’s fascinating that the team deploying this tactic hasn’t played particularly well in the minutes preceding. However, when the pressure is intensified by the ticking game clock and the stakes of losing are evident, through some divine inspiration the offensive team is able to sync up and plough down the field. The quarterback and receivers seem mentally connected as if they possess clairvoyant abilities.
Why don’t they play like this the entire game? Why is it that through this duress they are able to find the necessary brilliance to succeed? Why can’t they play every minute of the game with the intensity of the ‘No Huddle, Hurry Up Offense?” Certainly, the team doesn’t always succeed to win the game but most of the time they play much better than they had earlier.
It got me thinking about my life. Do I employ the same tactics? Do I live my life the same way? Do I play full out every day? Or, do I have a game plan that I follow and when it comes to the end of the year, I rush to complete projects? Is it when I finally realize the stakes involved that I employ the no huddle, hurry up offense?
Why?
I then ask, do I want to live my life like that? Do you want to live your life that way?
The difference between our lives and a football game is that we aren’t guaranteed our next plays. We aren’t promised tomorrow. We could be in the second or third quarter of our lives and unfortunately, be taken out of the game at any time. We may never be able to finish our game.
Doesn’t it make sense then, to play full-out every moment of every day? And run your No Huddle, Hurry Up Offense NOW.
I wonder how different life would look if we approached it with this kind of intensity. What if we cranked up our efforts and realized what’s at stake. So, if our game ends short, we can confidently pass to the next stadium knowing we gave 100% of ourselves and left everything on the field.
It’s a courageous journey to take if you choose it. The work is mental. Great leaders have a crystal clear vision and IMAGINE themselves accomplishing their dreams in their minds first. With this clarity they are able to achieve the seemingly impossible.
Here are some questions you may find helpful to find your path too:
*Grab a pen and paper, write down your answers – this is a powerful excercise!
• What do you want? Do you really want it? Why? How do you know you want it?
• Why don’t you have it now?
• What does it mean to you that you don’t have it?
• What’s stopping you from employing your No Huddle, Hurry Up Offense? Again, do you really want it?
• Why?
• What’s at stake and what happens if you don’t have it?
Now, here’s a question that always digs deep- If you knew WHEN your life would end, how would you live today? What would you do? Who would you do it with? Where would you do it? How would you do it? Would you still want to have or accomplish the things you said you wanted in the above questions? Would those things really matter to you? When you truly know the answers to these questions you’ll discover clarity of purpose which will develop into a state of certainty that will guide you to FOCUS, so you can live as you were intended.
We don’t have to wait until the last few minutes of the game to play full-out. It IS about WINNING the moments! You don’t have to beat the other team to win but you do need to play full-out so you can say you did everything you could. Of course, that is if you want to choose to live that way.
Moments make up minutes which turn to hours, days, weeks, years and in the end a lifetime.
What if you lived as if every evening was your last and every morning was your first.
All my best wishes to you for a happy and successful 2014!
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