Are you distracted?

So it’s time for another coaching analogy to relate to my quit. If you’re sick of hearing me relate the two together, quit reading now, you’ve been warned.

I have a young lady that’s been on my team for about 4 years now. She’s a freshman in High School now, and much like all the kids I see when they get to 7, 8, 9th grade, they tend to stray away from the gymnastics thing to pursue school sports and activities. We totally support them when they do. I get it, that they want to hang out with their friends instead of working out three hours a night, three or four nights a week. I’m cool with that. This girl has a very hard time fitting in for a number of reasons. Quite frankly, the safest, most secure, most stable place she has is my gym. Our program is the one place where she hasn’t been beaten up (figuratively and literally), or shunned, or dismissed or ignored. She’s got a rough life.

She is struggling in the gym right now. Not performing. Frankly, her attitude sucks and it shows. She is finding every excuse to distract herself from the gym. She’s trying cheerleading (quit), swim team, skiing, whatever.

So I sat her down last night and instead of tearing her up, I asked her, “Instead of looking for other things to fill your time, why not devote your time here and really do well this year?” It hit home. She cried. I make girls cry a lot…I dunno…

If you’ve continued to read this far, here it is: KTC is the safest, most secure, most stable place I can find to quit. Why would you try to find other things to distract yourself from here? It’s time tested and true. Posting roll for 324 days has helped keep the shit out of my face. Why would I mess with 100%? My class, June 2010 has 30 (out of 40) confirmed quitters that hit the 3rd floor. I think that is amazing. The reason? We all understand that we need to devote the time to stay here. It’s not a lot of time either. It takes 3 or 4 real minutes to post roll. 30 seconds on a good day.

So the question to you is, “Instead of looking for excuses as to why you don’t have to be accountable, or why you can’t post roll, or why you can’t answer a text from a concerned brother…why don’t you devote yourself to YOUR QUIT and really do well this year?”