“1 second…”
Shared by Breanne Smedley
“1 second…”
At the beginning of each season, my team goes through a series of challenges to earn their practice shirts, jerseys, and gear.
It’s adapted from similar pre-season challenges my college team would go through called “Earn the Right.”
The challenges build on each other, starting with individual skills, then moving to small group, and finishing with the entire team.
They are designed to work on skills essential to volleyball, obviously.
More importantly, they are designed to put our team in frustrating situations.
To challenge them and force them to face failure and decide how to respond.
To overcome adversity together as a team.
To signify that nothing is given, everything is earned.
The first two challenges in a series of six are three minutes of individual forearm passing and two minutes of setting.
This earns the girls two practice shirts.
Each player on the team is to forearm pass to herself the entire time without dropping or catching the ball.
The catch is that if anyone drops, the whole team has to start over.
Individually, each player is capable of completing this task.
But, in order to earn the shirt, they need to each complete it at the same time.
It can sometimes take days for this to happen.
Days of frustration, sore shoulders, and lots of opportunities to be mad at each other.
Right where I want them!
One particular season, the group was struggling through the first challenge.
It had been two days of multiple attempts.
They were rallying together though, coming up with strategies, signing songs together to keep their mind off their burning muscles.
I was keeping the time and it looked as if they were going to make it.
“Last minute!” I called out.
Some shouts echoed through the gym, along with a few, “stay with it ladies!”
“30 seconds!”
“We got this!” One of the leaders encouraged.
“Last 15!”
They were coming into the final stretch.
Last 5 seconds.
We started the countdown.
“5, 4, 3, 2, 1…”
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a player lose control and drop her ball with one second left, right as the team started jumping and celebrating.
I had a choice in that moment.
No one else noticed this player drop besides me.
The girls here high-fiving and hugging. They thought they had finally completed the challenge that had been haunting them for days.
The choice: Let them have it. It was only one second. They’ve been working so hard!
Or, tell them they needed to start over. That not everyone made it to the three-minute mark.
As leaders, we are often tasked with making decisions that are unpopular, but necessary.
My team wasn’t happy with me at the moment that I told them they needed to start over, we were a second short.
But, I’ve learned it’s not my job to make everyone happy and be popular.
It’s my job as a leader to hold myself and my team to the principles, goals, and mission we set out to accomplish.
And when it comes to that, 1 second can make all the difference.
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#DaringlyResilient
#MindfullyEvolving
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