HOW DO YOU KNOW – PART 2
Having your best players in their best and preferred positions is a great foundation to be able to build a successful rugby team, but it still doesn’t guarantee success. What factor or factors will separate the best from the very good? Which team wins when two teams of equal skill and ability meet one another? What would make the one side better than the other on the day? Yes, external forces and luck can play a major part on the day, but let’s exclude those for now and rather look at what we can control (well to some degree).
The answer is found in Leadership. Leadership displayed by the team captain as he makes on-field decisions that impact the team and the leadership expressed through each individual player as he makes personal choices at key moments in the game. To a large degree this disciplined leadership is built on an internal dynamic – Will Power!! What will make an exhausted player, fatigued through exertion, hurting from the number of times he has put his body on the line tackling opposing players, get up one more time to chase the opposition even though the outcome appears inevitable. How do you get a player to do that? To do it one more time when every fiber in his body is burning and crying out for him to quit. To get up that one more time necessitates incredible courage- will-power!! Only passion for the game can fuel that type of will power.
My co-coach and I wanted to instill a love for the game that would generate that type of passion and courage. The first step was to get the team to agree to a name that would personalize the meaning of will power, that when they heard that name bellowed it would inspire an immediate and desired response. A Zulu name, “iSibinde” was chosen. A direct translation means courage and/or bravery. Granted a theoretical knowledge of the meaning and spirit of the word doesn’t automatically translate into practical application. It was going to have to be taught and experienced. We did this through assimilated training sessions, but the true value could only be learnt in a real-time experience. Very early in the season, our second match in fact, we were up by 10 points in a high scoring game, with 4 minutes to go and we lost the match by 2 points. The boys were devastated! For the wrong reasons. They believed they lost the game on a series of poor refereeing decisions. (They were right, he did make mistakes and admitted it after the game) but that was the lesson. No match would be officiated perfectly. In fact, there would be matches where the referee would blow the entire game in a manner that would feel like they were being unfairly penalized. The question is, would they accept their fate, or would they dig deeper, struggle harder and overcome the challenge? What if the team they were to play was twice their size and it appeared as if they were fielding boys older than them. What would they do? Stand up or sit down? Training sessions and this match taught the boys all about having heart and passion for the game, to never give-up, to find a way to win. Passion for the game fueled iSibinde and will power was now part of their nature.
So how do you know if you are in the will of God? How do you know if you are fulfilling your purpose? In addition to my first point in part 1 (If you missed that email visit our website https://menofvalour.co.za/
I asked myself that question, but I found that I kept reverting back to old passions, maybe even regrets that I had. I even seemed to visit activities that I had learned to enjoy or was expected to enjoy. How was I going to remove all the clutter and noise in my heart and mind and genuinely discover what I was passionate about? I realized that there were no short-cuts for this. Like Habakkuk, (Read Habakkuk 2:1-3) “I will climb up to my watchtower and stand at my guard post. There I will wait to see what the Lord says …”
A watch tower or guard post requires one to be silent, to be alert, eyes wide open, ears inclining to pick up any noise. The secret is to be quiet!! I had to become quiet. I had to remove the noise. It took me nearly 6 weeks to start quietening down. I would sit for 15 minutes each morning before my quiet time and do nothing, just sit and try to quieten my mind. At times I would need to jot things down to get them out of mind. Eventually the noise began to quieten down. Eventually, I was starting to hear the Holy Spirit, not my thoughts about what I believed was right, not my past hurts and regrets, not other people’s expectations. There was still some uncertainty about what was real to me but I was making progress.
Now that I had learnt to be quiet I could start to ask myself a series of questions that would help me sift through the uncertainty determining what activities, projects and people I would be passionate about:
- If I was stuck in the Twin Towers and had only 6 minutes to live what would I do?
- If I had 6 days, 6 weeks, 6 months, 6 years, to live what would I do?
I treated this seriously, and I even allowed myself to think “selfish thoughts”. For example, in the 6-day period, I wanted to fish, I wanted to do more with my wife. I wanted more recreational activities!! This process took me nearly 4 months to complete and my list grew to 11 or 12 activities but as I weighed each period up with another I could see a pattern and I eventually concluded that there were just 4 areas in my life that really mattered. These four I was passionate about and would have the will power to press on irrespective of the odds to succeed, to win.
Try it!! What are you passionate about? What will you suffer for to see it succeed? What will you get up one more time for?
I have started fishing and have 5 different fishing rods for different conditions. I am enjoying other alternatives to playing rugby and have started coaching having already concluded my level 1 training, BokSmart and first year of coaching. I am focusing on helping other men find their purpose and have, with a team of men, started a ministry called Men of Valour and finally, my wife and I want to initiate a project together in the field of education. We are now exploring what field in education we are passionate about!
What about joining us at Cape Vidal over the weekend of the 14-16 September to ask yourself those questions? To discover whether you really are in the will of the Father.