You Are Important

I felt impressed to share with you my personal reasons for becoming a coach. I want you to read this with your parents or guardians and discuss the main points of the article.

I believe that soccer is a microcosm (a community, place, or situation regarded as encapsulating in miniature the characteristic qualities or features of something much larger) for the rest of your life.

I’m trying to help you realize at least 10 things through soccer:

1. A fulfilling life requires your best efforts

2. Failure is a great learning experience

3. Success on a team is not measured by wins or losses, rather the manner in which you did either

4. You can only control you (your attitude, your words, your reactions, etc.)

5. Happiness is a choice, not a circumstance

6. Forgiveness is bliss

7. If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far go together

8. If you are doing what you are supposed to be doing, you can have confidence in the results

9. Education is the key to achieving your goals – life is a classroom not a test

10. You are important because you are you and nobody else is

I want to expound on point 10 because of some things I learned recently regarding some members of the team. I think a couple of you guys are struggling emotionally because you are placing too much value on things that have little to do with happiness – popularity, girls (at this age), accolades, other people’s approval, more playing time, more wins, etc.

Kim Giles (author) wrote an article about self-esteem and she said the following:

“This idea that human value changes creates a fear in all of us — that we might not be good enough. It is because we believe that human value is changeable that we are insecure and feel inadequate so much of the time.

We have the option of seeing life as a classroom, not a test, and you can't fail if there is no test. If there is no test, your value isn't in question at all. This means your value stays the same no matter what mistakes you make. You can always just erase and try again. These mistakes are lessons to teach you things, but they don't affect your value.

Right now, because you think your value can change and must be earned, you base your value on your appearance, performance, property and the opinions of others. The world has taught you to see people who do well in these areas as better than those who don't. But again, this is just perspective.

You could instead decide to see human value as based on our nature and our uniqueness as one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable souls. If our value is based on our uniqueness, then we all have the same value, because we are all unique.”

You are important because you are you. You are important to us coaches because you are you, not because you score goals, win games, lose games (burn), try hard, do what we say, etc.

My goal with this team is put best into words by author Chuck Palahniuk:

"The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because it's only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on. If you can change the way people think, the way they see themselves, the way they see the world, you can change the way people live their lives. That's the only lasting thing you can create."

I’m hoping you learn lessons that you will share with your peers, family, future children and at the workplace. Lessons that will help you appreciate your journey through life and help others do the same.

Believe in something greater than yourself, become disciplined to free yourself from the pettiness and the superficiality of the world, and you will have incredible success and joy in this life.

I’m confident and whole-heartedly believe in this team’s future on and off the field.

Text “infinite” to me.