Scott Sonnon: Born to Fail - Made to Succeed

Your Most Important Goal in 2008

Have you faced physical challenges in your life? If you’re alive, you have. And yet, many people tend to separate people into two groups: those who are “special needs” and those who are “normal.” However, from working with everyone from brain damaged and mentally ill to the elite world champion athlete, I’ve learned that every single person has special needs. Each person requires that the physical activity be adapted in such a way that they can acquire the skill and develop the attribute sought.

Adapted physical activity has many meanings, but its central focus is individual differences in physical activity that require special attention. Adaptation means to modify, adjust, or accommodate in accordance with assessment data. Individual differences include impairments, disabilities, handicaps but are not limited to these traditional distinctions. Why?

Well, every person is a motor moron to a new skill. That’s just a fact. It’s all nice and fine to have the illusion that world champion athletes are the paragon of movement, but they are not. They face just as much hardship motorically as anyone else, except that they are often given access to cutting-edge scientific coaching, that the disabled child in the back of the group is not. I’ve been working my entire life to make certain that all people have equal access to the science of graceful flow. I’m not the only one; I’ve been coordinating with the International Federation on Adapted Physical Activity, so expect to hear more from them in the future!

RMAX Coach Jarlo Ilano recently sent me an article on the “Mundanity of Excellence” by Daniel F. Chambliss (Sociological Theory, Vol.7 No.1, Spring 1989. pp. 70-86.) The article is an exposition by a sociologist who spent three years researching the qualities of excellence in swimming. And the primary point of the article is that the most successful athletes distinguish themselves from the less successful by doing the “small” things qualitatively right consistently. It isn’t “talent” but the capacity to engage in the mundane so that the big event becomes just another day of practice.

Just a short buzz around the internet and you’ll hear from crowds of fans about the benefits of good genetics. Sure, genetics are wonderful, but not required. Greatness is always made, never born. Disposition can be born. You can be born with a disposition to be a great swimmer, but without the consistent heroism in daily minutia, you squander that disposition. And the person branded unlikely to succeed at anything, who meticulously grinds away at what appears to be the most insignificant details surpasses you and steps into greatness.

Here’s an exercise for you. If you don’t do it, you’re probably not serious about becoming great, or have such strong delusions of incompetency that you will dismiss the exercise. Sit down with a pad and pen, and write down the most important goal you have for 2008. Go write it, don’t type it. Now, start making a list of all of the monthly tasks that you will need to complete in order to reach that goal. Do that now and then come back to this article.

Next, write down the weekly requirements you will need to fulfill to make those monthly goals happen. Do it and come back.

You guessed what’s next. Write down the heading “Daily Requirements” and list what you will need to do every day to achieve your weekly quota. Go write it and come back. Okay, there’s your recipe. If you do just that TODAY, you are guaranteed to have Your Most Important Goal in 2008 come true. Tomorrow will come, and so will its challenges.

Joe Wilson and I were training together in Alabama two weeks ago. He helped me with several exercises because one of my goals by 2008 is to do a straddle split to help me get into some of the deeper yoga poses that I’m practicing. We went through all of the assessment process to find the specific limitations I was experiencing and ran through the exact movements necessary to overcome them. I have practiced them every day - 500 repetitions / day - since I left Alabama, and I’m already 5 inches closer to the ground, with only 4 to go. Systematic, daily acts of heroism in the most miniscule deeds… that’s what makes our greatness. I vow to post a photo of me in my straddle split by the end of January. What do you vow?

There will always be a monkey wrench thrown in your plans - one big obstacle for each big goal. Expect it and deal with it when it happens. Those big obstacles are blessings, because you manifest those big issues to ensure that you’re serious about success. Without them, success would be too easy; you would take it for granted, and never DO anything of substance with your life.

Now, go out there and get’em tiger!