Consistency

When I first started playing Ultimate Frisbee my motivation was driven solely by the fact that I was looking for some sort of activity to help me lose a couple pounds.

Ultimate had a low threshold for entry by virtue of the fact that it didn’t require a lot of skill to play at a recreational level and I already knew someone who played.

Almost immediately I was hooked. There’s something about chasing a disc floating in the air and the instant mental arithmetic that takes place when you try to determine what its going to take to catch it.

And even in the very beginning, when I had no concept of how to play the sport, I just wanted to do it all the time.

I remember my second or third game, when the friend who had graciously made a spot for me on her team, took me aside and said I needed to start subbing off because people were starting to get angry that I was staying on the field all the time.

I literally couldn’t fathom a world where people would want to leave the field for any reason, the sport was just that fun.

I started playing in an east end multi-sport league, moved to a league which generally had better facilities, and finally to an Ultimate only league where all the ‘serious’ players ended up.

A few years ago I took up running in my off time because my opponents seemed to be getting younger while I had definitely lost a step or two.

During all this I motivated myself to play for what I’d call purely selfish reasons.

·         I wanted to\liked beating the other team.

·         I wanted to see how far I could rise in the sport. (Spoiler alert. Not far at all really, but it was still important to me to set goals)

But recently I found myself needing to use different drivers to encourage me to play my hardest.

My eldest started playing competitive hockey last year. She’s still learning the sport in a lot of ways and part of my job as a parent, beyond being a cheerleader, is to help her develop her game.

I try to help her develop her skills. (She practices taking shots on net in the driveway and I practice not wincing when I get a ball to the chest) I talk to her before (and sometimes after) a game to discuss what it is she wants to improve on. (This year it’s deking the other team)

Basically, I walk that fine line between encouragement\development and unnecessary evaluations of her game.

I caught myself on the field a couple weeks slow playing my game. It was late and I was tired and I just didn’t have a lot of energy. So I ended up choosing field positions with a low likelihood of having to work hard.

I realized that I was doing the very thing that I had instructed my daughter against doing, taking the easy play just because it’s easy and there’s less likelihood of screwing up.

In short, I was being a hypocrite.

How could I ask my daughter to work hard and be aggressive when I wasn’t able to put in the work on my own game?

So now, some 15 years later, my motivation has shifted.

I don’t play hard just to win or to show off for my kid. (Most of my games take place later at night anyway)

I play hard because I feel its important to hold myself to the same standard I set for others. I put the work in it, because I can’t ask someone else to do something that I’m not willing to do myself.