Aim higher. Always strive for more. Never settle.
Words to live by, right?? How many times have these phrases been pushed as a motto for success in life and work?
I recently gave some extended thought to this following a conversation with a colleague recently. As a new full-time employee in collegiate sports, she has become a huge fan of the endless resources available to NACMA members. The website is jammed pack with great ideas, videos and discussions outlining amazing ideas that have worked for schools throughout North America.
Unfortunately, for those of us in the Small School category, this can also be very daunting. While discussing some of these great ideas, my colleague expressed her frustration towards our inability to execute promotions at this level. It is so easy to look at what D1 schools and even pro sport organizations are pushing out and get discouraged by our daily struggle to do more with less. Every year we brainstorm dozens of outstanding new ideas that never come to fruition primarily due to a lack of time, money, and/or people. The best we can do is shelve these ideas for future years and hope that somewhere down the line we can make it happen. I could tell that my colleague was beyond frustrated with how full that shelf was getting.
That was the moment when I had a major epiphany. We need to stop focusing on our failures or challenges and start celebrating our victories.
With that in mind, I encouraged my colleague to take a slightly different view. I started listing some of the most successful and impressive events that we planned and executed over the past year. With our limited resources, we have created some incredibly special programs. We have sold out games for teams that only used to dream of crowds that big. We have connected with community groups in many new and exciting ways. And most of all we are continuously engaging with our student population.
Moving forward, my new goal will be to circle back on this list on a regular basis. Take some time periodically to celebrate our victories. Then we can re-look at the great ideas shared through the NACMA membership and determine how we can adapt some of these concepts for our environment.