Go Sports Life

A negative past, or a negative action, does not disqualify you from a bright future.  No mistake you've made is too much to over come.  But you have to get your fire back.  Sitting around, living in self pity isn't going to get you on the right path.  You have to do this with a strong belief in yourself because everything in yourself is going to be telling you, "You don't deserve this.  You're a hypocrite."  You have to have the strength to change your actions.

Some of you dwell too much on the negative action.  You don't see the positive future.  Yes you have to work for it, but if you believe in it, you can do it.

Richard Bach said: "You are never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true.  However, you may have to work at it."

Do you know what one of the most inspirational inventions that has come out in the last decade?  The little electronic maps and direction devices that you put on the dash board of your car.  When you get into your car you type in the address of where you want to go and it will tell you the shortest route to get their.  It will even draw you a map and tell you out loud where to turn.  It's incredible.  I have used these things on some of the trips I've been on and they are really accurate and I would guess that it is impossible to get lost if you actually followed the directions that it gives.  But I don't always follow those directions.  Sometimes I like to think that I know a faster way to get to where I'm going. So I go off on my own and I try to prove the direction giver wrong.  I have yet to prove it wrong.  But you know what?  No matter how many wrong turns I make, no matter how many miles I drive in the wrong direction, the direction giver constantly is updating and giving me the shortest way to get to where I originally wanted to go.  That little device never shows it's frustration with me for not listening.  It just continues to tell me the best way to get back to where I was going.

People are the same way.  No matter how many wrong choices you've made in your life or in a game, you can still find your way back to where you originally had wanted to go.  Some people just sit on the sidelines and tell themselves that they have made too many mistakes in the past to have a good future.  Know this; nothing you have done in the past can disqualify you from a good future if you put in the work.

Alan Shearer, the great England striker, was playing for New Castle about 10 years ago and it was a big Cup game.  All kinds of excitement and pressure.  The winner moves on and the loser goes home.  Right out of the start of the gate a ball comes floating to Shearer's favorite right foot, he takes a touch, the goal is wide open, all he has to do is tap it into the empty net.  He shanks it.

The game goes the next 87 minutes with no goals being scored and the game is nearing the end when another ball comes to Shearer.  This time when he gets it, he makes a move, takes a touch, and buries it into the back of the net.  1-0 New Castle win.

After the game a reporter asked Allen what he was thinking after he shanked the ball when he was all alone in the opening moments of the game.  Did missing that shot destroy his confidence.  Allen Shearer gave one of the best replies I've ever heard.  He said, "No it didn't shake my belief in myself.  All I said to myself for the next 80+ minutes was that I would get the next one."

"I will get the next one."  What a great attitude.  That is life.  You're given a chance to make a good decision or you're given a chance to preform a task and you fail.  At that moment you have to decide how to go about the rest of your life.  Do you dwell on your mistakes?  Or do you figure out what went wrong and say to yourself, "I'll get the next one."