I wrote a blog for a while called Be One with the Chaos. I don't advocate asking for it, but to deny that it exists or wish that it doesn't cross your path is a sure path to failure.
When I was a young softball coach, I can remember hitting ball after ball to my outfielders on the windiest of days. I'd aim for left field and it would drift to right; fly after fly. It was frustrating and tiring, sometimes funny and cartoonish, but I kept hitting them anyway. We could have packed it in and I've seen plenty of teams do just that, but if there are 20-mile an hour gusts at our Monday practice, couldn't it do the same on our Friday game? Our outfield was ready for that.
I heard the coach for unarguably the best swimmer ever, Michael Phelps, say he made Michael late to meets on purpose. If some random chaos slowed his arrival to a competition, Michael could still get in the pool and swim his best. He also made him swim hundreds of laps with his goggles fogged up. That's the edge that great coaching can provide - preparing for chaos and swimming on to victory despite its' arrival.
"Adversity, injustice, bad hops and rotten calls, even good breaks and lucky bounces all comprise the ground over which the campaign must be waged." Steven Pressfield from the WAR of ART
What is your "campaign"? Are you prepared to play the wind, go on stage, take the field, the court, go into court, or to the most important meeting of your life regardless of what gets thrown at you?
Identify your gusts of wind.
Name them.
Write down the terrible referees.
Embrace them! Prepare for identified chaos (and expect some you didn't know existed.)
"Oh thank you for being assigned to this crucial, stressful day!
. . . because I'm prepared to play in the wind, with the blind ref, with my shoes untied."
Coaching matters. http://www.facebook.com/CoachWSolutions
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