How to Map Your Way to Success.

Hope you had an awesome weekend – ours was part work and part play.  We spent Friday evening and Saturday helping my Mom move into her new apartment.  My Mom & Dad lived in the house where I grew up for about 48 years, so it has been a while since my Mom has had to move.  You can also appreciate, that my Mom has quite a bit more stuff now than she did when she moved into the house at as a 26 year old!

The move went really well, all of the furniture actually fit into the apartment, the telephone line works, the TV hook up works so that is good news.  It will be quite an adjustment for Mom to be living on her own in an apartment, but it is a great seniors community where she can eat her meals in the dining room, participate in supervised fitness programs, go on excursions with the group and best of all, there is a Starbucks only a 5-minute walk away – wooHoo.

On Sunday, Paul and I went mountain biking which was super fun (and muddy).  No one flipped over the handle bars, so the outing was a success.  I did tip over once when I failed to get my cleat out of the pedal before the bike stopped, but that was not very traumatic.

Part of the trail we were riding follows the top of a bluff that drops about 40 feet down to the river valley – you can see Paul trying to ride off the edge in the photo on the left.  For those of you who bike or ski, you know that you need to look in the direction you want to go, so I had my eyes fixed firmly on the trail rather than looking over the bluff, where I most certainly did not want to go!

This leads beautifully into the message from my lost post from last Thursday.  Basically, the message there was this – – can you picture where you want to be?  What type of goalie do you want to be?  Be specific, what do you want your save percentage to be (think of the exact number).  Do you want to play college, OHL, pro or dominate your men’s league?  When you close your eyes, can you clearly picture it?

You can also apply this technique to your job, family, school and community involvement.  You see, if you don’t know where you are going, you won’t know how to move toward your goals and you won’t know when you get there – does that make sense?  Now, do me a favour and watch the video below – it always inspires me to keep working toward my goals.  I will explain why after the video….

This is a must watch video…

My Map…My Mission

I love the sense of freedom I get from this video.  I am building a business that will allow me the freedom to travel while still working with athletes from all over the world.  So, with that vision in mind, then I ask myself what I need to do to achieve that type of lifestyle.  My online business will allow me to work from almost anywhere in the world – so in exchange for providing the very best quality off-ice training information to hockey goalies I will earn more freedom. So my MISSION to help 10,000 goalies win more games with fewer injuries, even if they do not have the genetic gifts and natural talent of their competitors is what guides that part of my quest for more freedom.

I also need to create freedom from the Revolution Studio, so this is why I have found a great intern who will learn my system of training so he can provide the same consistent results that I do.  I love working in the studio with athletes, but having another coach will give me the freedom to be away from the gym for a few weeks at a time without my athletes’ progress suffering.

So, I have a very clear picture of where I want to be and then I have action steps that are designed to get me there, so all I have to do is make sure I am taking steps everyday to get me from where I am to where I need to be.   Do you have a plan like this?

Your Map…

Let’s say for example, your goal is to take over as the number one goalie on your team and be the guy or gal that your coach and teammates want between the pipes for every game.  So what do you need to do to make that happen?

  • You need to stay healthy
  • You need to stop more pucks

Okay, so now ask yourself – how can you stay healthy?

  • Daily stretching
  • Strengthen your stabilizers using goalie specific movement patterns
  • Proper nutrition
  • Get lots of sleep

Win more games

  • Work hard in practice – make the most of your time on the ice
  • Listen to your goalie coach or find one online that you can follow – learn the science of the position
  • Build your goalie specific stamina, speed and strength so you have the tools to do what you need to do on the ice
  • Include some hand-eye coordination drills
  • Take a consistent, systematic approach

Then each day, you can ask yourself what you did to move one step closer to your goal.  If you are taking one or two steps forward everyday, then you are doing well.  I will see you later in the week with a new off-ice agility drill for goalies.  See you then.

Cheers,
Maria