Can you imagine how interesting football will be if, within a 90-minute game, we can have 12 breaks during the game…instead of half-time, we have twelve breaks? In each of the twelve breaks, we can go back to the dressing room and have a chat with our players, tell them what we found out about how we are playing and how the other team is playing, and send our team out for another twelfth, to try and play to win.
The details mean that we will be playing each twelfth for just a little longer than 10 minutes. That will be twelve stop-starts to the game, twelve trips to the changing rooms, twelve restarts. Twelve potential changes in formation.
It will be interesting – but by now, we should have gotten used to it.
Maybe, and I say just maybe some teams will be doing better than they are – for example, Chelsea. I am guessing some players need words drummed in their ears just that bit more than others.
It is strongly believed that the fortunes of many clubs and teams will be different from what it is now if they have the luxury of a pep talk (which is a milder way of expressing it as a “kick up the backside”) every ten or so minutes.
But here is where people in other walks of life can start to see themselves as just slightly more fortunate than the seen-to-be-lucky-and-wealthy footballers.
Because you and I have the chance that the footballers do not have in their game, with our daily endeavour.
Our journey for the year started on 1 January; exactly a month ago. That was when our own ‘football match’ started.
We start the year with a target. We set ourselves goals and hope to achieve this, that and the other by the end of the year. We would have looked at how the last year was, and we will be like ‘by the end of 2021, I want to have done this or that’.
In many instances though, this is the week when it becomes most crucial for us to sit up. In fact, published record has it that between 55% and 65% of us give up on our goals that we set by the end of January.
Majority of this number in the corporate sector, give up, having tried the SMART or HARD Goals formula as a means of setting their targets and achieving their goals. They give up and walk away.
But now, take a look at this scenario. On the football scene, we go play a match which is scheduled for 90 minutes. There has been a whole lot that went into the preparation for the game, and – barring COVID – a crowd; a paying crowd at that.
Now you play the first twelfth (in my fantasy football world), go into the locker room and get the full ear treatment from the manager, and then somewhere along the line, your team decides that, because those first 11 minutes did not go to plan, you won’t bother to come out for the second twelfth. You decide that you won’t go out and give your opponents a good run, and match them and see how you can overcome them.
You decide that all the match preparations you did were not worth putting any extra effort into, and you just won’t bother. And the crowd? Really…..who cares about them, you say.
Basically, you are not liking the game and you refuse to go complete the game!
In football though, we don’t do that. We keep going. We play the game to the end. We don’t get the luxury of twelve breaks. We only get one half time….fifteen minutes of talking and correcting errors….then we go back out again. And we try, either to win, to build on our lead, or to limit the damage and still give a good account of ourselves.
We don’t do the SMART Goals formula in football. What we do is the KTA formula – with discipline and focus.
At half time, we get together in the changing room, and coach tells players what they should KNOW about how they are playing, what they are doing right or wrong, how the other team is playing and what he (and his crew) found out about what we could do in the second half.
Coach now tells players what he thinks they can do to neutralise the opposition. Coach gives the players the TACTICS on what should be done from the restart.
And when the whistle goes for the team to go back out for the restart, Coach will have gingered the players to go and ACT on the instructions given at the break.
No coach ever tells players not to go out and play.
So you can’t tell yourself that after one twelfth of the year, you’re giving up.
Remember you have the kind of advantage that the football match does not proffer – the chance to have a break every so often to appraise and reorganise using KTA.
So as you start this new twelfth, you must reappraise the goals target you set yourself at the start of the year, see where you are, and resolve to use KTA to good effect, with the focus we called on you to use in setting your targets, but also…..and here is the new one….with discipline.
Discipline in the context of you resolving to keep going, not to give up now, to accept that it’s only the first twelfth and hence was bound to have hiccups. But to resolve now, that you will be disciplined enough to see it through, and embark on the second twelfth which we are in, determined to make it better than the first, and to set you on your way to seeing more progress, and to your triumph.
Do not walk away from your goals. Do not give up, no matter how tough it is proving to be. Be resolute. Be disciplined. Be confident. And employ KTA to its fullest.
Ayo-TUNDE
PS: if you need more information and direct engagement with TundeTalks and the Mindset Academy course programs, you can join the specialised TundeTalks Whatsapp group by contacting +447417527932. It is not just an ordinary WhatsApp group. It is an intellectual group that will benefit all.
Like I say, TundeTalks will use the art, the science and the real life examples of football to break barriers, build mental strength and unleash brilliance from where it had been hidden within any and everyone regardless of background or status.