Didn’t Have What Was Necessary

Originally posted February 10, 2010 on other of my blogs

While dating my future wife, I was introduced to the world of figure skating. Over the years I have come to a modest understanding of the sport and actually enjoy watching the men, ladies and pairs figure skating competition.

Naturally, I would have to watch the Olympic Men’s Competition and the drama after the medals were rewarded. A lot has been in the press and on TV with sound bites and analysis of with Evan Lysacek performance and  Evgeni Plushenko’s performance. Like many I believe Evan earned the Gold medal and Evgeni earned the silver.

However, I don’t want to rehash what has been said by Lysacek and Plushenko, their fans and critics, the news media and their analysists. Rather I would like to comment on what both men did and how they have handled things after the medals were awarded.

Both men had a goal. Both wanted the Gold Medal. They both worked in different ways to achieve that goal. Lysacek worked with the goal to perfect himself and hopefully skate his best program. Plushenko also challenge himself by coming out of retirement, retraining his body to do things it hadn’t done for years, and perfecting his ability to do one of the most difficult jumps in figure skating.

There could only be one man who would be able to achieve that goal. Both skaters knew this going into the competition. What one man did that the other did not was prepare themselves for that on that night, was the possibility he would not win the gold. Now he is faced with the reality. Rather than accepting he did not win the Gold, but succeeded in so many other ways, he focuses on what he didn’t achieve.

How many times in our own lives, we fail to look at what we did achieve and focus on what we didn’t achieve. How many times do we look for an excuse outside ourselves to rationalize why we didn’t we achieve our goal, when in truth our effort simply didn’t have what was necessary to achieve it that day?

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