During my time as a high school athlete our team had a lot of ups and downs–no surprises there.

But one day, our coach surprised us. During a particularly long spell of losing, he waltzed into the locker room with a construction helmet. “Right now, the state championship doesn't matter,” he told the team. “League standings don't matter. The only thing that should matter to you right now is this helmet.” At the end of every game, a player would be awarded the helmet based off of effort and performance, he told us. 

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Most of the team saw this as unnecessary and somewhat stupid, but there was something deeper at play. Sure enough, almost like our coach had planned it, we were all competing to wear that stupid helmet, working as hard as we could just to keep it in our locker until the next game. Soon after, we started winning again. Several weeks later, our coach asked us: “So what do you guys think of this stupid helmet now?”

We may have seen it as dumb, but the helmet had a purpose. There was no reason to be looking at championships and standings as if they were the only goal. We took on a smaller goal of earning that helmet, and as we worked toward that the rest of our goals seemed closer and closer as we went. 

And at the end of the season, we all learned a valuable lesson: Small goals make the big goals come easier. 
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* Originally published on June 27, 2022, by Tyler Traskos