I was helping out at my eldest son’s school hockey tournament the other day.
I was in charge of the B team that my Oli was in.
While the group games we’re running on the pitches, they had ‘Quad Kids’ running in the field.
This wasn’t, as I initially thought, an activity for four wheeled children.
It was four different events that the kids could do whenever they were free.
75m sprint, 600m, howler throw (like a small rugby ball with a tail) and standing long jump.
Whilst Jon (not me, the guy that runs all the school sports stuff round there) was explaining the rules to everyone at the start, I paid attention and took some notes.
And sought him out after to clarify a few things that weren’t clear.
Whilst most of the other helpers only half paid attention.
I wanted to see how they worked out who won the events.
It was a scored system where the further or quicker you went the lower you score was.
Lowest three scores in each event place at the end of the day.
Lowest average scores across the four events get picked for a next round.
Faster and further being better is pretty obvious, I know.
But I made it really clear to my team that that, rather than how you place amongst those you’re doing it with is important.
If you’re miles ahead on the 600m, don’t slow down because you’ve got first in that group in the bag.
Sprint through the line.
If you’re further back and can’t catch the person in front, still go as fast as you can as to get the best score you can.
If you’re throw or jump further than the rest of your group on your first go, still try and beat it on the second even if no one else there then will do.
You get the point.
I clarified how you win.
And the kids did their best to do that.
And we got a first, two seconds and two thirds.
5 out of 12 placements.
From 8 schools and 16 teams in total.
Now, I’m not taking any actual credit as the kids did the hard work.
But by knowing what needed to be done to get the result they desired, they performed better.
Got the result they wanted.
As dozens of others slowed at the end as they’d already ‘beat’ their classmates.
In life it’s often not as obvious what we need to do to win as we think it is.
The important factors in how we succeed can get hidden by other lesser points.
If I had a pound for every time someone had said to me some variation on;
“I don’t understand why I haven’t lost weight as I’ve stopped snacking / cut out carbs / been intermittent fasting / eaten less chocolate / been having more protein / eaten healthily / been exercising regularly / been trying really hard.”
All factors sure.
But not, ultimately, what needs to happen to ‘win’.
They are all valid methods of working towards a calorie deficit.
But without that deficit being there, they won’t (from a weight loss perspective) do anything.
You ‘win’ at weight loss by being in an average calorie deficit.
You have at your disposal various tools that can contribute to that.
Different ones will work better for different people for various reasons (and we’re good at helping people understand these tools and pick the right ones –> myrise.co.uk/briefing-meeting).
Logistical, personal preferences, hormones and much more.
But, like a child wondering why they won their race but came behind another one that came third in theirs……………
We need to remembers that ‘how do you win’?
Much love,
Jon ‘Lose or draw’ Hall and Matt ‘Chicken Dinner’ Nicholson
P.S. My middle name last Friday – ‘Taxman’ was a song on the Beatles record ‘Revolver’ 🙂
