Episode 3 - Don't Give Up - a podcast by Charles J. Infurna, EdD

One night a week my oldest son plays recreation soccer through our parks and rec department.  The age group he plays with is 7-10.  He is one of the youngest (7) on the team, but physically stands head and shoulders over most of the other kids.  There are two teams of 7 kids and each coach on the indoor field at the same time.  They begin with about 15 minutes of drill work, and then play short games (basically until one team scores).  After a goal the kids take a water break and then continue playing.



I enjoy watching my son play soccer for a multitude of reasons.  It gives us a chance to get out of the house together one night a week and talk about how things are going in his 2nd grade world.  I played soccer through high school, so I have a bit of an emotional attachment to the sport and think it’s wonderful that our two oldest enjoy playing it thus far.  Plus, I just enjoy watching him participate in things he enjoys doing.  He asked to play indoor soccer, and is just finishing up his second winter session of the year.  He asked to be signed up for another indoor session which begins in early March.



As the teams began playing, it was clearly evident that the other team had a couple of much more gifted soccer players on their team than our team.  If you have ever watched 7 and 8 year olds play indoor soccer you know what I’m talking about.  Most of the kids chase the ball around similar to a school of minnows swimming in the water.  But every once in a while there are a couple of really good kids that play as well, that don’t always chase the ball around the field.

Tonight one young man had five opportunities to score on our team, but the combination of our goalie and defensive players caused him much frustration.  Each time he got within 10’ of the goal he would either be met with a fury of defensive players or the goalie would be quick to capitalize on the loose ball and quickly scoop it up.  Each time he didn’t score he grew more frustrated.  His body language told me that he felt defeated in the fact that he couldn’t score or get a shot off because of the defense.  He kept trying until his 6th opportunity.



 It was on his 6th opportunity to score that if he would have continued with the same intensity as his first opportunity that he would have blown past the goalie and scored a goal.  On this attempt however, as soon as he kicked the ball towards the goalie, he put his head down and started running back on defense.  Well, as fate would have it, the ball rolled through our goalie’s outstretched arms and into perfect position for one of his teammates to kick the ball into the goal.  If this little man would have continued pursuing the ball after it left his right foot, he would have scored.



If you have read this far, you probably can guess what I’m going to wrap-up with.  Just don’t give up on what you are doing.  Keep moving forward towards whatever goal you want to accomplish and achieve.  I think at some point in everyone’s life they wake up one day and think to themselves that this day is the day to stop because continuing towards {insert goal here} is difficult and they think they haven’t made much progress.  It’s when we reach that point that we should double down and keep moving.  Sure, failure might be part of our journey, but it doesn’t have to end our progress.  Maybe we need to take a brief pause and find peace and gratitude in the current moment.  We can think of failure as a conditioning point that strengthens our resiliency.  How we respond to failure and disappointments as we are moving towards our goal(s) is important because it is in those moments that we ultimately create the outcome(s) we are competing for.

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