Opportunities

Baseball season starts next week and I have to admit that I'm a homer. Yes, I root for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The great thing about being a Rays fan though, is that it's an exclusive club. Right now there are about 315 of us, but I think the number is growing daily. :) Anyway, I wanted to share with you something I read from one of my favorite Rays, Carl Crawford. Carl is an incredible player, but he doesn't get much national exposure since he's stuck here in Tampa Bay. In an article in Men's Health magazine, he talked about expanding your definition of "opportunity." Crawford believes most athletes don't understand how many opportunities they really have to break out. Example: A quarterback thinks he has three downs to get 10 yards, but within each play he has at least two wide receivers, a tight end, a running back, and perhaps even more targets, depending on the play. Over three downs, that's a dozen-plus opportunities. Crawford approaches his game the same way. "Every pitch in the zone is your chance to make something happen," he says. "Every fly ball is your opportunity to make the play." His thought process on this really got me to thinking about all of the opportunities we are faced with. When completing goals, we typically look at the straight line and say "I need to accomplish a, then b, then c." Yet, we often fail to look at other possibilities for success. How many times have you watched a football game and been frustrated because the quarterback didn't even look at a receiver on the other side of the field who was wide open? I'm sure it's the same thing in our lives. Are we missing opportunities that are all around us, but we're too focused on point b?