Nick Saban Doesn’t Worry About the Score and You Shouldn’t Either
I’m currently reading Nick Saban’s book How Good do You Want to Be? As you probably know, one could easily make the case that Saban is the greatest college football coach of all-time. So, when he makes a counterintuitive point about how to pursue your goals, I’m going to pay attention.
With this in mind, it turns out that Nick Saban doesn’t worry about the score when he is competing. This may come as a surprise since football, as in nearly all sports, uses point scoring for deciding winners and losers. Moreover, tracking your score is the hallmark of competition.
Nevertheless, Nick Saban still thinks that true competitors should never worry about the score. In fact, Saban believes that if you worry about the score you will limit your potential.
Saban states:
Worrying about the score, surrendering to distractions, fearing or dealing with success and failure, being complacent and imposing limitations on ourselves are some of the ways we limit our potential. But all of these can be controlled with the proper mindset…
It is natural to be affected by where you are in life, but looking at the score and results can only take away from your competitive spirit…
When you get ahead in a game, for instance, you might change how you compete instead of playing to dominate each play. You play not to lose instead of playing to win, which gives your opponent the best chance to come back and beat you. By the same token, when we don’t have success, we often get frustrated and suffer negative feelings that affect our ability to do our best…
The point is, don’t be relieved when you are successful and don’t get frustrated when you are failing to have success. Stay focused on the next play to dominate.