Goals, Priorities and Working Hard

November 12, 2012 at 4:29 PM

I read an amazing bio of Dan Gable, olympic wrestler and all star college athlete. In 1972, in Munich, Germany, he won a gold medal at the Summer Olympics without surrendering a point to any of his opponents. Some very inspirational quotes that reveal his high standards and work ethic:

Gable on Goals

“I’m a big believer in starting with high standards and raising them. We make progress only when we push ourselves to the highest level. If we don’t progress, we backslide into bad habits, laziness and poor attitude."

Gable on Priorities

“When you finally decide how successful you really want to be, you’ve got to set priorities. Then, each and every day, you’ve got to take care of the top ones. The lower ones may fall behind, but you can’t let the top ones slip. You don’t forget about the lower ones though because they can add up to hurt you. Just take care of the top ones first. In 25 years as a head coach and assistant, I think I might have missed one practice. Why? Because practice is my top priority. A day doesn’t go by when I don’t accomplish something in my family life or my profession because those two things are my top priorities."

Gable on Hard Work

“The obvious goals were there- State Champion, NCAA Champion, Olympic Champion. To get there I had to set an everyday goal which was to push myself to exhaustion or, in other words, to work so hard in practice that someone would have to carry me off the mat."

I hope you find that as inspiring as I did. As a quick update for my projects I just finished a few more Wohlfahrt recordings and scale accompaniments. Check them out and use them for teaching and helping your students!

Have a great week.

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