When Cate Hansen found herself struggling in practice, her father’s advice on discipline helped turn things around.
I was always hard on myself growing up: I set absurd expectations, played on teams with older girls, and never accepted anything but the best from myself. One day, I came home from a particularly frustrating lacrosse practice in tears. When my dad asked me why I was upset, I blubbered that I could not win against this one girl, no matter how hard I tried. She was just too good.
My father sat me down on the couch and told me about a theory he had. The “Theory of Integrity,” he called it. This theory states that if you want to succeed in something – sports, school, anything – if you keep showing up and working at it every day, it is impossible for you to fail. That’s how he went from playing Pop Warner football in a small town in Texas, to getting an athletic scholarship to Stanford University, to playing in the NFL. The universe is inclined to work for what is constant, he said. While my eight-year-old brain wasn’t quite sure what my father meant, those words stuck with me the most as I progressed into middle school.
From then on, I did my very best to show up and do my best at every practice. I learned that discipline and consistency could apply to every aspect of my life, not just lacrosse. Just as my father said, when I showed up every day and did the right thing, my competition began to fade away. The girl I simply could not beat stopped playing the sport altogether before middle school, and I made the club team with all the best local players.
Of course, this didn’t mean my athletic career got easier. Life never gets easier, but you get better. I’m approaching the recruiting process for college, and I look forward to times when the competition is raised, and I appreciate practices I struggle in. During times when even showing up seems too hard to do, I remind myself that the discomfort of discipline will always outweigh the pain of regret.