“I just don’t get it, Matt; I just don’t understand why I’m not getting what I want. I’m doing the work. I’m trying hard. I don’t get what it is.”

One of our pro football (“soccer” - for you North American-er’s) said to me this week.

He was frustrated, annoyed, distraught, and underperforming.

I said, “Tell me how your preparation has been this week.”

He goes, “Matt, I’m LITERALLY obsessing EVERY SINGLE DAY over my sport!! I’m getting better, I’m sweating the details, I’m studying all night, I’m -“

“Stop!” That’s when I cut him off.

“You mean to tell me that you’re basically focused on your sport, 24/7, all day long, but still aren’t getting the result?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Tell me this,” I said, “can you tell me exactly what it is that makes you great - the three special traits?”

He listed them out.

“Can you rate how well you’re doing each of those out of 10?”

He rated them, with only one of them being above an 8/10.

I said, “And how much have you put the work in on those two things that you’re currently unsure of?”

He said, “Barely any.”

I said, “Exactly. And THAT is why you’re underperforming. NOT because you’re not good enough. Not because you’re not working hard enough. But because you’re not working on the right skills.”

And that’s when the lightbulb turned on.

Over the last season, I’ve seen a couple of our athletes underperform simply because they lacked this one thing: boundaries.

You need boundaries as an athlete. Let me explain.

First off, let’s clear the air on one thing: obsessing over your sport doesn’t make you successful.

Purposeful and intense obsessing is what makes you successful.

Aka - you work on the things that bring you success, and you focus on doing the things that make you successful. And you do them every single day.

But there’s a caveat to this: you need to have clarity on what you need to do, and you need to know when to work hard and when to shut it down.

If you’re working without clarity, like our MLS player, then you’re going to suffer in games.

Why?

Well, because you simply won’t be doing the right things to bring you success.

You can work as hard as you want, obsess as much as you want, but you still won’t get the results that you want.

I need you to think of athletes like Kobe Bryant - he was the poster boy for obsessing.

But did you ever see what he obsessed over?

It always came back to 3 things: driving the lane, shooting the ball, and defending.

That’s it.

And he worked to get those 3 things better every single day.

The second thing is knowing when to shut it down - or having boundaries on when to work and when to rest.

Here’s why: when you’re working just to work with no end, quality drops.

You also get burned out, and you also don’t take the time to reflect on your progress.

You know what this leads to?

Blind work!

And you know what blind work leads to?

S*** results!

You don’t need blind work. You need specific work.

You need boundaries.

Draw your boundaries on:

1. When you work and for how long (be clear about how many minutes you have and I promise the quality will be higher)

2. When to reload (you need one day a week where you step away from your sport)

3. When to shut it down for the day (you need a specific time that you shut it down so you can reflect. Realistically, you need about 3 hours per day to work on your craft).

Otherwise, you’ll work long, but not hard - and that always leads to crap results.

Be purposeful. Be intense. Set boundaries.

The best in the world do this.

If you want to really put this into play, then apply to work with us in a one on one coaching program.

We’ll customize an approach that guarantees you results within your first session, or you don’t pay!

You can apply here: https://www.molliteum.com/stratsession

Until next time - stay resilient!

Your friend,

Matt “draw your boundaries” Caldaroni