Coach Nick Saban at an Alabama practice in 2009.
William “Bud” Hart, of Haverhill, shares “Success Principles”—ideas for living a greater, better and more accomplished life, and building habits that stick. He also coaches clients to incorporate strategies for boosting their mental and physical performance during everyday living.
I happened to catch part of the Alabama, Texas A&M football game this past weekend, a game that Alabama won 33-14, pushing their record this season to 8-0. As I watched I noticed how the Alabama players seemed to dominate in so many aspects of the game. And I remembered the segment that I watched on Nick Saban, the Alabama head coach that appeared on an episode of the 60 Minutes television show in November 2013.
The piece was titled “The Perfectionist.” What I remembered most about this episode was Coach Saban’s philosophy and the mantra that he would chant to his players, “Get your mind right.” He believes in his “process” and he preaches it to his players. As he puts it, “Ignore the scoreboard. Don’t worry about winning, just focus on doing your job at the highest level, every single play, and the wins will follow.”
You may not be a football fan, or a University of Alabama fan, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lesson to learn from the man who runs one of the most successful football programs in the country today. It is all about sticking to a process.
We all have dreams and goals and it can be difficult to stay focused on them and stick with them. In my coaching people, I hear things like, “I start well, but I can’t seem to maintain my consistency for a long period of time,” or “I have good intentions, but I can’t seem to follow through and stay focused.”
I believe most people see success as a goal that has an end, something that can be achieved and completed. Goals are good for planning your progress, but the only way to consistently make progress is to focus on doing the small, detailed, boring, everyday things it takes to win, like Nick Saban with his Alabama football players.
During the nine years Nick Saban has served as head football coach his Alabama teams have compiled an overall record of 103 wins and only 18 losses. They have appeared in seven bowl games with five victories, a share of five Southeastern Conference (SEC) Western Division titles, four SEC championships, and four national championships. If the game I watched is any indication this 2016 Alabama football season could be Saban’s fifth national championship.
The moral is if we want to become significantly better at anything, we have to stick with the process of doing what we do well and let the results take care of themselves. As Nick Saban puts it, “Success doesn’t come from pie in the sky thinking. It’s the result of consciously doing something each day that will add to your overall excellence.”
William “Bud” Hart is a certified “Mindset” Coach, Accountability Partner and Business Consultant. Visit Hart Group, www.hartgroupma.com, for more on coaching.