The Individual is the Team

Hey Hockey Hacks Community

Clean your Room.

It’s a cliché psychological principle. But it’s nonetheless true by definition, because if you hear it so much and it changes you, then it’s fundamental to how you live.

A messy room is a messy psyche. Anything that’s cluttered in the world gets cluttered in your mind. You can’t think straight, you’re not motivated to do anything, and you live miserably because you spend a lot of your thought and energy noticing how messy your room is.

Even when you try to clean your room, “You will have a WAR at hand.” -Jordan Peterson. Because the world will through wrenches at you that you didn’t expect. Try vacuuming your floor, then having it break on you (literally) and spills the dust everywhere, forcing you to start over. Try cleaning your stove that you know will get dirty again just because you need to eat to stay alive, or empty the trash that you know will just fill up again because ….. it’s trash. Try sorting your finances only to get slammed with a broken refrigerator and needing to adjust your budget once again to pay for the thing you need more.

You will always have to handle a crappy situation. But setting your house in order before criticizing the world is better than any other alternative.

How does this relate to hockey?

I had a message conversation with a follower, who seemed like he was stuck with some hockey thoughts. He said that I don’t consider how complex hockey is, because “there’s so much more to the game than just skills and athleticism. You need to cooperate with your team.” And therefore, any individual work is not good enough.

I told him that I thought he was stuck in the complexity of the game rather than taking the most actionable step. By accounts of what the conversation looked like, before it degraded into name calling on his part (shake my head), it was a reasonable point he made if you want to look at hockey as a whole. Of course there’s lots of moving parts to hockey, otherwise it would have ceased to exist 100 years ago. We as humans intentionally made hockey more and more complex, which is what makes it a game instead of a simple stick-n-puck battle. But his point ended up being shallow, and the degrading into the name calling, labelling, and mind-reading was unacceptable. So I deleted that conversation.

When you’re faced with complexity, what do you do? I know what I used to do. I would stop and get overwhelmed. “Oh my goodness, there’s more to this than I thought. There’s a lot that I don’t know.” And that’s true! Whether you look at the total mess in your room, or the game of hockey, things are COMPLICATED! Welcome to life, by the way; thanks for waking up!

Do you want to know what’s been most productive for me in the face of complexity?

The simplest action item you can take. And then doing the next item. And the next. And the next. And the one after that.

Until before you know it, your room is cleaned up, and your parents praise you. Your skills get better every day by working on a mechanic you were once not good at, even if it’s just for 5 minutes. Your athleticism improves just by walking into a gym and doing an exercise you’re weak at.

Simple is Stackable.

Wins breed Wins.

Results produce Results.

But you don’t get there by not taking action.

You get there by working on the One Thing that matters most.

What’s the simplest thing You can do for your hockey team to be better? Work on yourself.

Athletic Ability. Skating Ability. Goal Scoring Ability. Playmaking Ability. Cooperative Ability. Etc.

All of which are learned skills, trainable, and not magic.

The entire team is better when You are better. Now you can execute plays so the breakout can happen without a turnover. Now you can escape trouble and avoid a turnover with your new and improved on-ice movements. Now you can blast a puck through screens and goalies with your unlocked shot. Now you can play better defensively and not be on the ice for any goals against because your movements are better and allow you to get into position faster. Now you don’t get knocked off the puck because you both have better mechanics and have the strength to fight off all those monsters.

A team full of individuals who each clean their room is the best team to be on. That is why a “team” isn’t even a team. It’s many individuals working together towards the same intention.

And you know what happens when things break down. More often than not, mistakes happen because of One player, say a bad turnover, a missed shot, falling over, losing a puck battle, or more. That isn’t the “team’s” fault. That’s an individual player simply not having their room cleaned enough with their hockey ability.

When I cleaned my room and fixed my personal hockey ability, I became a better team player.

If you want to get the same transformation I did, or you want help to clean your hockey room, you can check out the Hockey Hacks System at our website:

hackelhockeyhacks.com

Clean Your Room. That Improves Your Team.

Yours in Hockey Hacks,
Mason