I remember my first varsity football game in high school. I was a junior and we were playing Oak Lawn High School as the first game of the season. We were in the locker room getting ready for the game and our head coach came in at the time and was furious after he noticed a couple of the players decided not to wear the team socks. Instead, they decided to wear a pair of new Under Armour long tubed socks.
He brought the team together and chewed us out. I don’t remember much of what he said, but a small clip sticks with me up till this day.
“It’s the little things, like not wearing team socks, that will get you beat.”
I remember laughing on the inside….”There’s no way not wearing team socks will lose us this game. We’ll lose for other reasons but not team socks.”
We lost our season opener. We lost because we failed to play as a team against a pretty solid school.
That game serves an as a reminder the little things matter. Our minor inability to coordinate as a team on socks that led to major malfunctions on the field, which led fewer stops defensively and less offensive conversions.
People forget to focus on the smaller, less glamorous things in life but they fail to realize that they’re missing out on big opportunities just by doing the little things.
What are the little things? Here’s a list:
- Returning phone calls or emails at a timely manner
- Taking the time out of your day to listen to someone
- Waking up a 30 minutes earlier than you need to
- 2 extra cups of water a day
- An extra text to tell someone you care about them
- A phone call to check on your clients
All of the above are small acts individually, but when combined, they change people’s perception of you and how you perceive those around you.
“It’s the little things that will get you beat.”