By: Douglas J Utberg

One of the most popular sports cliché’s is the notion that “the score takes care of itself” when playing a competitive game like American football.  The underlying logic of this sentiment is that if focus is placed squarely on flawless execution of your game plan, it will create results on the scoreboard naturally.  In this way, all competition is ‘really’ against yourself since the actions of another person cannot be controlled but your own study, preparation, and execution are fully within your sphere of influence.

The extended impact of this insight can be quite profound when we see how many people focus on differences in the results that people achieve (the score), without paying the slightest bit of attention to the training, preparation, and discipline that created those results.  For many of these people, the desired course of action is to support political leaders that claim they can change the ‘score’ of life, instead of focusing on how they can improve their own performance.

As individuals, we do not have the ability to change what other people do.  We cannot change the actions of nations or companies in Asia who offer outsourced services at a significant discount against Western countries.  We cannot impact the selection of a co-worker for promotion over ourselves.  We do not have the power to make the stock market move higher or compel the value of our home to increase.  However, we do have the power to conduct every activity of our personal lives to the greatest extent of our ability and take every action possible to increase our capacity for achievement.

A simple way to articulate this philosophy is to focus within our circle of influence.  In athletic circles, people frequently say to ‘stay within your game’ and rely on consistent execution of your training to create results.  It is most certainly true that there will be situations where your best efforts are not sufficient to achieve victory.  It is also true that the greatest degree of success is achieved by playing the best game that we are capable of, instead of worrying about the game that somebody else happens to be playing.

Woody Hayes glibly defines success as what you do with what you’ve got.  However, this is a surprisingly holistic understanding of achievement and success, since each person is born into different circumstances.  Since we are not allowed to choose the circumstances that we are born into, each of us are constrained by ‘what we’ve got’ in regards to our personal and professional achievement.  Thus, true success is much less about the total amount that you achieve and much more about the obstacles that are overcome to create success.

In the end, it is certainly true that when we do the right things, the score will ultimately take care of itself.  This is true in athletics, true in business, and true in life.  We cannot achieve great personal success by complaining about the ‘score’ of life.  The only way that any of us can reach our full personal potential is to constantly improve the thoughts, decisions, and actions of our lives.