ARE YOU HURT OR INJURED?

Are you hurt or injured?

I often ask my players this when there's a hard foul or a pause in action. It's been a question that I find myself asking during practice and games. Why? I'm genuinely concerned about the well-being of my players,but I also need to know how mentally tough my players are or aren't. Some might think that being hurt and being injured are the same thing because they both involve pain and/or discomfort, but there's a fine line between the two. It's all about the INTERPRETATION. Often times, we interpret being hurt as being injured and we "milk" the opportunity to gain sympathy from the people around us. There are times when we can play hurt but we choose not to do so. When we choose not to push ourselves, we contradict the champion's creed and lose the competitive edge.

To be hurt, by definition, is a slight decrease in efficiency in one's performance. The key word here is slight. We often times don't have much control over getting hurt. However, our hurt can be self-inflicted as we often allow people or obstacles to serve as the root of a slight decrease in our performance or actually convince us to give up and use being "hurt" as an excuse for not competing at the highest level. To be injured, on the other hand, is defined as a state of being impaired or deficient. When we're injured we have the choice to rehab or remain injured. Ironically, 90% of the rehab is mental while the remaining 10% is physical. More often than not, it's on the battlefield of our minds that we defeat ourselves. We let one person doubt our ability. We let one person talk us out of our game. We let one failure destroy our confidence. We let one challenge make us second-guess ourselves. Why? Because as hard core and invincible as we claim to be, we all have a sensitive side that rears it's ugly head, disrupts our normal routine and determines if we're hurt or injured. That little voice in our head is responsible for the aforementioned. If we allow the smallest amount of inconvenience to convince us that we can't compete then we'll never win. It's about the CONVERSATION we choose to have with ourselves.

We cultivate unhealthy relationships with excuses. When we're hurt we allow excuses to join our inner circle and throw a party because of a moment of inconvenience. We allow that party to never ever end. We promote the party and invite people to it. In fact, we invite the words can't, won't, and quit to bring their sleeping bags and have a sleepover night after night after night until they're not guests anymore. In turn, they become part of the family. They lay around all day with no purpose, nowhere to go and nothing good to say. Why? Because we've allowed the EXPECTATION for ourselves to be lowered. If we have even the slightest regard for ourselves we'll look excuses, along with the words can't, won't and quit square in the eyes, grab them by the collar and aggressively remove them from our minds as well as our vocabulary.

In sports ICE (ice, compression,elevation)is the strategy used when dealing with bruises or sprains.

In life, ICE (interpretation, conversation, expectation) is the strategy used when determining if we're hurt or injured.

Interpretation - in moments of tragedy, we must look pay closer attention to
how and why things happen. It's not the load that weighs us down, it's
the way we carry it.

Conversation - in moments of tragedy, we must speak victory and
deliverance to ourselves (internally and externally) and align our
actions with our words toward progress, restoration and rehabilitation.


Expectation - in moments of tragedy, we must raise the expectation of ourselves and those around. Expect and demand that you push you and that they push you.


Being hurt means you pay little or no attention, then play through with no mention

Being injured means you're down temporarily but come back with a vengeance

On the path of excellence, expect that life will be filled with bumps and bruises

Champions never back down, learn to fail forward, and separate reasons from excuses


Get knocked down 8 times , get up 9

ARE YOU HURT OR ARE YOU INJURED?


REBOUND.RESET.RELEASE.