I don’t think it is so much how you end it as you begin it, on that day.

Getting out over your skis the night, day or week before will only act to consume your energy, replacing it with anxiety. Looking back to not recall similar circumstances but to focus on your shortcomings “the last time”, will only serve as a distraction and the foundation for an excuse. Living in your frontal lobes or the back of your skull does not work.

Yet if you choose to view this supposed adversity coined “a demanding day” as an opportunity, then the only butterflies you may sense will be the breed of excitement and anticipation, not dread and doubt. They can charge your batteries like pre-game jitters. The “can’t wait to play” variety.

Presence is truly the one and only demand of such a day. Remaining fully in the moment asserts your talents and effort directly upon the task at hand. Miscues, mistakes and misconceptions can then be dealt in a fully positive and genuine matter.

But the moment you scale things backward to validate low esteem, prove this isn’t for you and provide the bedding for some well earned self pity, then of course, you will fall. Same thing applies for pressing forward past completion, in anticipation of controlling things that don’t even exist in this moment.

Being present is fertile ground for learning, adapting and growing into something you never considered but only imagined. Only then can one hundred percent of you be fully apportioned into this adventure. Doing so assures that there will be more of you to emerge from the challenge than you what you were going into it. Not one thing is wasted. All is consumed to feed to the finished product.

Not the results of the demanding day.

But how it resulted in you.

There was a phrase I used to share on the field with the team that says it in a far more succinct fashion:

“Things don’t happen to you. You happen to them.”

That being so, they will need the time to unwind, because you were on them all day. That should certainly bring a smile and pause to be able to look back at it in that fashion. Where you began and how you chose to finish it.

They all thought they were gonna happen.

Until you did.