Like millions of other sport fans across the world, I watched the Super Bowl last night. I have to admit that I don’t find football as interesting to watch as hockey, but when one of the biggest sporting events in the world is on, I feel compelled to watch. There is nothing more inspiring than seeing players battle it out on the biggest stage in hopes of achieving their lifelong dream and write their ultimate success story.

The mark of true athletic greatness is being able to rise to the challenge, capitalize on the BIG opportunities and play your best on the biggest stage. But no one gets to that BIG game by chance - it takes more hard work, dedication and focus than most people realize.

Preparing for your peak post-season performance doesn’t start once you make the playoffs - it starts many months beforehand.

In the case of last night’s game, I can guarantee you that both team’s coaches put a plan in place at the start of the season that they thought would lead their team to the Super Bowl. The responsibility was then placed on the players to make sure that they set their individual performance goals for the season - keeping in mind how they fit in with the overall plan of the team.

Once these teams made it to the playoffs, you can be sure that they put another detailed plan together for how to make last night’s game a success. The set specific performance goals and worked hard to achieve them.

But as we saw last night, no matter how perfectly you plan everything out, things are going to happen out there that are completely beyond your control and your entire season can all come down to a single play.

In an ideal hockey playoff scenario, every bounce would go your way, the refs would call a perfect game, your entire team would be in sync and you’d be up by a few goals going into the last 5 minutes of the game. But as we saw in the game last night, all it takes is a few penalty calls and a few bad bounces and you could find yourself on watching the other team raise the championship trophy overhead.

Always remember that hockey is a game of mistakes. No matter how perfectly you plan everything out, you have little control over what happens out there on the ice. There are going to be challenges for every player and every team throughout the playoffs that are going to look like they are impossible to overcome. One of the teams in last night’s Super Bowl looked like they might be down and out with a few minutes left in the 4th quarter, and it would have been easy for them to just give up.

And that’s where the true champions shine through. You can set BIG goals, put together a plan of exactly how you want to get there and take all the action steps necessary to get there - and you may still find yourself on the outside looking in.

Remember this…

Brick walls are there to show us how badly we want something.

If you want something bad enough, you will find a way up, over or through that wall.

You may need to readjust your goals and come up with a new success strategy. You might have to work a little bit harder or a little bit smarter in order to get there.

And the ultimate reward of achieving your BIG goals in the face of all these BIG challenges will be that much sweeter.

As we enter the playoff season, things are only going to get more challenging from here on out. You have to be prepared, and you also have to be ready and willing to readjust your goals and plan when obstacles arise.

Have you or your team faced a BIG obstacle recently?

How might you change your action plan you put in place in order to overcome this challenge?

The hockey playoffs are unpredictable and you may need to readjust your goals and plan along the way. But readjusting an existing plan in the face of a BIG challenge is a lot easier to do than having to put together a new plan from scratch.

What did you do last week to prepare yourself to perform your best in the playoffs?

What are you going to do to move one step closer to your BIG goal this week?

Post your success stories from this week in the comment box below and set your goals and action plan for the 4th week of the Total Female Hockey “Take Your Game To The Next Level” Contest.

Work Hard. Dream BIG.

~ Coach Kim