Little Things, Big Difference

I had a conversation with Larry Brey, one of the pastors at Elevation Church on Sunday. It was a great conversation that I learned a lot from. One of the questions that I asked him was about the technology they use at Elevation. He gave me that info but then he told me, “Whatever you use do it great. Don’t try to do something that is out of your league at the time and end up doing it bad. Do what you can do and do it with excellence.” He told me that it’s better to have still shots than a bad video. Until you are capable of using video don’t use it. The concept of only doing what you can do is very true and it can be used in anything in life.

One place that is used a lot is sports. Some teams aren’t capable of making huge plays, but they can make the little plays great and they come out on top. In his book “Quiet Strength”, Tony Dungy tells how that is his way of coaching. He tells when he coached Tampa Bay, they didn’t have a big playmaking team so he wanted to make them good at the little things. My hockey coach also uses that strategy. Many times he will get upset because we don’t do the little things. When we don’t skate all the way to the line or don’t pass when we should have or not give 100% effort he gets upset. We could probably survive as a team without those things but if we do them we will be so much better.

Don’t try to do something amazing and fail at it. You’ll look like an idiot. Several times in hockey games, I have seen a player try to skate through five guys on the other team then turn it over and give the other team a good scoring chance. It would have looked good if he had skated through everyone but why try it when there are people that you can pass to and get a better scoring chance. It will look better if you pass, you won’t use as much energy. Don’t skate the puck until you know that you can do it excellent. When you can and you know that everytime you can do it, by all means go ahead and skate it. Stick with the things that you’re capable of until you can move on to something better.

Do what you do to excellence in everything that you do. It may not look as flashy but you won’t make yourself look foolish either. Put your effort into doing the little things in a great way. Many little things added up to make a big thing. If you don’t do a lot of little things then a big thing will be missing. Big plays win games but little things win championships. Just do what you can do and do it great.