Goals

A group of my friends and I have recently been trooping over to Will's house after school to play basketball. It was fun stuff. I discovered I could knock down pull up jumpers like it was nobody's business. It became my strong point, the first thing I would mention in a head to head argument about basketball skills.

A week later, it was still the same routine. Just one thing changed. I couldn't make a single shot beyond a layup. Frankly it was flat out ridiculous. I wasn't even consistently missing in a uniform fashion. I was all over the place. Wide, high, low, you name it. I missed. I tweaked my shooting mechanics constantly. Nothing seemed to help. I just got more and more frustrated.

After taking some flak from my friends, especially the water buffalo, I'd pretty much had enough. I went outside to play some basketball in the backyard to relax after doing some finals studying. Same old story. Left, right, up, down, I missed in every possible manner. Tired of tweaking my mechanics, I thought: "Hm, well it isn't so important how I make the shot, as long as I do." With that in mind, I shot around some more.

It was amazing how such a little change in mindset could change my game so drastically. It seemed like as long as I focused on landing the ball in the basket, it would be in any time. Well, almost. [If that was true, forget school, hellllo NBA.]

At this point, you must be thinking 'Well, that's all cool and stuff...but what does this have to do with goals...'

Getting to the point.
After my return to shooting respectability, I realized what my flaw was all along.
I'd become so enamored with my technique, convinced that that had to be what was wrong with me that I'd become so obsessed with how I'd achieve my goal [shooting into the basket] that I had completely taken my mind off of what I was trying to achieve by fixing my mechanics in the first place.

In essence, it's not really important what manner you achieve your goals in, but it's important that you never let it slip from your mind what you set out to accomplish.

It's important that you don't lose your way.