6.2 John Wooden: Make Each Day Your Masterpiece

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“Make each day your masterpiece.” - John Wooden

Do you waste days or win days?

John Wooden was one of the most successful coaches in any sport. “The Wizard of Westwood” led the UCLA Bruins to 10 national championships in a 12-year span.

One of Coach Wooden’s most well-known quotes is, “Make each day your masterpiece.”

A website dedicated to his legacy says, “To Coach, making each day your masterpiece means focusing on what you are doing right now to the best of your ability. It is about recognizing that nothing can be done about what happened yesterday, and that you can only affect what will happen tomorrow by what you do today.”

Apply this wisdom to where you are at all times. Instead of dwelling on a bad call or bad moment, or obsessing over what went wrong yesterday or in the last game, try to keep your mind focused on where you are now and focus on the positive things around you.

Learn from and let go of the past, and if you can apply this in small doses throughout your day and focus on winning the moment you are in, by the end of each day, you will have your masterpiece.

The website also said, “Coach Wooden also frequently made the point of not being fooled into thinking that you could make up for today’s lack of effort by working twice as hard tomorrow. By tomorrow, today’s masterpiece opportunity is gone. Moreover, if you could work twice as hard tomorrow, why wouldn’t you work twice as hard today?

Question of the Day: How can you stay in the moment so you can make each day your masterpiece?

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