Game Day

From the moment you wake up until the second you step out on that court you can feel the excitement, the energy, and the focus for the battle you know you will have to fight that day. You cannot help but wonder how it will go, what will be the outcome, and if it will be a game you were proud to play in. The key element to getting ready for a game is focus. If your head isn't in it, you're going to get beat. You may still win the game, but you won't walk away feeling good about the game that you played.
Basketball is the game I play. For me, one of the best things about walking out onto that court is that I know that for the entire duration of the game, nothing else matters. Anything on my mind, anything stressing me out or driving me crazy; I can let it go. I know that I just have to focus on the task at hand and play the best that I can. We also have to go out there knowing that no matter what, we are not fighting this battle alone. No matter how the game is going we have to be able to count on our coaches and our teammates to fight alongside us.
Half-time is an important part of the game. It is a time for us to recognize what is going right and what is going wrong. We can use this time to re-focus and plan for the next half of the game. 
After the game, we as a team, take the time to reflect on the game and make sure that we gave it all we had; win or lose. This is also the time to bring up things that we need to improve and work on as a team or individually. Usually, this is the most important part of the game. You will never play a perfect game. There will always be things to improve on because no matter how good you get, you can always get better.
Just go out there, play your game, and don’t let anything stop you or hold you back.
Learning to focus on the task at hand is one of the most important things that I ever learned from playing the game. It can be applied to so many more parts of life than just sports. Sometimes things feel like they just keep piling up and you can’t get a break. I have realized that it is easier to look at each one as a separate ‘game’ rather than trying to complete, accomplish, or fix all of them at once. Focus. It really is the key element to fighting any battle, big or small. So just focus on the task at hand and let everything else go. Take everything one step at a time; and don’t ever try to fight a battle alone.