Issue 735 - "Prioritization: The Roadmap to Your Personal Best"


Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 13	Issue 735
Craig Impelman Speaking \| Championship Coaches \| Champion's Leadership Library Login
"PRIORITIZATION: THE ROADMAP TO YOUR PERSONAL BEST" John Wooden Video Clip (2min. 12 sec.): Coach Wooden is asked: "Please tell us about the poem-The road behind and the road ahead" A great life lesson. John Wooden believed that the ability to prioritize your life was essential to becoming your personal best. His priorities were clear and unwavering: family, faith, and friends. Those priorities were not just words—they were protected by a detailed daily schedule that ensured time for what mattered most. Coach often reminded us, "Don’t get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life." For him, personal excellence began with clarity of values and disciplined attention to them. On a professional level, John Wooden’s priority was equally clear: coming as close to perfection as possible. That meant his teams were always working on the most important thing, and just as critically, working on it in the best possible way. As a coach a top priority for Coach Wooden was conditioning. That priority never changed. What changed was how he pursued it. In his early years at UCLA, Coach Wooden had his teams run numerous wind sprints at the end of practice. Players from those early teams would joke that Coach "ran us into the ground." Over time, Coach realized something important: conditioning was still critical, but he was not working on it in the best possible way. As he matured as a coach, he redesigned practice entirely. Conditioning was built directly into fast-break drills that required running, ball handling, shooting, and decision-making—all at the same time. During the championship years, his teams ran virtually no wind sprints at all. Conditioning was accomplished through proper execution of basketball fundamental drills. When you talk to players from his ten national championship teams, they’ll tell you the same thing: conditioning was intense—but it was efficient, purposeful, and integrated. Coach Wooden was now working on the most important thing in the best possible way. This evolution reflects one of Coach Wooden’s most important reminders: "Don’t mistake activity for achievement." That admonition forces us to ask two essential questions: Am I working on the most important thing right now? If I am, am I working on it in the best possible way? If the answer to either question is no, we may be very busy—but we are not making real progress. We may have activity without achievement. Coach Wooden’s thinking was never about shortcuts. In fact, he warned against them. He often said, "If you get too busy learning the tricks of the trade, you may never learn the trade itself." He did not believe in less effort. He believed in better-directed effort—effort applied with discipline, clarity, and purpose. This mindset requires self-awareness. Coach was always asking whether his priorities were right and whether his methods were the best available. That habit of self-awareness with alertness is what allowed him to grow, refine, and ultimately reach his personal best. Reflect on this idea of prioritization. How are you doing? Write it down. Share with someone on your team. Click here for personal development exercise: Issue 735. Click here for Printable Poetry: Issue 735. Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman www.woodenswisdom.com Follow @woodenswisdom	COACH'S FAVORITE POETRY AND PROSE Don’t You Know It’s easy to be happy, Don’t you know; There’s no sense in being snappy, Don’t you know; What’s the use of being grumpy, Or a bally rotter mumpy? Folks don’t like a fellow dumpy, Don’t you know. Every one has fits of sadness, Don’t you know; No one’s life is wholly gladness, Don’t you know; If today you taste of sorrow, Or a shilling have to borrow, Frowning won’t help things tomorrow, Don’t you know. Oh, a gloomy cuss is silly, Don’t you know; He’s a downright balmy Billy, Don’t you know; Instead of always moping With his lips in downward sloping, He should smile and keep on hoping, Don’t you know. Oh, my word! If I were willing, Don’t you know, Every time I’d lack a shilling, Don’t you know, In my way so very humble, I could start a dismal mumble, But I laugh — I never grumble — Don’t you know. Take the time the guv’nor sacked me, Don’t you know; Good old chap! He’d always backed me, Don’t you know; He got hot and sent me flying, Cut me off — there’s no use lying — But I laughed instead of crying, Don’t you know. And I’m here on earth, still grinning, Don’t you know; Back once more at the beginning, Don’t you know; Taking life the way I find it, Never asking what’s behind it, Though it’s hard I do not mind it, Don’t you know. Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959)
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