Surrender to Your Purpose

“You will never succeed beyond the purpose in which you are willing to surrender” (John Maxwell).

In case you haven’t read my bio at www.ganonbakerbasketball.com, I’ll quickly fill you in:

“All growing up, I truly thought I was passionate about the game of basketball…But it wasn’t until I finished with my junior year at Comstock Park (MI), standing 5′6, 125 pounds, with no college scholarship offers, that I truly realized what passion was. From that summer on I stopped playing basketball and I started training for basketball. That’s when I learned that mere skill and enjoyment wasn’t the make-up of passion, but sacrifice, hard work, repetition and gritty perseverance. I made a decision to hit the gym for eight hours a day that summer and train, train, train…That next season I earned the scholarship I was seeking.”

It took me a long time to finally figure out what John Maxwell meant in the above quote. I had always desired to succeed, but when I really thought it over, I realized that I hadn’t surrendered to my desire. I really had to take the time to define hard work. Was I truly committed? Was I truly working as hard as I could? I was 4′11 as a freshman, 5′2 as a sophomore, and 5′6 as a junior. I was and am the prototypical undersized player. See, I was working as hard as any player in the area. That was my problem. I had only surrendered to the level of my opponents. I needed to work harder, make more sacrifices, and surrender to my own purpose at a level no one else was willing to do.

I had to! I had limitations and weaknesses that other’s didn’t have. You might be in the same boat, so I hope this helps. If you want to succeed, don’t judge your efforts based on what your competition is doing. Judge your efforts by doing everything that YOU are capable of doing. For me, I was capable of devoting my entire summer and eight hours a day. What are you capable of? Is there more room for surrender? It’s up to you…