How is this Running Benefiting Me?

“Next drill: 10 suicides. Go.”

Groans escaped from my volleyball team as we repeated the suicide drill of running from line to line across the gymnasium floor. I didn’t understand why we had to do so much running. The court was not that large, and was not nearly the size of a football or soccer field. And this would have been considered an extreme punishment for two missed serves-there is a reason this is called the suicide drill. I tried to concentrate on something other than the running as my leg muscles screamed at me in the middle of the fourth suicide.

It wasn’t until later I realized why my team and I were constantly doing running drills. It wasn’t because our coach was punishing us; it wasn’t because she liked to see us in pain. It was because the drills provided us with more agility and stamina when it came time to play a game. Our coach made us go through the pain of those drills to improve our performance in the game. 

Our perspectives have a significant impact on how we handle certain events that come our way. Sometimes in life we are placed in complicated situations and encounter difficult people. At the time, it is hard to see how a particularly trying event could possibly have a positive outcome. (how is this running benefiting me again?) We may have a bleak outlook. But I have found as I look back on various experiences throughout my life, that I have learned valuable lessons and grown closer to Christ and more as a person through those hard times. Eventually I realize the importance of the lessons I have learned and see that I have become a more well-rounded person by encountering something difficult. Just as the goal of my coach was not to cause me pain but to prepare me for the game, the difficulties we experience in life are there to make us stronger and prepare us for what may come next.

In the end it really depends on the outlook we have when we encounter something difficult. If you are going through a difficult trial in your life right now, I encourage you to stick with it and not lose hope.  We can ask “why me?” a hundred times and meditate on nothing but the negative aspects of the issue, or we can ask “what can I learn from this and how will it make me a better person?” Looking back, you may be surprised at what you have learned just by changing your outlook on a particular situation.