Kirk Cousins, the starting quarterback for the Redskins, is paid a ridiculous amount – a one-year $19.95 million contract. However, this absurd number has not produced high results on the field. With a 0-2 start to the season, fans are calling for this QB to be benched.
Perhaps this is you, a star student from a past season. Given your history of success, people have invested in you, but this season is different – you're choking in the presence of what you feel is an enormous audience. You're used to getting good grades, it's all you know. However, you were just given a grade that crushed you. You ask yourself "How could this happen?" You tried your best, but the results did not yield what you wanted. Simply put, you were benched.
Now every athlete knows this feeling. In the moment, you feel completely inadequate. You convince yourself you're not good enough because that night a coach doesn't believe you have what it takes to be out there. There, in front of everyone, you were ripped out of the game and placed on the bench. Your teammates give you a sympathetic look, but that almost makes it worse because you know that at the moment, they're outperforming you. But that's when you need to realize that tonight just wasn't your night – there will be other games. You can't delve into comparing yourself to your teammates, that only yields further self-degradation.
Another feeling of receiving that grade or being "benched," is that you feel like all your hard work went to waste. You studied or practiced for hours, and the results look as if you did anything but that. You can't explain it; you think that because you put in the time, you should have gotten the result that you wanted. Yet, consider this: A doctor works vigorously to save a patient. They look over results, they care for them around the clock, they attempt a life-saving surgery. But the patient died, and the doctor failed. All that hard work amounted to nothing, but does that mean that they didn't work hard? No, not at all, they worked extremely hard, the results just weren't what they could attain.
You had a bad game, there will be more. Don't let your mind slip into the "I'm not adequate to continue with this." There will always be the opportunity to have the game of your life.
