Going Further: The Coaching Newsletter

🗣 Laurence‑ism: One Score At A Time

Do you often feel like you’re falling short?
Do you feel as if the goals you’ve set are out of reach or that you’ve missed the mark?
Maybe you feel, similar to how I do, that if it doesn’t happen exactly how you envisioned it, that you’ve failed…and therefore are a failure.

Congrats! Because that feeling isn’t failure, it’s pressure.
And pressure does something strange to the mind.

Pressure convinces you that the entire mountain has to be climbed today.

That mentality causes the list to grow longer.
The expectations to get heavier.
And suddenly the path forward looks opaque, if not, impossible.

I felt a bit of that last week.
Truthfully, a tremendous amount of pressure.

From the outside, things might look like they’re working.
Maybe there’s momentum or opportunity or even better…progress.
Yet, appearances can be deceiving.
And as we all know, pressure doesn’t care about appearances.
It shows up anyway.

And when it does, our natural instinct is to solve everything, everywhere, all at once (sorry, I couldn’t help it).

We immediately try to fix the whole problem.
Win the whole game.
Turn the season around in a single play.
That’s not the way it goes.
That’s simply not how pressure gets handled.

And it’s not how your comeback over pressure will happen either.
In the 2017 Super Bowl, the New England Patriots were down 28–3 to the Atlanta Falcons.
Most people watching assumed the game was over.

But on the sideline, Tom Brady kept repeating the same thing to his teammates:
“We just need one score.”

Not the whole comeback.
Not 25 points.
Just one score.
Then another.
Then another.
That game became the largest comeback in Super Bowl history.

But folks, it didn’t happen all at once.
It happened one score at a time.
Pressure in life works the same way.

When everything feels overwhelming…
When the mountain feels too big…
When the list feels impossible…
When the bank account feels scary…

You don’t need to solve everything.
You just need one score.

One action.
One decision.
One step forward.

And then you build from there.

Here’s the best thing I can share with you now:
you’ve survived 100% of the obstacles you’ve ever encountered.

Most victories in life aren’t won all at once.
They’re won the same way Brady won that game.
The same way you’ve achieved anything and everything in your life…

One score at a time.

Go Further 🚀

🧰 Tools to Go Further: How To Stop Overthinking!

Overthinking usually happens when we spend too much time worrying about things we honestly can’t control.
This framework helps bring your focus back to where it actually matters.

Think of your life in three circles: the circle of concerns; the circle of influence; and the circle of control.

The Circle of Concern

This is the outer ring.
These are things you worry about but cannot control.

The economy.
The weather.
Politics.
Other people’s opinions.
The news.
Traffic.
Social media.

Most of what stresses people out lives here.

You can think about these things all day, and nothing will change.

The Circle of Influence

This is the middle ring.

These are things you don’t fully control, but you can influence.

Your relationships.
Your work environment.
Your reputation.
Your finances.
Your health.

Your actions here can move the needle, but they don’t guarantee the outcome.

Still, this is a much better place to spend your energy.

The Circle of Control

This is the center.

This is where your real power lives.

Your focus.
Your thoughts.
Your reactions.
Your choices.
Your actions.

That’s it.

When people feel overwhelmed, it’s usually because their attention is stuck in the outer circle.

The goal is simple:

Move your energy inward.

Stop obsessing over what you can’t control.
Focus on what you can influence.

Then take action on what you fully control.

Overthinking gets quieter when your attention gets clearer.

And progress usually starts in the smallest circle.

Go Further 🚀