Get Started!

About a year ago I mentioned to my good friend Tracie Hitz that I intended to start a blog centered on Small College Athletics. Tracie, who is God’s gift of encouragement, told me to Go For It! From time to time over the past few months I would jot down ideas for blog posts, only to forget them or decide that I didn’t have the time, venue, or ability to pull it off. Today, I am getting started .

It’s easy to relate my inability to get a blog started to several other areas in my personal and professional life. As a small college Athletic Director I have daily responsibilities that include personnel and budget management, event management, fund-raising and marketing responsibilities, strategic planning and departmental vision, along with membership on the University’s cabinet. Add to the mix, ultimate responsibility for the actions of a staff of 25 and more than 350 student-athletes and you get the idea that my plans for a day can change at a moment’s notice. As such, I have periods where I feel totally unproductive.

For about a year now, I have discussed with my Soccer coach our need to build a locker room for our teams. We agree that this is an important need for our program and have created floor plans, cost estimates and renderings of the physical space that we need. Next we created a list of possible donors which includes former Soccer players and past donors to the program and talked about how we would approach these prospects. Finally, we created a brochure that broke down giving opportunities and shared the dream that we have for the facility. Then we procrastinated doing the hard part, calling on these individuals and corporations to solicit their support.

I hemmed and hawed and thought “if only we had a development officer for Athletics that could keep me on task with this.” After months of “dealing with other issues,” I finally relented to the fact that I had to make “getting started” a priority. As such, we assigned prospects to responsible staff members and created timelines for contacting them. Each day, I set aside time for the specific purpose of calling on prospective donors as do other members of our staff. After just weeks of concentrated effort we are more than half way to our goal.

In reflection, the key to “getting started” on almost any important project is to make it your priority on a daily basis. Then faithfully set aside the time necessary to pursue and accomplish your objective. What personal or professional goals are you trying to achieve? Get Started!