21 Oct IS CHARACTER TRAINING WORTH THE COST?
College tennis players develop faster with intentional training. The same is true not only in tennis development but also in character development. You won’t become a better player just by reading about sport, and you won’t become a person of high character just by reading about it either. Stacking intentional decisions during difficult moments is the training path for character development.
We say we admire courage, humility, and self-discipline. We want these qualities in our teammates, leaders, children, and ourselves. These characteristics develop through perseverance, especially when doing so costs us something. Character doesn’t develop by admiring it; rather, it grows with practice. So the question is: do we value it enough to pay the price?
Hard Comes First explains that the things that matter most in life often require us to do difficult things first. We want confidence, but we resist the struggle that produces it. We want high character, but we’d rather have it without discomfort.
Doing the right thing, even when it costs us, builds integrity. Disappointment teaches us how to respond when life doesn’t go our way. Failure teaches us humility. Challenging relationships teach patience and forgiveness.
What if doing the right thing costs us something today, but makes us a better person years later? Is this a risk worth taking? In Hard Comes First, the pursuit of excellence is more than winning. Winning is important, but who we become in the pursuit of winning matters more.
God can use the circumstances we would never choose to nurture qualities we would never acquire through comfort. The greatest danger is not that doing the right thing might cost us. It is that avoiding the cost might prevent us from becoming the person we were intended to be. Hard Comes First reminds us that the hard things in life aren’t always obstacles between us and success. Sometimes they are the very thing preparing us for the next level. The victory may be what we accomplish, but who we become along the way.