Off-Season Discipline

It’s been almost two weeks since my heart was broken.
 The Yankees finished the year winning eleven of their last fifteen games and tied for the best record in their league. Still, it wasn’t enough. Their season is over.

This marks thirty-three straight years finishing above .500 — an incredible achievement. But in the world of Yankees baseball, if you don’t win it all, the season is considered a failure. They take criticism for that attitude, but no one in sports can match the amount of winning they’ve experienced.

Every year, when the season ends, something interesting happens. The top people in the organization hold a closed-door meeting. The meeting itself isn’t secret — what’s said inside it is. They sit down and speak freely about the season. Rumor has it that some tough conversations take place.

This is the kind of meeting where even the nicest person might lose their job. It’s the meeting where they look in the mirror and admit where they fell short. What fascinates me is that these are the decision-makers. So when they ask, “Why did we fail?”, what they’re really asking is, “What did we get wrong the last time we sat in this room?”

Someone has to stand up and own it.


In life, we don’t get an off-season. There’s no three-month window to refocus and recover. But what if there could be?

What if every few months, we held our own “off-season meeting”? A time to sit down, be honest with ourselves, and ask the tough questions:

The truth is, reflection is uncomfortable. It’s much easier to stay busy, to keep moving, to pretend momentum equals progress. But sometimes growth hides in stillness — in the pause between innings, in the silence after the last out.

It’s easy to focus on the negative, but even the Yankees spend part of that secret meeting asking, “What do we need to add?”

That question matters. Because after we’ve looked at our weaknesses, we also need to ask — what’s available to help us grow?


Information and help are available for almost any issue we face. And most of the time, they’re free.

For those of you who follow me on Instagram, you might have noticed I added something new this morning — a new focus word: discipline.

I chose that word because I have days where I get a ton done and others where I struggle to make progress. But what could happen if I practiced consistent discipline every single day — working on what I want to accomplish?

Discipline is a strange thing. It doesn’t always look exciting. No one cheers you on when you choose the water instead of the soda, or when you wake up thirty minutes early to read instead of scroll. But those small decisions build something inside of you that big moments can’t — credibility with yourself.

That’s a question worth sitting with.


Here’s where the personal part hits home. For thirty years, I’ve told myself I drink way too much pop. And this year? I did exactly what I said I wouldn’t do — I drank too much pop.

If my health is holding me back from what I truly want to accomplish, then I have to own that. I’m the decision-maker in my own life. I have to decide what I need to start doing — and what I need to stop doing.

That’s not self-criticism; it’s self-coaching. Every great team reviews the film — not to shame the players, but to see what they missed. I think we need to give ourselves the same grace: to review the film of our days, not through guilt, but through curiosity.

You can even change your taste buds. Did you know they regenerate every ten to fourteen days? That means, over time, you can literally retrain them through consistent choices and small daily habits.

That’s encouraging when you think about it. If taste buds can change that quickly, maybe other parts of us can too — our habits, our mindset, our reactions. Ten to fourteen days might not sound like much, but that’s two weeks of faithfulness that can set the stage for a year of change.

That’s what I mean by having your own secret meeting. Reflect. Adjust. Try again.
 It doesn’t have to take all day or happen once a year — just keep checking in with yourself and be honest.


Focus of the Week

Have a meeting with yourself.
 Take time to decide what’s going well and what needs to change. Don’t wait for a new year or a crisis to start reflecting.

Ask yourself the same questions the Yankees do:
 What’s working? What’s missing? What’s worth keeping, and what needs to go?

What if your biggest weakness — the one that’s been holding you back for years — could start to change in just ten to fourteen days?

Maybe that’s the real meaning of the off-season — not a time to rest, but a time to rebuild.