Teamwork

The past few months I had the opportunity to work the Mt. Baker Girls Basketball program. It was a blast. I loved working with such a driven group of kids. They were hard-working, positive, enthusiastic, and worked so well together as a team. The lead eachother and did not try to outshine oneanother. It was a beautiful thing. With kids, the joys of life are front and center without jobs, bills, and responsibilities to throw them on the backburner. Talent aside, I think that my favorite aspect of this group was their teamwork. I learned a lot about what teamwork really means to me.

Teamwork is vital to so many relationships and to daily life. We like to be independent and strong, but sometimes we lose sight of how important it is for us to work together to achieve optimal results. I see this every day. At work, in the family setting at home, and even on the basketball court.

The past year has been incredibly challenging. When dealing with loss and grief sometimes we lose ourselves in that battle, and have a hard time with things that used to come easy. For me, my relationship with my husband really took a big hit. Things have really improved in the past few months, but at the time I didn't even realize what was happening to us. Looking back, I can see that we were on two separate paths, rarely working together. We fought often, and did not communicate well. Things like doing the dishes and laundry caused us to argue. It's really silly, but the little things can really get you! We just fell out of sync. We finally realized what was happening and both made a conscious effort to improve on our teamwork. Since we have been working on this life has been so much better. We help each other out! We communicate and share. It's wonderful! We are both dorks, and since our last name begins with "C," we now refer to ourselves as "The C-Team." That's very special I know. But what if we hadn't made the decision to get our 'teamwork' in check? It is a scary thought.

I have such a hard time with those who don't understand how important teamwork is. It is so frustrating because I think that it is vital and I prefer to work together not against! When we don't work together it makes every task more difficult than it needs to be. That being said, it can be a challenge to work together. It requires leadership and communication and the most challenging of all: compromise.

Lately I have been faced by a number of individuals that throw a giant wrench in my little teamwork plan. It's been difficult to get them to work with the 'group' and they don't seem to want to change. I have come to the conclusion that the best way for me to 'help' them with this would be to lead by example and be positive about it. I am challenging myself to work harder and be better at "teamwork." Fingers Crossed!

COMING TOGETHER is a beginning.
KEEPING TOGETHER is progress.
WORKING TOGETHER is success.