"On The Mark, Player"

On monday nights i play touch football. The thing with touch football is that if you have the ball, and are touched by a player from the other team, you must stop. You then 'play the ball' by rolling it back between your legs for a teammate to pick up - and play continues.

As you might expect, one should play the ball at the point on the field where the touch occurred. The trick is that when running at speed, sometimes it takes a step or two to slow down.

We know we should return to the point of the touch, and then play the ball - but that takes time - it slows momentum - and we're trying to play fast. In our mind, we think "it's probably only half a step ... no big deal". In reality it's a metre and a half and it's a penalty to the other team.

So much for trying to 'play fast'! We've lost the momentum - and possession - and the opportunity to score points - all for the sake of a couple of seconds. "Why didn't i just step back?" we ask ourselves "we'd still have the ball". But all too often this kind of wisdom only comes after the sound of the whistle.

The same happens in life. It's the eternal battle of discpline versus temptation. In theory, we know the best thing to do is to return to the mark. The temptation is always there to sneak an extra metre, to get an unfair advantage (and we pay the price for it). It's about having the discpline to get back to the mark.