Make Each Day Your Masterpiece
John Wooden, legendary basketball coach, always emphasized to "make each day your masterpiece". That means focusing entirely on the present, and not worrying about the past or future. It's recognizing that what has happened in the past is done with, and you can only affect the future by the work you do today.
We are the painters of our own canvas. Every day, that canvas is a blank slate that we have the power to paint how we'd like. At the end of the day, we can look at our brush strokes, colors, and styles that we chose, and look at our masterpiece. We can evaluate our art, and change it for the next day need be.
All you're worrying about is making that single canvas beautiful. Make that one a masterpiece, the one in front of you. It's the same for life: make the day ahead of you beautiful. Don't dwell on the past and don't anxiously think about the future. Rather, paint your canvas today. You will have a gorgeous masterpiece by the end of the day.
Don't end the day with no masterpiece, because today can't be made up for by tomorrow. You can't make up for not living your life today by living extra hard tomorrow. Live today. The opportunity to paint your masterpiece today is only here now, in the present moment.
Achieve this through preparation and discipline, two of Coach Wooden's prominent values. Define goals and create a schedule, then attack. A masterpiece is just your daily actions summed up on your canvas. Make those actions great, and your masterpiece will be great too. Focus today on making a masterpiece. Not what it looked like yesterday or what it could look like tomorrow. Paint the canvas today.