Watt intercepted an Andy Dalton pass and returned it for a touchdown, leading the Houston Texans past the Cincinnati Bengals in the first game of the NFL playolffs.

Watt’s, play according to Houston defensive coordinator Wade Phillips, came from hours and hours of the right kind of practice.

“When you do it practice, you’ll do it in the games,” Phillips said, referring to Watt’s exceptional practice habits. “You’d be surprised how many times he’s done the exact same thing in practice. We were probably surprised he hadn’t done it (in a game) before.”

“He does it every day in practice.”

Not so long ago, Watt wasn’t working with the kind of focus that he’s shown recently. His early college career was spotty, and he found himself down in the dumps and delivering pizzas. At a certain point, he regained his motivation and realized he didn’t want to be a pizza guy for the rest of his life.

He won’t. He got his career back in order, was drafted in the first round by the Texans, and practiced with fanatical attention to batting down passes. All the practice added up.

Ed Smith, best-selling author and creator of the One Minute Motivator, says, “Your short-term actions multiplied by time equal your long-term accomplishments.”

That certainly is true in Watt’s case.

Last night we went to a Japanese restaurant, the kind where the chef puts on a show while cooking your dinner right in front of you.

His showmanship was one thing, but what really impressed me was the preparation. Great care had gone into cutting the vegetables and meats, and arranging them for efficiency.

Whenever the chef needed anything, it was right there. After two hours we left, impressed and full.

“There are no secrets to success,” said former Secretary of State Colin Powell. “It is the result of preparation, hard work, learning from failure.”

Your work as a leader is just like the chef’s. You set things up long before the event. You make sure that when you need something, it’s there.

“Before anything else, preparation is the key to success,” said Alexander Graham Bell.

Justin Bieber’s performance of “Let It Be” in Times Square required hours and hours of practice.

“Failing to prepare is preparing to fail,” said coaching legend John Wooden.

Ron Swoboda played for the New York Mets in 1969. He was a below-average outfielder but wanted to improve. Every day he asked a coach to hit him a certain kind of ball — a line drive that required a quick decision.

Sure enough, in Game 4 of the World Series, Brooks Robinson of the Baltimore Orioles hit exactly the kind of ball that Swoboda had been practicing. He judged it immediately, dove, and caught it to save the game!

“Luck is when preparation meets opportunity,” said Oprah Winfrey.

Prepare for your opportunity!

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TotalGamePlan offers Winner’s Workshops for schools, sports teams and businesses. The emphasis is on motivation, skill-building and teamwork. To bring a Winner’s Workshop to your group, just email coachtully@totalgameplan.com or call (973) 800-5836.

It all begins in the few precious hours before Dick Clark comes on TV and the ball comes down in Times Square. With one fun exercise you can create a year to remember.

Just use the Banquet Technique. It comes in three steps.

First, imagine that this time next year you are a guest at a banquet that celebrates your achievements. Imagine what you would like the speaker to say. Be as specific and vivid as possible. What did you accomplish? Who was with you? How did it feel? How did it look? Enjoy this exercise. Hear the speaker. See the look of admiration from others at the banquet. It’s like goal-setting, except that in your mind it has already happened. So visualize as richly and deeply as you can. There is no cost to dream. For instance, if you’re a college football player, picture yourself in the NFL. If you’re in the NFL, picture yourself headed to the Pro Bowl. If you’re an entertainer, imagine yourself performing with Katy Perry. If you’re an up-and-coming comic like my friend Logan Hobson, see yourself on Comedy Central. Seeing such a dazzling future will motivate you

Second, take stock of where you are right now. How far are you from where you want to be? As peak performance coach Dave Cross likes to say, “The road to improvement begins with an honest self-assessment.” New York Rangers Coach John Tortorella asks his players to assess themselves constantly. There’s no point in fooling yourself. This is a private exercise; there’s no one there to judge you.

Third, develop a strategy that will take you from where you are to where you want to be. Here’s a hint: Success is simple. (Not easy, simple.) Usually you can create a great future by identifying ONE thing that you must do every day, then making sure you DO it. If you want to call it a New Year’s Resolution, OK.

Chose the one thing that suits you. For me, that one thing is blogging. For others it may be diet, regular exercise, daily attendance at AA meetings. Give it some thought. Remember, champions identify what needs to be done and make sure it gets done.

To summarize, see the future you want. Assess where you are now. Develop a plan to get from where you are to where you want to be.

Happy New Year!

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’”

Those words resonate because a friend of mine is going through a hard time right now. Or, to be precise, one of my friends has confided in me about a difficult problem. Who knows what other people are going through?

Someone once said that if everyone else’s problems were up on a clothes line for everyone to see, you would gladly take your own.

So for all of us, at one time or another, it’s a great sign of courage — and an act of faith — to simply say, “I will try again tomorrow.”

“Classic French dish,” she said, “is code for lots and lots of butter.”

Wow! That really made me think. I’ve heard the phrase “classic French dish” many times, but I never attached the same meaning to it that the cook did.

It really made me think about coaching. Do your players know what you’re talking about? Do your words mean the same thing to them as they mean to you?

It reminds me of the Bill Cosby routine where God instructs Noah on building the ark. “Make it 50 cubits long, 10 cubits wide, and 15 cubits high.”

“Just one question,” Noah said. “What’s a cubit?”

There are at least two elements to the words you say. There is the meaning you intend, and the meaning that others receive. If you want to coach correctly, you better make sure those two meanings are as close together as possible.

If you want to improve at instruction, motivation, correction, inspiration, team-building and leading, make your language as precise as possible.

You don’t want to people to be saying, “I thought you meant …” You don’t want to be talking about cubits when others are hearing “classic French dish.”

She relayed one of the best quotes I’ve ever heard.

“If you’re going to build ships, don’t hand out wood and nails, or divide up tasks or give orders. Instead, instill a yearning for the vast and endless sea.”

Wow. In other words, before you do drills and create systems, make it a priority to fill your athletes with love for the task. Great advice for coaches, bosses and teachers.

Thank you, coach.

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Mike Tully speaks to sports, business and educational groups. He also works with coaches, athletes and teams to make their practice time more productive and efficient. He and Gary Pritchard are co-authors of “Ten Things Great Coaches Know.” You can follow Coach Tully on Twitter at coachtully@twitter.com

Just now on TV, hockey expert Stan Fischler did a piece on “Diamonds in the Rough,” a look at the top five players who reached the National Hockey League despite not being drafted.

Each player represents a story that is hard to believe. NHL teams are so hungry for talent, and scout the amateur leagues so thoroughly, you can barely comprehend how any decent player could escape their eye.

And yet it happens. And how do these players zoom past others who are perceived to have more ability?

Mike Schmidt, a Hall of Fame baseball player, once said, “The ability to put everything together is itself an ability.” In other words, some people are better than others at getting better. One thing to keep in mind. The ability to get better, like any ability, is not innate. You can improve your improvement skills.

A noted motivational psychologist, Dr. Heidi Grant Halvorson, is author of “Success: How We Can Reach Our Goals.” She says that some people — no matter how smart they may be — are clueless on why they succeed or fail.

In an article titled “9 Things Successful People Do Differently,” Dr. Halvorson tries to take some of the mystery out of that question. My favorite of the nine is: Focus on getting better rather than being good.

This sounds very much like the advice of former LSU baseball coach Skip Bertman, who produced a video called “Winning the Big One.” Bertman says that winning the big one is the result of constant, daily improvement. If you find a way to improve every day, you will gain an edge on your competition.

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Mike Tully speaks to sports, business and educational groups. He also works with coaches, athletes and teams to make their practice time more productive and efficient. He and Gary Pritchard are co-authors of “Ten Things Great Coaches Know.” To see Coach Tully and Coach Pritchard discuss “Seven Ways to Prepare for Adversity,” go here.

Someone gave me that advice years ago, and it comes to mind as the season unfolds for New Jersey Devils forward Ilya Kovalchuk.

A high-scoring winger acquired last year, Kovalchuk thrived when his team seemed to be out of contention. Then, with his help, the Devils did what seemed to be impossible — they played themselves back into the playoff picture. But now that things are close, Kovalchuk must prove that he can still score.

It’s not just Kovalchuk. There are a lot of athletes who do just fine when the outcome is clear. Those aren’t the athletes that you want on your team. You want the athletes who thrive when the score is close. The athletes who love to make a difference.

That’s why on big stages — like the NCAA tournament, the World Series, the Stanley Cup playoffs — it’s often the unlikely heroes who emerge. Those players are used to fighting for their lives every night. For them, the stakes are always high and the score is always close.

Ali Farokhmanesh led Northrn Iowa on an unlikely run in last year’s NCAA tournament by hitting shots in the last minute. David Eckstein, who began his college career without a scholarship, wound up being a member of two World Series champions. John Druce emerged from obscurity in 1990 to score 15 playoff goals and lead the Washington Capitals on a long run in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Those are the kind of players you want. They play in the moment because they don’t look ahead or behind. They can’t afford to. They’re too busy.

Kovalchuk has nine game-winning goals this season, an impressive total. But now that the stakes are high and the race is close, the Devils need him more than ever.

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Mike Tully speaks to sports, business and educational groups. He also works with coaches, athletes and teams to make their practice time more productive and efficient. He and Gary Pritchard are co-authors of “Ten Things Great Coaches Know.” To see Coach Tully and Coach Pritchard discuss “Seven Ways to Prepare for Adversity,” go here.

If you tend to blame outside factors instead of looking at your own role, you are not alone. People tend to give themselves credit when things go well, and deflect blame when they don’t.

Social psychologist Heidi Grant Halvorson lays out the credit/blame phenomenon in this article in Huffington Post. She even calls it by name — psychologists refer to it as “self-serving bias” — and cites a 1980 American Psychologist article in which drivers who had accidents went to great lengths to absolve themselves of blame.

One driver offered this explanation to his insurance company: “The telephone pole was approaching. I was attempting to swerve out of its way when it struck my front end.”

Unfortunately, many of us are like that driver. We blame the telephone pole and not the person who was behind the wheel. We don’t look for causes, we look for justification. This keeps us from correcting what went wrong. No one can fix a mistake until they admit there was a mistake in the first place.

As author John C. Maxwell says, “A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.”

Golfer Bobby Jones said, “The mark of a champion is to be everlastingly on the lookout against the self.”

But how?

It helps to have an assistant or a colleague with whom you can discuss ideas. But even that hurts if two people constantly think alike. In groupthink, people make cohesion more important than testing ideas.

In “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team,” Patrick Lencioni says, “Harmony itself is good, I suppose, if it comes as a result of working through issues constantly and cycling through conflict. But if it comes only as a result of people holding back their opinions and honest concerns, then it’s a bad thing.”

Centuries ago, kings used court jesters, or fools, to tell them things that other people were afraid to say. Nowadays, some executives invite opposing ideas. (I would love to hear stories of strong leaders who invite dissent.)

Maybe the best safeguard against self-serving bias is a moment of pause. In the face of a mistake or misfortune, take a step back and ask, “What role did I play in this event? What could I have done differently? How can I make sure it doesn’t happen again?”

Whatever you do, be aware of self-serving bias.

As Miracle on Ice architect Herb Brooks said, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

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Coach Tully speaks to sports, education and business groups. He also works one-on-one with student-athletes. For more information, call (973) 800-5836.

Those of us old enough to remember saw the jubilation and the celebration on the ice. But no one saw the hard work behind the feat. Except the players. They will never forget. After living through it, they know the way Coach Herb Brooks constantly kept them on edge, not letting them relax for a minute.

“If Herb came into my house today, it would still be uncomfortable,” captain Mike Eruzione said years after the event, now known as the Miracle on Ice.

Eruzione knows all about the uncertainty. Not long before the Olympics, Brooks let it be known that anyone could be cut — even the team captain. If the captain could be cut, then who could ever take it easy? Who could be comfortable? No one.

“If you give 99 percent,” Brooks said, “you will make my job very easy.” No platitudes about giving 110 percent. Brooks knew the difficulty of giving even 90 or 95 percent. He pursued it like a fanatic, looking for mental, physical and emotional edges.

“He messed with our minds at every opportunity,” defenseman Mike Ramsey said of his coach.

Brooks wasn’t the only coach to recognize the need to keep things on edge. Anson Dorrance, head coach of the renowned University of North Carolina women’s soccer team, makes his players compete on the practice field and in the weight room.

He says that if your practices run too smoothly, you’re probably practicing things you already know. To prod even more effectively, Dorrance posts the results of the competition so everyone can see them.

Sports psychologist Dr. Rob Gilbert says, “You’ve got to become comfortable being uncomfortable.”

The soul of effective practice — deliberate practice — is to work just outside the area of competence.

“Move out of your comfort zone,” says self-help author Brian Tracy.  ”You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.”

Brooks made sure everyone had that feeling.