Habits are a funny thing, you either have them or they have you!
When it comes to staying at your best on a consistent basis, my first point is that you must be prepared for the days when you don't feel motivated at all. A lot of people think that the best of the best must be consistently motivated to get up and do what they do, maintain their habits, and show up. That's just not the case. Some days, weeks even, the last thing they want to do is anything remotely close to their sport. Yet, they do it anyway—and it has nothing to do with motivation. It has everything to do with mindset.
The best of the best athletes has adopted, and cultivated a mindset that allows them to continue showing up for themselves by making decisions that are in their best interest and allows them to maintain, or move one step closer, to their goals. They have a mindset that is fueled by self-supportive matters, and that the process of achieving is what it's all about. However, a lot of people think that the best of the best is consistently focused on the outcome. How couldn't they be if they're constantly trying to get better? Isn't that what all those habits are for?
No.
Habits work only when the individual understands their purpose in the process and can validate their purpose along the way. The athletes who fizzle out along their journey only see their habits in relation to the goal—and often don't see their value in the complete process. So, when it comes time to decide about engaging in that habit, the individual may say, "well, it's not really that important" because they view that one extra workout as being insignificant compared to making the team. The sum of its parts must be less than the whole. We must be able to look at the whole picture and acknowledge the role that each part has within it; without each part, we miss part of the picture. At the end of the day, the whole picture means something so much greater when you have the context of the process it took to get there.
Until next time,
Coach Nye
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