Whenever I got to high schools to help out the one thing, I always observe is the effort given. You can cheat yourself in a lot of ways as an athlete, but the one thing you can never fake is an effort. You can look at any athlete at any time and tell whether they are giving an honest effort or not. The crazy thing about this is that some people will genuinely think they are crushing it daily even when they are not. You don’t want to be that person. Don’t be the fake leader that thinks you go hard, but are just half-assing it.
Leading By Example
I got this idea last week just watching a track and field practice at a local high school. After some time it was easy to tell who the leader was or at least the person was who thought they were the leader. You can quickly point this person out because they are the ones who are thinking leading is explaining and telling other people what to do. The more they talk, the better of a leader they believe they are when in reality the opposite is true. Leadership is about talking less and taking more action. Leading by example means you want people to follow what you do not just what you say. Talk is cheap, but action speaks loud. If you are not a leader on your team, don’t just look to the people who talk the most, listen to the people who put in the most effort when no one is watching them.
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What Is Your Effort Like?
A still from the Showtime documentary Kobe Bryant’s Muse. – Photo: Kobe Bryant’s MUSE/Courtesy of SHOWTIME
Ask yourself that for a second, what is your effort like. When you are asked to do something do you half-ass it or do you give it you’re all? The thing is that you think only you know, but as I said earlier, it is much easier to tell then you would think. The effort is shown in your face every time. When you are giving your all, you are focused, and you don’t have any energy to talk. If you see someone talking while doing almost anything, it means they re not focused on that one activity they need to focus on doing. An effort is a contract between you and your own conscious. Your conscious will always know when your effort is not there it will put you in check as a result of it. When you got to sleep at night, you will not rest as easy as you hoped. You will be up tossing thinking and know you can give more. Do everything you can to be the best you can be.
Do Your Best Does Not Cut It
I think doing your best is works only if you know what your best even is, to begin with. The reality is that most athletes cheat themselves because you think that doing the best means surviving the workout. When you don’t think you can survive a workout, you sometimes hold your best back in hopes of saving energy. That is a weak mindset, and you will never become a champion doing this. Your best is not what you think your best is. Your best is a lot more. They have proven that when doing pushups, most people stop at about 60% of their max because they think they can’t do anymore. That means if you can do 100 pushups at one time, you will do 60 and truly think that you have given your all. How sad is that? All you are doing is cheating yourself, and you don’t even know that you are cheating yourself.
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Treat Yourself
The way you treat yourself is by putting in the work and suffering the pain of 100% effort. In the short run, there are no benefits to doing this besides a good nights sleep. You will see other people who put in less work, and they do better than you. Don’t fall into that trap and start taking shortcuts. Shortcuts lead you nowhere. Treat yourself by staying focused on your effort. Forget about what others are doing. Stop thinking about how tired you will be later, or that you might not make it through the workout. Just focus on the rep in front of you because the chances are that you have at least 40% more to give.
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The Fallacy of Short Cuts
Talk with athletes on any sports team, and you will always find that the ones that take the most shortcuts always expect the most in return. Life has a funny way of not working out that way. There is no such thing as something for nothing. Everything comes with a price. Success comes at the cost of dedication and effort over an extended period. If you are not ready to give up both of those things, you need to stop what you are doing right now. Why bother? Every success you have ever seen in any avenue was paid for with dedication and persistence. If you are not willing to pay that price, find something that you will pay that price for.
So What
The crazy thing about cheating as an athlete is that you only cheat yourself. You are the only person who loves when you don’t give your all. Your coach will just find new athletes, your teammates will get better without you but you will be the one who never sees your true potential. The worst thing you can hear at the end of your career is “that athlete had so much potential.” What that line means is that you could have been so good but you never put in the required work to realize it! Think about that.
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