Multi Sport Champion’s? Even multi-disciplinary champions or experts in any realm, be it business, the arts, or sports. Take a minute. Write, or get a mental list. How many people can you name who have truly reached the pinnacle of any aspect in life in more than one discipline?
Now of those, how many have reached those heights simultaneously? None? Very few? One jumps out to me in Bo Jackson, but then again his career was cut short prior to being able to be claimed a real champion. Bo simply had what looked like the tools to be a multi-sport champion some day.
So, what am I getting at here? Why ask these questions? It is simply my attempt to plainly explain and convince you of the fact that if you want to excel, be the best, or the best you can be at something, you MUST make a choice to have that one passion as your primary goal; all other things MUST suffer. Some things must go or be set on the back burner and take a lesser, or at times, no degree of importance and practice in your road to reaching excellence at the goal you have chosen to concentrate.
I don’t care what your goal is, how accepted, unaccepted, noble or looked down upon, if you truly want to reach the highest levels of performance at any one thing you must give, in order to take. You MUST choose your path and accept the negatives to reach the positives you so desire, or simply accept the fact and be OK with being OK at many things, at not ever reaching your potential at any one given, sport, trade or lifestyle.
Again this is not exclusive to fitness or athletics, though it certainly holds true in those arenas, but it holds true in every aspect of our lives. Motherhood for example, if you want to be the best mom, that career you enjoyed, the nights out getting sloshed with the girls, a lot of that stuff is going to have to go or at the very least be put on the back burner. Same can be said for a great artist, an enterprising business man, a musician, they all give to take.
If you want to be a great power lifter you are likely going to have to throw many things aside. You will likely give up those long runs you once enjoyed, that 6 pack the kids all swoon over. You learn to train hard and heavy, recover hard and heavy. Learn to take it day by day, and that this is not something reached over night. You’re are going to be giving up things, training hard, eating for your goals, sore, beat up, and fighting for years to be the best you can be. Accept the fact you’re not going to be a great or possibly even decent distance athlete if you’re a limit strength athlete and that’s OK. It’s normal to give things up, let things slide - and it’s a must to reach the top.
Excellence in any profession or trade is NOT reached over night. It’s not a short sprint, but a long ride. A ride made up of hills and valleys, tough and easy, pain and love, tears of joy and pain. So you better learn to enjoy that ride even though it’s not all going to be roses and daffodils. Give it your all. Out of that, out of that giving, out of all those small pleasures you discard or place to the side today, you will get back a far greater satisfaction from your dedication and reaching something most others won’t dare to take on.
If it was easy to reach excellence at any given pursuit the world would be full of Olympic Champions, Pablo Picasso‘s, Donald Trumps’ and June Cleavers‘. If it didn’t require giving, pain, tears, and years to reach the echelon then everyone would do it.
Now go take a big look inside. Look at your joys, drives, what you truly love in life. Also take an honest look at your other life style choices and habits. Be honest of what you truly love, and what you can and cannot set aside, and pick your goals accordingly. You must accept, and not regret (and try not to question) your choices. It’s natural, and needed to set things aside, put things on the back burner. Everyone does it, EVERYONE. Of course WHAT things get set aside are individual, different things for different life goals. I don’t care what anyone says, no one’s goals or choices of what to set aside are more wrong, right, or noble then the next guys - they are just theirs. They are your individual choices of what will get you to your individual goal(s).
So make those choices. Wise thought out choices of paths to follow, and things to set aside to follow them. Dedicate yourself to something, set aside some months and years to reach something truly memorable. Don’t let others beat you up over your choices, and even worse and almost more prevalent, don’t make your own trip harder than it has to be, or worse yet impossible by not fully accepting your choice and what it takes to reach them as yours.
Remember, even if it’s years, or decades you dedicate and set things aside to reach your goals you have reached something many have not, and now look, those things you set aside, those can be your goals now. Life is not over; you can have many chapters, but better, in my opinion, to have a few fully realized chapters then a book full of title pages with no substance.
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