Keep Going! And then ... Keep Going!

​Humans give up too soon, and we get frustrated much quicker than what is reasonable, rational or mathematically realistic.  Malcolm Gladwell, in his book "Outliers", introduces the concept of "10,000 hours".  The premise ... to become an expert or to achieve mastery of a skill, it will take a typical human about 10,000 hours devoted to that activity or skill.  10,000 hours!  That is a lot of hours.  2 hours of practice a day, 6 days a week.  12 hours.  16 weeks in a typical season.  192 hours.  That equates to 52 seasons to get to 10,000 hours.   That won't work unless you plan on getting a third major and the NCAA changes the four year eligibility rule.  How about this for math ... 2 hours of practice a day, 6 days a week for 50 weeks a year.  600 hours a year.  17 years.  That is a lot better ... assuming we work hard during the summer, during the off season and if we only take a day off each week.  17 years is a lot more than one week or one season or one career for most people and unfortunately, most people get frustrated due to their lack of progress or their failure to reach their perceived goals in too short of a period of time.  There are humans who become so frustrated after one practice that they decide to quit (maybe not quitting the sport altogether, but they quit trying to improve on a particular skill).  But that 17 years can become a lot shorter when we put in more time each day through workouts, visualization, eating right, getting sleep, watching videos about our events, mental rehearsal and mental preparation.  That 17 years is a lot shorter when we focus on progression and improvement and not merely the end goal and results. That 17 years gets A LOT shorter when we choose to live our our goals as a lifestyle instead of simply making our goals a small portion of our day.  ”The thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That’s it. And what’s more, the people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.”  Malcolm Gladwell.    And today, that "harder" equates to "longer".