YOU HAVE TO LOVE IT ALL THE TIME

The following comes a wonderful book "How Champions Think" by Dr. Bob Rotella.  Below is one of the most important concepts that today's athletes must understand.  We live in an instant gratification era where we all want what we all want and we want it right now.  That includes rewards, awards and glory.  But those are difficult to obtain, as they well should be.  It is critical that athletes understand the grind of achievement and that they embrace the grind.  Here is a great story from Dr. Rotella:

The easiest way to keep a commitment is to love what you’re doing, as Anthony and Michael love basketball and Keegan loves golf. But you have to love the entirety of what you’re doing, not just the occasional glory and rewards. I remember a few years ago, Tom Kite and I were asked to speak about attitude to a group of PGA Tour rookies. Tom spoke first. “I’m going to let Doc do most of the talking,” he said. “I’m only going to tell y’all one thing.”

I was immediately eager to know what the one thing was. Tom didn’t disappoint me.

“If you’re going to play the Tour, you have to love golf all the time,” he said. “It’s not going to work if you can only love it when everything’s going your way, every putt’s going in the hole, and every carom Is bouncing into the fairway instead of out of bounds. It’s not going to work if you practice every day and only love it when the ball is going where you’re looking. You’ve got to love it when you practice day after day after day and you can’t find it. You’ve got to love it when every putt looks like it’s going in and then lips out. That’s what it’s about.”