The Mindset Athletes Need to Persevere Through Hard Times
It’s easy for an athlete to have motivation when things are going well. When your body feels good, you have a since of purpose in your training, and you see yourself making progress, motivation is effortless. On the other hand, when one or more of these things don’t exist, motivation declines with each passing day things don’t change.
It’s at this point when athletes tend to look for some type of external motivation to keep them going. Whether it’s a motivational speech, focusing on getting a future reward, or using the fear of failure as motivation. Often these types of external motivators are a good band-aid for a quick jump start. But if the facts of the situation don’t change (i.e., injury, purpose, progress), that motivation will also cease to work.
So, what is an athlete to do when they need to persevere through hard times to reach their goal. Well, I think author and motivational speaker Jim Rohn says it best:
Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.
Whether your initial spark of energy comes from external motivation or self-motivation, that spark of motivation is still only useful for taking the first few steps. After those first few steps, motivation is not what you need to persevere through hard times. Instead, persevering through hard times depends on an athlete’s ability to create behavior habits.
Behavior habits form when an athlete totally immerses themself into an activity. The activity transforms from something you do, to something you are. What’s more, you can’t become something in the moment you need it. You must already be it. This means an athlete’s habits and routines must already be in place before they face hard times.
Simply stated, the most important factor to an athlete’s long-term success are the behaviors they repeat habitually. This is the secret to persevering when motivation does not exist. When times are hard, emotions lead to bad decisions. Habits eliminate these emotional decisions.
Once an athlete adopts the mindset that they must master their daily habits (e.g., routines around waking up, hydration, eating, training, sleeping, and tracking progress), they will also master the process of persevering through hard times to reach their goals.