Hold Fast, Stay True

“What must I do if I want to win?”

“What it takes.”

“How long must I do it?”

“Until.”

You have to do something you don’t want to do, argues NBA trainer Tim Grover. “You Do. The. Work…Every day. You challenge yourself to be uncomfortable, push past the apathy and laziness and fear. Otherwise, the next day you’re going to have two things you don’t want to do, then three and four and five, and pretty soon, you can’t even get back to the first thing. And then all you can do is beat yourself up for the mess you’ve created, and now you’ve got a mental barrier to go along with the physical barriers.”

Fuck ‘try’, he says, “Trying is an open invitation to failure, just another way of saying, ‘If I fail, it’s not my fault, I tried…’”

“Why do you train so hard”, asked a friend of David Goggins, “Because once you can can get through doing the things you hate,” replied the man of steel, “on the other side is greatness. By me running I’m callusing my mind. I’m not training for a race, I'm training for life. I’m training for a time when I get that 2AM call telling me my mom just died or that something tragic happened in life and I don’t fall apart. I’m training my mind, my body, my spirit so it’s all one, so I can handle what life will throw at me because the life I’ve lived, it throws a whole bunch at you, and if you’re not physically mentally prepared for that you’re gonna crumble and then you’re no good to nobody.”

Hold fast stay true —is the motto amongst navy seals. That is, no matter how rough the seas get, you always hold fast to the ropes, and stay true to the course. When the storms are raging and the waves are lashing, hold onto something on the deck, and the captain must stay true to the course. Though you cannot see the stars because of the storm, hold fast stay true and you will get through it all.

The pro-athlete who has reached the top of his game will get to a point where he has nobody else to compete with but himself, but although yesterday was the best he thought he could do, today he will do even better and beat yesterday, he thinks to himself.

Thus he keeps on training, just like the singer who keeps on singing, the writer who keeps on writing, the who student keeps on studying. The greatest achievements of all have been accomplished by tired, discouraged people who kept on going. Champions, who pressed on despite bitter dissapointments. Before anybody knew who they were, or believed in them. The world steps aside for such people and makes way for them.

“What obstacle can stay the mighty force of the sea-seeking river in its course?” asks Ella Wilcox:

“There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,” she declares, “that can circumvent, or hinder, or control the firm resolve of a determined soul. Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great; all things give way before it sooner or later… Let the fool prate of luck. The fortunate Is he whose earnest purpose never swerves, whose slightest action or inaction serves the one great aim. Why even death steps aside for such a will.”

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence,” insists Calvin Coolidge. “Talent will not, nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

Goethe phrased it as such; “Austere perseverance, harsh and continuous, may be employed by the smallest of us and rarely fails its purpose, for its solid power grows irresistibly greater over time.”

When you want it bad enough, the obstacles that come your way are merely minor inconveniences. Nothing can stop a determined individual, and like pushing a ball through a body of water, every molecule will give way to you sooner or later.

“This one thing I do,” said Apostle Paul, “forgetting those things which are behind me and looking to those things which are before, I press towards the mark, and the prize of the high calling.”

For these stories and more, check out my book on Amazon — Trials And Triumphs of Hyperachievers