Each afternoon when I go to the gym for my workout I see the same faces that I saw there during the summer and earlier on this year. While all of these people have dedicated themselves to showing up everyday they still tend to fall into two groups, those who work hard and those who work some. You can tell which group someone is apart of the hard workers all look noticeably better than they did when they first started and the ones who don't look like they have their same old body. The hard workers are efficient with their workouts, keeping their rests light and conversations with other people to an almost non existent level. The other group tends to take over an hour to do work that in all honesty should take about half the time. You can spot these people very easily because they are the ones sitting on an exercise bike reading a magazine and after doing a set in the weight room either walk around listlessly or carry on five minute conversations with anybody willing to talk in a ten foot radius. We know that persistence is the key to success but persistence is made up of hard work over a long period of time, day after day, month after month of success and achievement.
I recognized that I was doing the same in my workouts the first week back. No I wasn't talking or reading a magazine but I certainly could push myself harder. Take for instance the mile I run as part of my cardio, the time in which I finished on Friday was 30 seconds slower than the one I ran today, this while feeling sluggish this afternoon. Thirty seconds is not a long time when compared to our lives but 30 seconds on a mile run is a pretty significant chunk (especially since I'm still pretty slow). All it took to increase my output was to keep reminding myself of what I want to accomplish and that I won't get to reach my if I don't push myself harder each time I step foot in the gym. When you come in to a goal with this mindset you stop cutting corners and take it to the limit. Thinking about this today made me push to a new level of fatigue while lifting weights by making sure that every rep was executed perfectly, every chin up with full range of motion, and every rest break shortened to force my muscles to adapt or fail.
Every great obstacle and goal you set for yourself will never be easy it takes hours of repetition and gutting it out through the hard time, there are no short cuts to meeting your full potential. How many athletes have been successful off of sheer athleticism alone? If you have ever looked at the prep basketball player rankings for each year that all have talent but what separates one who never makes it to the NBA to one who does is through sheer hard work and perseverance. Don't believe me? Take a look at one of those lists from ten years or so ago and you'll see many guys that you have never heard of ranked higher than current NBA stars. Was there other factors besides work ethic that could have played a role? Sure but don't underestimate the role of getting too cocky and trying to coast off of pure talent, which many of them learned the hard way has ever diminishing returns without more dedication.
Hard work however is not random there must be a purpose to it. If you were building a house, it would be hard work to carry all of the supplies around and build a house just using your mind. Some home builders might be able to build a house from scratch without blueprints but they probably wouldn't be as focused than if they had a specific purpose. This is true for all hard work that your practice must have a method to it. Going back to another basketball example if I want to become a better shooter would I improve more if I just shot around for an hour or if I used that hour to focus on a detail like shooting threes? The latter of course because it is zeroed in on one thing.
One of my favorite quotes is from the book Good to Great which said, "The signature of mediocrity is not an unwillingness to change. The signature of mediocrity is chronic inconsistency." Committing to something is all well and good but is doing it half assed much better than not doing it at all? By not putting in hard work on what you want day after day you are setting yourself up for disappointment and mediocrity. If you want to separate yourself from the pack and taste greatness you must be willing to go full throttle otherwise you're just like everybody else, stuck in the same spot.
