A Burning Desire

What makes one person better than another at a given activity? What makes someone achieve greatness in a respective endeavor? What makes someone exceptional at their given profession? I would merely suggest that the proper answer to all of those questions is a passion deep within one’s self to improve. Although ability and talent plays somewhat a factor in propelling one to be inherently good at a given endeavor, I would suggest that the overwhelming factor is not one’s given endowment nor one’s providence, but his or her own drive to continually progress.

A mentor of mine once told me “luck is the moment of time when preparation meets opportunity”. My mentor was my wrestling trainer and he told me this quote for a very specific purpose: that nothing was going to be handed to me in life and that I needed to properly prepare if I wanted to be successful in whatever I wanted to do. While the opportunity itself may be provoked by a fateful event, it is up to you to deliver. If not, you will not succeed. Therefore, you need to be prepared.

So how do you go about proper preparation to strike that opportunity with everything you've got? The only way to be prepared for an event is through practice via repetition. Replicating the same activity over and over and over again is the only way you actually become good at something. Whatever your goals are, mental or physical or a combination of both, you need to put everything you've got into training. What I've learned throughout the years is that you can only push yourself as far in competition as you've experienced in practice, and no more. And this can be applied in all of life's endeavors, not just in a sports setting. However, by my explanation of this to you, you will not be more readily prepared for the future. It requires work on your end.

This philosophy of preparation is not something that could be taught through literature or conversation, but only experienced. My mentor said little, but those words amounted to more in my life than any novel could ever teach me. He showed me the path, often times by example, of what it meant to be prepared. If I want to be a great student in the classroom, I must prepare properly outside of the classroom, gorging myself in books to do so. If I want to be a great wrestler during tournaments and meets, I must prepare properly outside of that instance, killing myself in the weight room, in practice, and every other opportunity outside of my tightly regimented day to get in whatever else I could. If I want to be a great asset to a company, I need to prepare outside of the boardroom, working on that project for months on end to lead up to that hour portrayal of my proposal. The game or the boardroom is the opportunity to be great, but only does that opportunity become realized when you are properly prepared to do so.

However, don't just misinterpret this to mean that any kind of preparation will do because it certainly will not. Other variables come into play. Your performance is directly contingent upon how others train. Other people may have more natural ability than you have, not to mention that other people are putting in those hours outside of the opportunity as well. Therefore, you need to train as hard as you are possibly capable of and then some. Your opponents are your fellow classmates, colleagues, coworkers, competing businesses, and a peer looking to be hired for the same job as you are. You have to excel past them in practice and outside of that opportunity. You need to train harder than them at every moment you get. You need to hone in on your skills and further them every chance you get because they are doing the same. However, you do have the opportunity to do it better than they do through acquired knowledge and endless hours toward your goal.

Take every moment to fortify your mental strength and toughness. Do whatever it takes to build your surrounding network. Build up your physical capabilities. Become smarter and more efficient. Simply become better. It undoubtedly requires hard work each and every day. And while the first few days, even weeks, seem to be easy to handle, it's the mundane repetition of doing it well beyond that when it gets difficult; but it's that burning heart, that deep desire, hidden great within that keeps you pushing and knocking against the walls of failure to improve each day. It's that incessant vigor that burns inside asking you for more; for more out of the training session, for more out of your homework, for more out of your job, for more out of yourself.

This motivation to become prepared isn't something you can pull out of thin air, but something that could only be developed innately. It's a fire to improve upon what you did before. It's that vehemence to get back in the ring after you've had a bad outing. It's that dedication and commitment to the mere principle that you won't give up. After you do it so many times, it only becomes habitual, to the point where you don't know of defeat, because you are tough enough to handle anything that comes your way. So back to what I said previously…You can only push yourself as far in competition as you've experienced in practice, and no more. It is that burning heart to be better than the competition that you will be prepared to strike the opportunity with everything you’ve got so that you can achieve greatness.

This is Muscle Prodigy…Do YOU Have What It Takes?