Today we’re going to talk about the Olympics, excellence, and what I call the twenty-year test, the key to becoming elite.
If you haven’t noticed, we are in the middle of the summer Olympics. If you turn on your TV you’ve got 14 different channel showing a wide variety of sports, many of which you’ve probably never seen before.
As you can imagine, I’m a huge Olympics fan being that I work with Olympic athletes. I work with the coaches and trainers to Olympic athletes. I find the Olympics a fascinating scientific experiment in technique and movement and all those cool things that I enjoy. If you’re not into sports, if you’re not into movement, if you don’t like the Olympics, there’s still some really cool stuff to think about.
One of the things that comes up all the time when they do these amazing interviews with these athletes is you get people saying, “Well, I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life working toward a race that’s going to end in less than 10 seconds.” I personally find that absolutely phenomenal and very interesting when we consider all of the stuff that we see in the general world.
Whenever we people and their adherence to exercise programs … Again, I work with coaches and doctors and therapists. The number one complaint that I get is that I have a hard time getting people to do their stuff, to do their rehab, to stay active.
When we look at failure rates in exercise programs around the world that failure rate is around 80%. Meaning that around 80% of people who started an exercise program do not stick with it for more than a few months. I personally believe that a lot of that comes down to the fact that we ask people to do things that they don’t love.
When you look at a runner or a sprinter or someone the right sources, whatever, in the Olympics, these people have dedicated vast amounts of time, often four, six, eight, ten, twelve hours a day for twenty years to become good at one thing and I believe that the only way you can do that is if you absolutely love it. Key to Becoming Elite is finding that passion and dedication.
The lesson for me for you for the Olympics is to look forward in your life and go, “Can I see, 20 years from now, myself doing the same thing that I’m doing now? Can I see myself in the same gym doing the same exercises 20 years from today’s date?” If you can’t it may be that you actually need to expand your thinking about what your options are.
If you can, awesome. You found the thing that you love.
I would say get coaching and get amazing at it. Get as good at it as you can.
If you find that drive, that love for something, the perseverance and the changes that occur in you as you persevere through that are amazing.
