The onset of October marks the countdown to the end of the year, Q4 as it’s so affectionately called in corporate. This portion of the year is as much celebratory (re: the holidays) as it is stressful, with the close of the year presenting the last opportunity for us to accomplish our 2023 goals. For many people that translates to meeting performance metrics at work in order to receive next year’s bonus, and for others it’s more personal. Whatever it is you're facing in this last stretch of 2023, chances are you feel the way I do - tired and unmotivated. For the wary spirits out there, I created a roadmap to greatness inspired by elite professional athletes.
I’ve watched a great deal of football lately, and even futball, in the form of sports documentaries and weekly NFL games. I haven’t, until this moment, articulated why. Why am I, a twenty-seven year old woman, so immersed in a game I’ve never played? In short, it’s because it speaks to the competitor in me. Just like football players set out to win a game every week, I am also trying to win the game of my own damn life. I want to be victorious, and to have a win definitively bestowed upon me the same way a higher score determines the winner of a football game.
My minor sports doc obsession was piqued, with the Quaterback documentary on Netflix. I started watching it with my brother on a visit home, right after I was laid off. In the documentary I saw something in Patrick Mahomes and Kirk Cousins that I had forgotten also lied within myself - the desire for greatness. As you can imagine, losing your job makes you feel anything but great, and that feeling of being down on my luck put a chip on my shoulder and a fire under my ass. I started asking myself, “who could I be if I tried?”
In addition to Quarterback, I’ve recently watched Kelce, Beckham, and some of Hard Knocks. It’s worth noting that I’ve previously watched and loved The Last Dance and The Playbook: A Coaches Rules for Life. For me, watching these documentaries is less about the sport being played and more about what I can learn from these athletes; I have noticed a shared mindset and dedication that exists within every great competitor. Below, I will highlight the keys I’ve picked up from my studies.
What Successful Athletes Have Taught Me About Being Great
It’s cheesy and overstated, but the first and most important key to greatness is to find something you love and have an aptitude for. Being great at anything requires years of commitment and repetition, and it’s hard to pull that kind of dedication out of you if you don’t love what you’re doing. Having an aptitude for what you’re attempting to be great at also ensures that you’ll see progress with practice, and sets you up to achieve a higher level of greatness in the long run.
Great athletes spend years developing their skills and learning their respective sports. As mentioned above, to be great at anything you need to mentally prepare yourself to be disciplined and consistent. Every great competitor prioritizes their sport over everything else, and they show up daily to improve their game.
Every great athlete has a moment, or moments, of adversity that threatens to undo everything they’ve built. In your pursuit of greatness, know that you too will face adversity, but you can’t give up when those moments come. If you can weather the storm, you can use those challenging moments to learn and take your game to the next level.
Be prepared to sacrifice. When you’re striving for greatness in one area, you can expect other aspects of your life to fall to the wayside.
You have to do it for you. Most great athletes experience the high of being built up by the media and the low of being destroyed by it (a la David Beckham and Micheal Jordan). In those moments they choose to keep going because they love their sports, and they want to play at the highest level to prove to themselves that it is possible.
Inspired by my sports docs, I’ve done my best to step it up in this last stretch of the year. The past three months I’ve worked out 2-3 days a week, have journaled almost every morning, consistently applied for jobs, started this newsletter and have been actively working to build a community around it. I’ve started showing up again, and it's rebuilt my self-esteem and my trust in myself. Most importantly, it’s showed me I can win, and the only person I need to acknowledge that I’m winning is myself.
I think we all owe it to ourselves to try and be great at something. The pursuit of greatness breaks up the crushing monotony of survival. Most importantly, it provides a sprinkle of hope, that perhaps with some concerted effort we can change something in this world, even if it’s only ourselves.
Resources
If you’re in some of need of some inspiration and want to dive into my sports documentaries of the moment, they’re all linked here: Quaterback, Kelce, The Last Dance, The Playbook: A Coaches Rules for Life, and Beckham.
A good place to start on the journey to greatness, is engaging the physical body. I love working out with the Nike Training Club App (free) and the Apple Fitness+ app (free for 3 months).
Discipline and consistency can’t happen without a plan. I highly recommend keeping a planner to stay organized and on top of your goals, my favorite planner is made by Papier.
A great tool to optimize your physical and mental health is the Oura ring; it’s a bit pricey, but worth it. This tiny device keeps track of your physical wellness - sleep, exercise, stress levels, etc. The accompanying app shows you all this data, and comes with guided meditations and breath work to keep you on track mentally.