Basketball legend, Kobe Bryant, said:
“I have self-doubt. I have insecurity. I have fear of failure. I have nights when I show up at the arena and I’m like, ‘My back hurts, my feet hurt, my knees hurt. I don’t have it. I just want to chill.’ We all have self-doubt. You don’t deny it, but you also don’t capitulate to it. You embrace it.”
As far as I can tell, the most successful people on the planet aren’t somehow gifted with something that the rest of us lack.
Sure, some, like Kobe, are born with the genetics to be exceptional at what they do, but that’s never enough.
Michael Jordan didn’t win because he was magically built for the game, and neither did Kobe. They were world-class winners because they did what few people in the world are willing to do.
That is, they committed to be their best, and every day showed up and did it.
Some days that’s easy to do, but for many of us, many days, as far as I can tell, it’s a matter of skill at using your will.
When you don’t feel like getting up and diving into your day, how do you get yourself to do it?
When you are confronted with those obstacles that are put in all of our way, do you stall out, or do you persist and navigate your way through?
When things aren’t going your way, do you keep driving towards your goal, or do you find an excuse to back it off and chill?
These things don’t come easier to people who are born with more will, but to those people who, through practice and repetition, train their skill at using their will.
Each time you drive harder towards your goal, you grow a little more resolve.
Each time you power through an obstacle, you convince yourself that nothing can stop you.
Every morning that you choose to bounce out of bed and tear into your day, you are reinforcing the habit that builds all champions.
It matters less how you feel, what matters is, are you willing to train the will that it takes to win?