When it comes to being great at something, one thing will always ring true for eternity – TIME. One must be willing to put in an incredible amount of time if one wants to be successful at any given thing. Think back to how much we put in at learning how to walk, ultimately by falling many times and getting up, or learning our ABC’s. Written and spoken words today are the byproduct of putting in the time and learning the foundation of knowledge necessary to communicate.
Why do some many folks hate math to this day? Because they are “bad” at it; and why are they “bad” at it? Because when it came time to learn and study math they ran for the hills. Kids offer to take out the garbage or sweep cobwebs out of the attic rather than do their math homework. Not putting in the time leads to struggling at any given task and struggling causes us to not want to do it and that of course leads us down the path to “hating” said activity.
Let’s turn to gaming, these kids are great at any given game because they put in the time. It may seem like a waste of time to some but to others it is the time needed to be great at something. You can argue that time could be better spent doing something else but with the implementation of college scholarships for E-Sports that simply may not be true anymore.
The bottom line is time. What are you willing to give up to be elite at your craft? Are you willing to miss birthdays, Christmas and perhaps the birth of a child to be a professional athlete? Eating right, working out, lifting weights and watching film are just a few things on the list that need to be approached with obsessiveness. For us to live the lifestyle this money affords us we need to put in crazy amounts of time and sometimes things like sleep and relaxing need to be sacrificed.
Let’s say you have a big surgery coming up like heart or brain. Would you want a doctor to preform your life saving surgery who had not put in an obscene amount of time preparing to save your life? Someone who had not given up many hours of sleep studying for the MCATs or doing clinicals at a pace of 45 days on and 1 day off? You would say, “do what you have to do Doc. Balance is important, but if missing something important in your personal life allows you to come across one little nugget of information that allows you to save my life and go back to my family, please do so”!!
We talk about passion and we define passion the following way; “willing to put in countless hours, learning and growing as much possible, sacrificing a ton, never getting burned out, never sleeping and are still motivated to keep moving forward and making a difference the next time the sun comes up!” Do not waste time “searching” for your passion. It will find you when you live out your daily life of the aforementioned definition of passion!