What keeps great athletes going?

The question of what keeps great athletes going is often asked: what keeps them motivated, even after they have achieved their goal and won the medals; what keeps them setting new goals, aspiring to new heights, and committing to new challenges?

Loving the process

The answer is simple. Great athletes are great athletes because they love what they do. They love the process of self-development and self-growth, and they embrace new challenges with passion, energy, and with full acceptance of the uncertainty that goes with it.

Great athletes simply understand that excellence and success is not something that you arrive at and simply park. Excellence is an ongoing process of self-exploration, it’s an ongoing journey of becoming more you.

Once you accept that personal wellness and personal happiness is something that can always be added to and enhanced, then you also realise that personal happiness is something that you have to invest in on an ongoing basis.

Personal happiness is a living, active thing; it grows and changes with you and the world around you. What makes you happy in one season or phase of your life may not have the same affect in a different season. As we grow as human beings, so too do our needs and our likes and our interests.

The glass of water test

Imagine someone filling you a glass of cool, refreshing water on a hot day. At that moment, it’s fresh and it hits the spot perfectly. Now, leave that glass of water there for a few weeks, a few months. Just leave it, don’t touch it and see what happens. We all know the answer. It goes stale and flat and no longer has the refreshing qualities it once had.

Personal wellness and personal happiness are exactly the same as that glass of water. If they remain unchanged, they are simply left to stagnate.

When we set challenges for ourselves to get fit, get happier or lose weight, if we don’t see how they add freshness and energy to our everyday life, then when we hit our target, we will slowly go back to our old ways and quickly lose the positive impact that our actions had achieved.

It’s vital that we build wellness and happiness into our everyday life and see the wider benefit of it. Only then we will prioritise it and not allow happiness and wellness to be something that we squeeze into our week when we have everything else taken care of. If we do try to squeeze it in, we very often end up squeezing it out.

Identify Non-Negotiable activities

In this fast-paced life where plans change quickly, it’s vital that we identify a few key actions and activities that are central to our wellness and happiness – and then, we must set these in stone.

They may be very simple 10-minute routines, or maybe the act of deciding to turn our phone off at certain times. Whatever it is, we all need to have certain things that we prioritise as non-negotiable. If we don’t, we will easily let the habit slip and we will tell ourselves: “It’s just this week and I will get back into it next week.” And we all know what happens next.

However simple your wellness routines are, however big or small your new behaviours have been, now is the time to prioritise them. Set new challenges, sign up to something exciting and a little bit frightening, rally the troops, and now that you have developed new behaviours and actions around wellness, ensure that you put these first on your list when planning your week.

Looking after self-happiness is not in any way a selfish act. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite. When you are fully alive, fully awake to the greatness and miracles around you, and you are fully you, only then can you have a far bigger and more positive impact on your family, your friends and your wider community.

Allowing yourself to become tired, exhausted and unwell is, in fact, to the detriment of everyone around you. So sign up, step up, and stand up.

There is a world of exciting new opportunities ahead of you. Continue to excite yourself, continue to develop yourself and continue to embrace your one incredible life and become the one incredible you.