Nothing Worth Having Comes Easy

Who said life was supposed to be easy? 

As a senior swimming at Asbury University I was interviewed for the school paper. When asked “How do you wake up for 5am practices for swimming?” my response was, “COFFEE.” 

Not really haha!

How did I wake up that early to train?  No, it wasn't caffeine...well, sometimes it may have been.  It was was actually something called “Delayed Gratification.”  Here is a summary of a study done about this:

“In 1970 psychologist Walter Mischel famously placed a cookie in front of a group of children and gave them a choice: they could eat the cookie immediately, or they could wait until he returned from a brief errand and then be rewarded with a second. If they didn’t wait, however, they’d be allowed to eat only the first one. Not surprisingly, once he left the room, many children ate the cookie almost immediately. A few, though, resisted eating the first cookie long enough to receive the second. Mischel termed these children high-delay children.

Interestingly, the children who were best able to delay gratification subsequently did better in school and had fewer behavioral problems than the children who could only resist eating the cookie for a few minutes—and, further, ended up on average with SAT scores that were 210 points higher. As adults, the high-delay children completed college at higher rates than the other children and then went on to earn higher incomes. In contrast, the children who had the most trouble delaying gratification had higher rates of incarceration as adults and were more likely to struggle with drug and alcohol addiction.” 
-(Source: Psychology Today, “The power of Delaying Gratification” by Alex Lickerman M.D.)

Getting up at 5 am was NOT EASY AT ALL!  I would roll out from under the covers (half-asleep) only to feel the freezing air prick my skin. At the present moment, I was miserable.

Fast forward 3 months later…

I’m on the block about to swim at conference, knowing I have put in the hard work and have what it takes to achieve.  Training is NOT easy.  Not only is the training hard, but the race itself is going to HURT just as much if not more…if it doesn’t, you are not “giving it your all.”

BUT it IS worth the hard work when you race a PR.  The feeling you get when your training pays off is the BEST feeling ever!

Next time you think, “this is hard,” and “why am I doing this?” make sure to remind yourself that it is not meant to be easy.  If it was easy, then everyone would do it.  That’s part of what makes “the athlete” a unique breed.  We possess the skills to persevere through challenges that are harder than hard.   We push our limits and continuously go out of our comfort zones-I forget what my “comfort zone” is sometimes until someone asks me "doesn't that hurt!" (to which I reply, "well, yeah...I guess...I don't think I just do")    COMFORT IS OVERRATED! I remind myself this after hours pass and I’m still riding on this hard bike saddle-Must. Get. Off. Bike. Soon….Chamois Butt'r Anti-Chafe to the rescue!!!)

As a triathlete, I endure the hardships and reap the reward when I cross the finish line.