As athletes, what do we want? To perform well? To give everything we’ve got every game we play? To win? Decent enough goals to shoot for, but the bigger question is how to achieve these goals. If we fill our days with Want To tasks, we will stunt our growth and create an unhealthy daily routine that will pull us further from our goals to be the best athlete/student/person we can be.
You may soon arrive at the highly-frequented crossroads that all athletes find themselves staring down at some point in their sport career. You can follow the Want To path that will lead to immediate gratification of simple trials and a less-burdensome lifestyle. Or… you can shoulder the burden and trek down the Have To path in aspiration of one day earning the ability to succeed in your Want To’s. Fostering a greater understanding that Want To’s need to come as a result of Have To’s will provide an incredibly beneficial push of motivation in the current moment. To be the best, you may Have To wake up early, train in rough conditions, put your body through pain and exhaustion, and push yourself to your limits.
To be the very best, it is vital to alter your perspective away from short-lived gratification of doing what you want all of the time, and instead focus on what you have to do to become successful. Nolan Ryan found that after a while, the line separating his Have To’s from his Want To’s began to blur. The more time he spent doing what he knew he had to do in order to become great, the more he wanted to do those tasks. Understanding the purpose behind your motives can serve as a phenomenal spring-board to push yourself to do everything in your power to one day accomplish your goals.
“One of the beautiful things about baseball is that every once in a while, you come into a situation where you want to, and where you have to, reach down and prove something.” – Nolan Ryan