A rant about setting goals, sticking to them, and toughness.

I come in contact with several athletes on a daily basis. Being former weight thrower for the University @ Buffalo, I still do most of my training at the UB facilities, so I see my old teammates and several other division 1 athletes there on a regular basis. I also coach track and field at a local highschool and occasionally coach athletes at Absolute Performance. I tell you this because I have become quite irritated at some of the things I hear and see from athletes as it relates to their performance (or lack there of) and athletic goals.

Before I continue this rant of pissed off-ness, let me preface this by saying I am by no means one of the greatest athletes around and don't pretend to be; I know where I stand in the pecking order. However, I feel I have the right to speak on this issue. I was a slightly above average athlete coming out of highschool. I got a partial scholarship to a D-1 school for throwing and made the most of it. I won a conference title in the shot put, and was an NCAA qualifier. But I did all of these things after losing 1/3 of my foot and beating cancer halfway through my college career. Now is that the hardest  thing anyone has overcome, hell no! But I think it gives me some merit on what I am about to bitch about.

So with all of the athletes I see everyday, most of them all have goals to get better, and some of them have goals of actually winning championships and getting scholarships, etc.. Having a goal is all well and good, but here is my problem with so many athletes right now, they don't understand that it is more then just setting the goal and talking about it, IT'S HARD WORK and SACRAFICE. About 1/4 of the athletes I see on a daily basis know what this means. Now I am not talking about going to the gym everyday and training hard, if you can't do that you shouldn't even be involved in sports of any kind. The problem comes when there is an obstacle between you and your goal. This can include anything from an injury, an academic problem for the college athlete, money problems, or a physical limitation (different from an injury). Hell, most athletes that have been competing long enough can speak to anyone of these, especially athletes in Olympic sports or powerlifting. When athletes are confronted with challenges, many of them crumble in defeat. What happened to the thought of sports making us "tougher people". As athletes we like to express to people in any way possible that we are athletes (don't lie because we all do it) because we as athletes feel it seperates us from the rest of the population and makes us better then them, and it should! If you are one of the few that work everyday to get closer to your goals no matter what obstacles come up, then you posess traits in life that non athletes will never posess. But when you crumble because of some miniscule event in your career such as a bad knee, chronic tendonitis, or a stress fracture just to name a few of my favorites, you should crawl back to normalcy and plead for mercy from the athlete gods! ( too harsh?) Adversity is apart of life not just sports so get used to it. As Rocky Balboa said (yes he is a real person in my mind) " Life aint all sunshine and rainbows kid, it's a very mean and nasty place."

When you have an injury, do what you have to do to get it better. Paul Childress told me that you don't really know how to train until you have had to train through an injury. This means you have to train harder and smarter when you are hurt. You will have to do things you don't usually do and probably don't like doing in order to keep moving forward even though you are injured. In other words, no one likes to get hurt but shit happens, use the experience to get better and smarter about your body. Don't be an idiot and think you know everything either. LISTEN to people who have experience and who are better athletes then you because chances are they had to go through the same type of situation. Don't listen to the guy who hasn't accomplished anything himself but claims to know more about training then those who have.

 If you truley want to achieve something, there are very few things that make for a good excuse as to why you didn't try to achieve it. Now I didn't say achieve it because life isn't perfect, the hardest worker doesn't always get the gold. But in the end, you have to be able to look back and be happy with what you gave. Because when it comes right down to it, no one outside your little bubble in life truley gives a shit about your goals. So walking around saying how you're "doin work to make dat paper in the league" ( I hate that little saying the most) means nothing to anyone but you. So if your making excuses as to why you aren't getting better or where you want to be in life, there is only one person to blame for that. So quit talking, quit looking for the easy way out, quit blaming other people, and SHUT UP AND TRAIN! If your little injury is stopping you from achieving your goals watch these videos and go feel sorry for yourself!