Admittedly, I do not like it when I read or hear the quote, “powerlifting is not a sprint it’s a marathon,” or that “anything” is a marathon (outside of an actual marathon).
I think of this as a running series that my football coach used to have us do. Forty, 40-yard sprints done with set rest periods. Just getting to a point to be able to do these took a lot of work, time, and effort. You had to make the team, essentially going from shit to suck. That first step is ALWAYS the biggest.
Going from suck to good was being able to finish the session. Just slack off, run slower, walk, and you would finish. You could also only run hard when the coaches were looking and slack the rest. There were a lot of ways to finish that would make you one step better and maybe good enough.
To be good is a much smaller leap than the first, so it’s easy to slack, not have discipline, and get the job done. It’s doing what’s needed, allowing good to be okay. I like to call this being the hammer. It’s what most aspire to.
The great ones, they trained to be able to run as hard as they can ->all 40 reps. They run through the line, not to the line. They do this whether the coaches were watching or not. They do the extra that others won’t. They don’t bitch, don’t need the coaches' praise, and use their mistakes to become better. They aspire to be the best that they can be and never want to look back thinking they "could have"... These people are not the hammer, but the anvil. The anvil can take the heat, take the beating, and outlasts the hammer. These are the great ones, and you know what?
It’s the smallest step of them all. To become great is only a small step, but the one only a few are willing to take. It’s full of uncertainty, discipline, no guarantees, more work, and to be the person who says, "I’ll do whatever it takes” and then actually doing it when that “whatever” is out of their comfort zone.
This is not saying you can be the BEST or the GOAT, but we can all be great at whatever we want - if we REALLY want it.
