It's Not Every Four Years
It's Not Every Four Years
By Dr. Lenny Weirsma//Department of Kinesiology, Cal State Fullerton
The United States Olympic Committee has a motto: “It’s not every four years. It’s every day.” This motto reflects the notion that making the Olympics in 2012 ultimately does not happen in 2012. It depends on what the millions of athletes who want to be there in August 2012 are doing in December 2010. And January 2011. And February 2011. And… well, you get it.
Maybe making the Olympic team isn’t a goal of yours, which is perfectly fine. Or maybe making an Olympic team in 2016 or 2020 is more reasonable. The motto holds true for any goal we have, in any part of our lives. It’s not good enough to just SET a goal. We have to do something every day to reach it. Sometimes that starts with something as simple as taking part of every day to remind ourselves that what we do every day matters.
On a recent cross-country flight, I was psyched to sit next to an athlete who epitomized this concept. Billy Mills won a gold medal in the 10,000m run in the 1964 Olympics, shocking the world with a come-from-behind sprint to the finish. The footage of the race is amazing, as he literally sprinted from a pack of runners to cross the finish line first. But the more amazing thing was that, four years before the Tokyo Olympics, he was an unknown, not even close to being on the radar for a medal. But for four years, every day, he kept a journal in which he wrote down what he did for training, reviewed his daily practice goal, and ended every journal entry with a phrase like the following:
“I’m in great shape. Must believe I can run with the best in the world. I know I can beat them at Tokyo.”
It’s not every four years. It’s every day.
Whenever I work with an athlete who says he has a goal of making an Olympic team, I ask him three questions:
- Do you know what it will take to make it? Almost always, the athlete says that he understands the amount of work that it will take every day to make this dream come true. So I ask him the next question:
- Do you know that the chance of failure is great? Of course, for each event, only two athletes make the team. And hundreds of thousands of swimmers compete in these events each week. So the chance of making the Olympic team is very, very small. But the athlete will, hesitantly, acknowledge that failure is a great possibility. So the final question is the most important:
- Even though the road will be difficult and the chance of failure is great, are you willing to try anyway? The athlete’s response to this question will decide what he does on a daily basis to reach her goals.
Former Army General A. G. Trudeau claimed that “Character is the total of thousands of small daily strivings to live up to the best that is in us.” In other words, personal excellence is a daily pursuit. This winter, when it is cold outside and you find it hard to get motivated when the big meet is so far away, ask yourself, what are you doing today to accomplish your goals?
It’s not every four years. It’s every day. Even the cold ones
