How to Not HATE Prep

For the most part, I have done well in competition. Crediting much of doing well to my tunnel vision focus during prep. Contrarily, my life around me tends to progressively fall apart during this time. I get behind on maintenance of my car. I lose sight of family events. I even see my own birthday as just another day and there is no need to break stride. I have a bigger goal with competing. A goal where anything and everything is up for sacrifice for the greater good of that goal. That sacrificing can cause issues that we may not be aware of at the time.

In the early stages of a prep, I have no issue managing my time and balancing training. As the time crunch progresses, I intrinsically panic. I realize I am running out of time and I need to do more. How embarrassing would it be for me to show up unprepared? Fuck that. I refuse to lose. I will get there by any means that are necessary. I decide I have to do more. I have to push for more. But if I am already at capacity, where am I going to get, “more” from? More effort has always come from the sacrifice of other places in my life. Places I take for granted that are of extreme importance. Sacrificing from the places in my life that as an essential human allow me to be who I am.

There is no part-time dedication. There is no easy street. To keep up with the competitive pack you have to give your all. The level of investment into a competition is almost absurd once you really think about it. But, I can’t go out there looking stupid. I have to sacrifice it all.

The nature of competing is one that you have to be all-in to do well. Giving up other parts of your life is the name of the game. But I would argue that you don’t have to give up all of yourself. You can keep a lot of who you are at the core of your lifestyle. The lifestyle you live may have to be swapped out for other activities to keep some semblance of who you are.

Admittedly, it just kind of sucks. It has to suck for it to work, there is no way around it. I do my best to make it suck less as explained in this video.