Staying Determined During Your Trials, pt. 1: Enduring through what's meant to kill your progress.

Every time I've ever set out to accomplish a huge goal or project, I've always noticed that there was an unrelenting set of mishaps meant to derail me very close, and near to the finish line. But, for years, in my youth, I was unaware of this phenomena, so oftentimes I would end up quitting soon after I felt too much resistance. I can remember a million times that I want to "be the best" at something, only to quit 3-4 weeks in once I got sick from overtraining. One time in particular happened the summer when I was 23, turning 24.......

"I could have made it to the NBA!" Those were words I'd regurgitated hundreds of times in my early 20's whenever I was reflecting on the "what if's," and "what happened" portions of my early streetball days. Let me tell it, I was the best no one had ever seen. I knew that I had the gifts to play, I'm 6 feet 2 inches, extremely fast in my youth, with great eye-hand coordination. But I lacked discipline, direction, and I didn't have the best stamina. I did however have great imagination, which is why I saw myself as better than Michael Jordan. It's funny to think about this now, but at 23 I seriously believed this. So, eventually my words caught up with me, and I began to wonder was I lying to myself. It began to haunt even my dreams at night. It got so bad that I eventually told my then wife (now divorced) that I need to try to make it to the NBA to at least beat the seed of regret out of my subconscious mind. So with the seed planted in my mind, I began to toil the soil...

Every day, for 6-8 hours, I would be on the basketball court shooting, dribbling, passing, and anything else you can think of to improve my game. I played as much as my body would allow, oftentimes to the point of physical sickness. I wanted it, and I wanted it bad. But, this lasted only 4 months. I was already a good player, and I improved significantly during this period, but I was met with what I felt was an unbearable resistance.... my mental limitations. the day before I quit I finally sat down with myself and had an honest assessment on what it would take to make the NBA at the pace/rate I was going, and my answer was 3 years, and I would have to quit Bodybuilding. When I asked myself if I was willing to work at that rate for 3 more years, and give up my Bodybuilding aspirations, the answer was an immediate "no!" So I quit cold turkey. The positive part for me is I no longer had any regret, and felt I could begin living my life. It wasn't until 15 years later that I would realize my mistake.

Starting at the beginning of this year I was on a mission. I had read an article on Pro-Athletes, and Semi-Pros catching Covid-19, yet never having anything beyond mild symptoms, and the majority of the time being asymptomatic. I researched this article because I had noticed almost every single NBA, and NFL player that I saw had covid either had no symptoms, or beat the virus in 3-4 days. I figured from my observations, combined with the research I read, that this may be a cheat code to strengthening the immune system enough to beat this in the case I caught it. So, I decided to train like a semi-pro. My sport of choice? Basketball. I started playing towards the end of March, or beginning of April, and boy was I rusty. I remember waking up the morning of the second day and barely being able to move any part of my body. Yet, the pain encouraged me. I felt alive. It took me about two months to get to about 40-50% of what my peak was in my youth, but I was making steady progress, no doubt. Out of nearly 4 months of playing, I missed a total of maybe 10 days, and many times I had "2 a days." By the time I severely injured my knee, which I've done a vlog about and will write at length about later this week, in mid-July, I was at 60-65% of my best. Because of this, I felt I would reach my best around my 39th birthday, September 5th. But my 60% was doing extremely well against basketball players of all ages, and all levels. I had even developed a reputation on Chicago playgrounds as a defensive stopper.

It was only after my injury, while reflecting, that I saw the error of my youth. I quit. I didn't make the league because I refused to endure. It took the constant pain of an injury, and my plans to persevere and set new tougher goals during this injury, to realize that my youthful ignorance was the lack of mental strength, not physical strength. In the midst of telling myself I would use this opportunity of being forced to slow down and heal from my injury to become the best shooter in the world, I wondered where that ambition was at when I was 23. In seeing me waiting for surgery (which I still haven't gotten 2 months later) and the subsequent 9-12 months it would take me to comeback, my mind immediately saw this as an opportunity to sit down and instruct my my sons on my ideologies, and theories on basketball.... but where was this energy when I needed just a few more years of focus at age 24? My youthful ignorance robbed me, not of a chance to go to the NBA, because that was a longshot. What it robbed me of was a chance to Endure.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word "Endure" as "1: to continue in the same state :2: to remain firm under suffering or misfortune without yielding." Furthermore, it goes on to define "Yielding" as "3: disposed to submit, or comply." So, by definition, I submitted to my weaker self, and complied with my lesser mind which told me to quit, and bow to the temporary pain. Pain is present in any endeavor you pursue beyond average. The greater the goal, the greater the amount of pain you must endure, and the less it becomes about physical muscle. The more you endure, the more it is about your mental muscle. Everyone else you're competing against experiences the same physical turmoil, so in classic Darwinian fashion, the strongest always rises to the top. Had I just held on, I would have passed the bottom 50% of my peers who quit at the average pain threshold. From that point on, it literally becomes a game of numbers. What percentage of players quit after 6 months? What percentage can play 8 hours/day for 12 months? Then 18 months..... So on, and so on.

So, how did I approach my injury different in setting goals in my older age, and what can you do differently to avoid my missteps moving forward. We'll discuss these strategies, and mental exercises in part 2.

Until next time, never break.

-Preston