This year, I’ve covered more football games than ever before. I’m at 21 and counting with the NAIA playoffs starting on Saturday. I’m not telling you this to sound whiny or to humble brag about my work ethic. Many people have every bit of, if not more, demanding schedules than I do. However, I can’t help but feel a little worn down this late in the season. I always use Sunday to spend time with my fiancée, carve out time to write this blog, and to generally not focus on sportscasting.
For whatever reason, this particular day I’ve lacked energy, creative spark, and have struggled to come up with a topic to write about. My first instinct was to put it off until later in the week. But with crossover season in full swing, the odds of actually getting it done wouldn’t be high.
That got me thinking about my goals and all the steps I’ve taken to reach them. One of those goals was to build a blog and podcast valuable and entertaining for sportscasters around the nation — possibly even the world. That involves producing consistent content because — let’s face it — readers don’t care how my day is going.
It made me think of a quote that I’ve always liked from, strangely enough, Arnold Schwarzenegger:
“The last three or four reps is what makes the muscle grow. This area of pain divides the champion from someone else who is not a champion. That’s what most people lack, having the guts to go on and just say they’ll go through the pain no matter what happens.”
If you’ve seen my physique, you know I’m far from a bodybuilder, but the concept of completing reps when others might quit rings true. Whether that’s completing game prep when you’d rather go out on the town or writing a blog when you don’t feel like doing it, sometimes you just have to make yourself grind through the process.
Building great habits is hard and once you have them it’s easy to relax and take shortcuts. I want to be a great sportscaster and build a great website. I feel I’m a long way from achieving either of those goals, but I refuse to allow lack of effort or laziness on a day when I’m not feeling the best to be a roadblock on my way to those achievements.
