Why I TRI?

People often ask: “Why?! Why are you doing that? What’s your motivation? What’s the reason of that kind of ‘torture’?”

And then I go to the swimming pool…. It’s winter, cold and already dark outside… Instead, I could sit in a warm house, drinking hot tea, watching movies…
And then I get on the bike, on the bike stand, in the morning just after waking up… And I roll those wheels for two hours… It’s winter, cold and still dark outside and it’s boring in the room… Instead, I could stay in the bed for two more hours…
And then I get out on the road for a long run… It’s winter, cold and dark… Instead, I could…

Has someone asked those questions to musicians, actors or rally drivers? It’s not a secret that trainings are hard! Ooh, no, actually, they are not hard… Practicing piano for several hours, from day to day, is hard. Writing Master Thesis for half a year, in late nights, is hard. And I know what I am talking about, because I have gone through that…  

But trainings are… painful! Fucking painful… So agonizing, both physically and mentally, that even before you start doing something… Before that swim session where you first have to plunge into a relatively cold water or that long swim after which, climbing out of the pool, you have feeling that in a second you have gained some extra pounds… Before that long bike session where your whole lower body just burns from the inside-out and during each interval minutes you think that your legs will explode… Before that interval run session where your lungs are about to fall out… It’s so painful that even before you start training, you already know that the next hour or two, or three…, will be full of severe pain and exhaustion.

Despite that, I still do that, because…

Usually, during those hard training sessions, when those moments when you just want to quit come (and actually you can, but you don’t!), I question myself: “Why am I doing that? Whaaaay??! WHY am I torturing myself like that – in the mornings, evenings… weekends…? What is MY motivation?”
Answers like ‘because I like that’, ‘that gives me load of endorphins’ or ‘it’s my hobby’ doesn’t work anymore. Does it? But answers like ‘I do, because I can’, ‘no pain, no gain’ or ‘do it now, because sometimes ‘later’ becomes ‘never’’ are boring and cheap cliches already. Aren’t they?
But they definitely sound nice, understandable and even smart, and we tend to adapt those effortless and clicheic answers to ourselves. Simple way to distract others from the real motivation in our head.

The truth is… One thing that relates artists, musicians, scientists, athletes and others who are spending their time, infinite hours, focusing to one particular activity – they have enormous desire, a strong will to master their skills till the highest level they can possibly reach. They want to be at their best. In addition to that, the feeling of standing on the podium during award ceremony is amazing and strongly energizing. I would suggest others to try that too!