#51 - Life is a marathon, not a sprint. Goals are part of your journey, not your destination.

There is a peculiar phenomenon in sport that champion athletes talk about. For want of a better expression, we can call it the Post Olympic Gold Depression. Athletes train years for that one moment, all their energies are focussed on winning that one event, it becomes a mission in life. When you train, you have a purpose, when you eat, even when you sleep, you have a purpose. Winning thereafter produces an explosion of emotions. There cannot be a greater feeling.
But in the days after that some athletes start experiencing a purposelessness. There is no immediate need to train a certain way, you get up in the morning and there is no goal in front of you. It is almost there is nothing to look forward to. As Steve Redgrave, who won five Olympic gold medals says, “I had not invested a second’s effort into thinking what was going to happen after that 8 o’clock start or where, six minutes later, we were going to finish. In my mind, everything led up to that moment, with nothing beyond it…….suddenly the harsh reality dawns that the event you have made out to be the most important in your life is behind you….”

Harsha Bhogle

P.S. Post their cricket world cup victory (2015), Australian cricket players were not able to play with the same form that they did a week ago. Harsha Bhogle wrote about it this strange feeling every person feels post success.