During the Expert in a Year table tennis challenge there were times when I would get dejected. I would feel like I wasn’t improving as quickly as I needed to be, or I would see someone who wasn’t working as hard as me improve quicker and it would really get to me. I needed something to get me up in the morning and motivate me to do the training.
As corny as it sounds, I started reading inspirational quotes and they really helped. Here are my five favourites.
1
On being asked why, at the age of 93, he still devoted three hours a day to practising, Pablo Casals said:
“I’m beginning to notice some improvement.”
Is it any wonder that he is considered to be one of the greatest cellists of all time?
2
“If everybody worked as hard as me, I’d be out of a job.”
-Steve Nash
3
“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”
-Michelangelo
4
“I fear not the man who has practised 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practised one kick 10,000 times.”
-Bruce Lee
5
“Maybe it wasn’t talent the lord gave me. Maybe it was passion”
-Wayne Gretzky
Practice trumps talent, but putting in thousands of hours is tough. Maybe a passion which leads to you clocking up those hours, is much more important than any innate talent.