Training When You Don't Want To: The Secret Ingredient to Greatness

by Brock Sawyer, Vision Sporting Goods

The alarm pierces the darkness at 5:30 AM. Outside your window, rain hammers against the glass in sheets. The temperature hovers just above freezing. Your bed is warm, your muscles are sore from yesterday's session, and every fiber of your being screams at you to hit snooze. Just this once. Nobody would know. Nobody would blame you.

This is the moment. This is where champions are forged.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Excellence

We love to celebrate the glory moments in sports—the game-winning shots, the record-breaking performances, the podium celebrations. But those moments represent maybe one percent of an athlete's journey. The other ninety-nine percent? It's the unglamorous grind of showing up when everything inside you wants to quit.

"The separation is in the preparation," legendary Alabama football coach Nick Saban has said repeatedly throughout his career. But it's not just any preparation—it's the preparation that happens when the conditions are terrible, when motivation has evaporated, when the only thing pushing you forward is the person you've committed to becoming.

Michael Jordan, widely considered the greatest basketball player of all time, once reflected on his approach: "I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." What Jordan didn't always mention was that those 9,000 missed shots included countless early mornings in empty gyms, repetitive drills when he was exhausted, and training sessions that nobody ever saw or celebrated.

The Cold Morning Principle

There's something uniquely character-building about training in harsh conditions. When Navy SEAL training instructors talk about Hell Week, they're not just testing physical capability—they're measuring who will continue to execute when every reasonable person would quit. For high school and college athletes, your version of Hell Week comes in smaller doses: the February morning when it's 28 degrees and you need to run sprints, the rainy afternoon when the weight room seems impossibly far away, the evening when all your friends are relaxing but you have film study.

Kobe Bryant was famous for his "4 AM workouts." But the power wasn't in the specific time—it was in the statement those workouts made to himself. Every morning he woke up in the dark and got after it, he was proving to himself that he was different. He was building an identity as someone who outworked everyone else.

Courtney Dauwalter, one of the greatest ultramarathon runners in the world, puts it this way: "I think about how I'll feel at the finish, not how I feel right now." That mental trick is gold for developing athletes. When you don't want to train, you're not making a decision about the next hour—you're making a decision about the athlete and person you're becoming.

The Warm Bed Test

Let's be honest about what's happening in that moment when you're considering skipping a workout. Your brain is extraordinarily sophisticated at creating justifications. "I'm probably overtraining." "One day won't matter." "I should listen to my body." Sometimes these are legitimate concerns. But most of the time? Your brain is just negotiating with discomfort.

This is where leadership enters the equation. Leaders don't need perfect conditions to do what they've committed to doing. Leaders understand that their teammates are watching, even when they think nobody's paying attention. Leaders know that the habit of quitting compounds just as powerfully as the habit of perseverance.

Ryan Hall, American record holder in the half marathon, once said: "When you're tired, when you're hurting, that's not the time to question whether you can do it. That's the time to prove that you can." He was talking about racing, but the principle applies doubly to training. The race is easy compared to the months of preparation that make the race possible.

The Rainy Day Reality Check

Here's a mental exercise worth doing: Think about your main competitor for that starting position, that scholarship, that championship. Right now, in this moment when you're deciding whether to train, what are they doing? Are they also lying in bed negotiating with themselves, or are they already halfway through their workout?

Bill Belichick, six-time Super Bowl-winning coach, is known for saying: "Do your job." It sounds almost comically simple, but there's profound wisdom in it. Your job as an athlete isn't to train when you feel like it. Your job is to train according to the plan, regardless of how you feel. Feelings are information, but they're not orders.

The University of Iowa's legendary wrestling coach Dan Gable provides perhaps the most intense perspective on this: "If it's important to you, you'll find a way. If it's not, you'll find an excuse." Gable was famous for outworking everyone, for training with an intensity that bordered on obsession. Most athletes don't need to take it that far, but the core principle stands: the obstacles are real, but they're not insurmountable for people who truly want greatness.

Building the Mental Callus

David Goggins, former Navy SEAL and ultramarathon runner, talks about "callusing your mind." Just like your hands develop calluses from repeated friction, your mind develops calluses from repeatedly doing things you don't want to do. Each time you get out of that warm bed, each time you head to the gym in the rain, each time you push through when everything says stop—you're building mental calluses that will serve you far beyond sports.

This is leadership development in its purest form. Leadership isn't about having a title or being the loudest voice. Leadership is about setting a standard through your actions and maintaining that standard when it's inconvenient. When you're a senior and the freshmen see you arriving early on a freezing morning, you're teaching them what excellence looks like. When you're a team captain and you never miss a workout despite terrible conditions, you're establishing the team's culture.

The 40% Rule

Navy SEALs have a concept they call the 40% rule. The idea is that when your mind is telling you you're done, you're actually only 40% depleted. You have 60% more to give. Now, this shouldn't be used to justify training through injury or ignoring genuine physical warning signs. But for mental fatigue, for motivation issues, for the voice saying "I don't feel like it"—the 40% rule is liberating.

You're capable of far more than you think in the moment of resistance. The workout that seems impossible from the warmth of your bed becomes just another training session once you actually start. The first five minutes are the hardest. After that, momentum takes over.

Steve Prefontaine, the legendary distance runner, captured this perfectly: "Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it." Pre wasn't talking about race day. He was talking about the daily choice to pursue excellence relentlessly, especially when conditions weren't perfect.

The Compound Effect of Consistency

Here's the mathematical reality of training when you don't want to: Small differences in effort, multiplied over time, create enormous gaps in results. If you train 95% of the time and your competitor trains 85% of the time, you're not 10% better—over a season, over a career, that 10% difference in consistency translates to exponentially superior results.

James Clear, author of "Atomic Habits," writes: "Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become." Skip the cold-morning workout, and you're voting for being the person who needs perfect conditions. Get up and train anyway, and you're voting for being the person who shows up regardless of circumstances.

This is how college athletes separate themselves and earn starting positions. This is how high school athletes earn scholarships. This is how good athletes become great ones. Not through talent alone, but through relentless, consistent execution of the fundamentals, especially when it's hardest.

What Great Coaches Know

The best coaches understand that they're not just building athletes—they're building adults who will face countless moments in life where the easy choice and the right choice diverge. John Wooden, the Wizard of Westwood who won ten NCAA basketball championships at UCLA, said: "When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur. Don't look for the quick, big improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That's the only way it happens—and when it happens, it lasts."

Those small, daily improvements? They require showing up. Every single day. In every condition. When you're motivated and when you're not.

Pat Summitt, who won eight NCAA championships as Tennessee's women's basketball coach, was even more direct: "You can't always be the most talented person in the room. But you can be the most competitive, the hardest worker. You can have the most heart." Heart isn't tested on sunny days when you're feeling great. Heart is tested at 5:30 AM in February when it's raining and your bed is warm.

The Leadership Ripple Effect

When you train when you don't want to, you're not just improving yourself—you're raising the standard for everyone around you. Other athletes notice. Younger players watch. Teammates feed off your energy and commitment. This is how team cultures are built, one uncomfortable decision at a time.

Leadership is contagious, but so is complacency. If the team's leaders make excuses about weather or early mornings or soreness, everyone else will too. If the team's leaders demonstrate that commitment is non-negotiable, that standard becomes the team's identity.

Former NFL linebacker Ray Lewis put it powerfully: "Effort is between you and you. It's nobody else's business. The guys who don't have effort, they're going to blame you, they're going to blame circumstances. But the guys who have effort, they're going to go places." The effort you give when nobody's watching, when conditions are terrible, when you're tired—that's the purest measure of who you are as an athlete and as a person.

Practical Strategies for the Hard Days

So how do you actually do it? How do you get yourself out of bed and into training when every instinct screams at you to stay comfortable?

Make the decision the night before. Lay out your workout clothes. Set multiple alarms. Eliminate the morning decision-making process. You're not deciding whether to train—you decided that yesterday. You're just executing the plan.

Start tiny. Tell yourself you'll just put on your workout clothes. Just drive to the gym. Just do the warmup. Usually, starting is the hardest part. Once you're in motion, continuing is much easier.

Connect to purpose. Why are you doing this? Not the surface reason—the deep reason. What does this sport mean to you? Who are you becoming through this process? On hard mornings, connect to that deeper purpose.

Use the five-second rule. When the alarm goes off, count backward from five, and move on "one." Don't give your brain time to negotiate. 5-4-3-2-1, feet on the floor.

Remember your future self. You will never, ever regret the workout you did. But you will always regret the workout you skipped. Train for the person you'll be three hours from now, looking back on this decision.

The Long View

In ten years, you probably won't remember the specific workout you did on a cold Tuesday morning in March. But you'll remember who you became by doing thousands of workouts like it. You'll remember that you were the kind of person who kept commitments to yourself. You'll remember that you chose growth over comfort, discipline over convenience, excellence over ease.

The athletes who make it to the highest levels of competition—and more importantly, who become leaders in whatever field they enter after sports—are the ones who learned to master themselves in these small, private moments. They learned that motivation is nice but discipline is non-negotiable. They learned that the work you do when nobody's watching determines what you accomplish when everyone is.

Your Legacy Starts Now

Right now, in this season of your athletic career, you're building something. Maybe you think you're just trying to make varsity or earn a scholarship or win a championship. And you are. But you're also building habits and identity and character that will serve you for the rest of your life.

The CEO who gets up early to prepare for a critical meeting learned that discipline from early-morning training sessions. The doctor who stays late to ensure a patient gets proper care learned that commitment from never cutting corners in practice. The teacher who invests extra time in struggling students learned that service mindset from being a team captain. The parent who shows up consistently for their kids learned that reliability from years of showing up for training.

Sports are a laboratory for life. And the most important experiment happens in those moments when continuing is hard and quitting would be easy. The hypothesis you're testing is simple: Am I the kind of person who does what I committed to doing, regardless of how I feel?

Every cold morning, every rainy afternoon, every exhausted evening—you're answering that question. You're proving to yourself what kind of person you are. You're building the foundation for everything you'll accomplish, in sports and beyond.

The Choice Is Yours

Tomorrow morning, the alarm will ring. The temperature might be brutal. The bed will be warm. And you'll have a choice. A small, seemingly insignificant choice that actually matters more than almost anything else you'll do that day.

Choose the person you want to become. Choose the leader your team needs. Choose the athlete who looks back with pride, not regret. Choose to train when you don't want to.

Because that's the secret ingredient to greatness. Not talent, not luck, not perfect conditions. Just the repeated choice to show up and do the work, especially when it's hard.

Especially when you don't want to.

That's where champions are made.