Let’s start by hearing a real life story of discipline and perseverance about Jerry Rice, a former NFL player.
“It’s a tough road to the top. Not many people ever reach the place where they are considered one of the best at their work. And even fewer are believed to be the best—ever.
Yet that’s what Jerry Rice has achieved. He is called the best person ever to play wide receiver in football. And he has got the records to prove it. People who know him well say he is a natural. Physically his God-given gifts are incredible, yet those alone have not made him great. The real key to his success has been his self-discipline.
He works and prepares—day in and day out—unlike anyone else in professional football. During practice in high school, Rice’s coach, Charles Davis, made his players sprint twenty times up and down a forty-yard hill. On a particularly hot and muggy Mississippi day, Rice was ready to give up after eleven trips. As he sneaked toward the locker room, he realized what he was doing.
“Don’t quit,” he told himself. “Because once you get into that mode of quitting, then you feel like it’s okay.”
He went back and finished his sprints, and he has never been a quitter since.” (John Maxwell, Leadership 101)