LIFESTYLE vs. PERFORMANCE

PHOTO CREDIT: Zach Beeker

I think one of the best outcomes of this blog is that it allows me to put a lot of my thoughts and opinions out there for people to read and form their own opinions and thoughts based on what I wrote, and when they do this, it provides an opportunity for us to discuss them and learn from one another. For instance, I had a talk yesterday with our strength coach, Dave, about my post about Nick. He told me that a common misconception that people have about Nick is that he comes in and just does whatever he’s told to do. Now, I’m not saying that Nick doesn’t do what he’s instructed to do. In fact, he’s never really told to do anything…if that makes sense. That’s what Dave talked to me about and used the phrase, “Lifestyle athlete versus Performance athlete.” I’ll do my best to paraphrase exactly what he said. A Lifestyle athlete is someone who, wherever he goes, asks himself, “How can I change my surroundings in order to best suit me and help me improve?” Compare this to a Performance athlete who asks themselves, “How can I use everything here at my disposal to suit me and help me improve?” The difference comes in the way that a Lifestyle athlete looks to change his/her surroundings to better suit them while a Performance athlete will look at what they already have around them and exhaust every available resource to accomplish the same goal. This is where it all ties in to what Dave was saying to me about Nick. Nick is a Performance athlete for example. That’s why I say that Nick doesn’t do what he’s told because he never has to be told to do something. A performance athlete such as that will take the initiative to schedule their own workouts, lifts, film sessions, etc. They will take advantage of every opportunity to improve themselves with whatever it is they have around them. I think there’s a lot of Lifestyle athletes in the world…especially in the NBA where so often individual achievement is celebrated and more often than not players view their current team/situation as a stepping stone to where they’d like to be some day. This approach may seem like the most effective way to get to where you want to be but I think that taking the Performance approach will have the most positive effect in the long run.