If you’re trying to reach the next level in your sport, take a moment to consider that you’re rushing to jump into a bigger pool with deeper water and more hidden obstacles.

But that shouldn’t be scary to you. There’s also more hidden treasure.

The athletes that benefit the most from training here are in transition. Athletes that thrive here are looking to make a shift.

That shift could be moving from a practice player to a starter. That shift could be making the team. That shift could be making an impact at the next level of play.

But there’s always a shift to make and a deadline to make it by. You need that pressure to endure the work.

What Writers Know That Athletes Don’t

Steven Pressfield wrote in Do The Work that the difference between the aspiring novelist and the pro is consistency: the pro sits down to write every day. They produce those 5 pages.

It doesn’t matter that they throw those pages out more often than they keep them. It doesn’t matter that their editor makes the pages bleed with revisions. It doesn’t matter that a critic inevitably discovers typos.

The pro writes every day.

There’s another difference about pros: they read and they steal. Pros seek out works that excite them, devour those works, then appropriate every element they can use. They test those ideas in their daily writing. The modify and squeeze and force and attempt those ideas.

Like a stand-up comedian trying jokes with the expectation that most will fall flat, the professional writer tries out concepts and delivery that might not work. But they produce those 5 pages every day and they fight to ship the finished work by deadline.

Moving up in sport requires turning pro (also a title among Pressfield’s works).

You Have To Turn Pro To Move Up

Again: if you want to go to the next level, you have to turn pro.

Turning pro is not about actually getting a contract, quitting your day job, and performing as a profession.

It’s about writing your 5 pages every day.

To turn pro means you have a vision for what your finished work is going to be. Who is the athlete you’re becoming? How will teammates talk about you? How will competitors describe you?

To turn pro means you commit to studying the best in your sport. How do they move? What decisions do they make consistently? What mistakes were they making at the end of last season that don’t exist now?

To turn pro means you are experimenting in every practice. What did you see in film that you can make a drill out of? What did you hear in an interview that you can try for a month? What feedback did you ask for from coach and teammates this week and how are you testing it?

To turn pro means you write your 5 pages every day. Did you practice with a specific purpose and narrow focus today? Did you make your warmup count? Did you prepare your clothes and your bottles and your food for tomorrow’s training?

You have to turn pro to shift your game.

Your Idea Of Hard Work Is Wrong

Even though I talk about minimalism every day, you probably don’t get it. When I say conditioning is overrated, you think I mean there’s no hard work. When I say you don’t need more mental toughness, you think I mean the gains come easy and the wins follow.

You’re wrong.

I advocate for discipline about recovery. Nearly a gallon of water a day, foam rolling and stretching before bed, and going to bed on time every time.

I advocate for excellence in drills. Posture, power, and full attention.

I advocate for attacking the weaknesses that limit you. Take the things you suck at and wrestle with them every day.

I advocate for studying game film like a food critic studies plating and timing and temperature. For working your technique until it’s so refined you can feel it without moving. For demanding critical feedback at every single practice.

Turning Pro Sucks – Do It Anyway

Doing the right things is unbelievably hard. Doing the hard things is unceasingly discouraging. Doing the same things every week is unthinkably boring.

But doing the boring, right, hard things every day, aware that the price now is worth the payoff later, is the mark of a pro.

If you’re out to make a shift in your game, you have to turn pro.

The water is dark and deep and dangerous.

Jump in.