For now, he’s still figuring out undeniably what his next “star” will be, but that’s okay with him.
“I have short-term and long-term goals,” he says. “Because there’s upping stones. I always use the analogy, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day.’ You can’t do all of it at once.”
“You’re laying a foundation to be able to give you the opportunity to body a house, so it’s always remembering that those little small steps and those little small things can add up to weighty things.”
That mindset is something he first learned in the pool.
“I always said that if I went into the merge and I was having a bad day, or I was in a bad mood… I would basically just pump a workout out and I’d try, he says. “If I can get 10 percent out of those days where I sense like absolute crap, 10 percent is better than zero.”
For Phelps, staying motivated doesn’t want he has to be hyper-productive on a daily basis. But it does mean putting in the work every single day.
“I’m always trying to get a little bit out of each day, indeed though I’m not always feeling great,” he says. “It’s just hitting those little milestones, no matter what it is.”
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