A Daily Journal of June: Owning the Flaws. June 5th
Where Motivation Ends: The body adapts. It's the mind that quits first.
Friday, June 5th, 5:51 PM
Where motivation ends
Today is Friday, and I’ve officially finished a long, grueling week of wrestling practices—Monday through Friday, with double sessions two days this week. Balancing that workload with the challenges of motherhood and trying to take care of myself personally has taken a heavy toll. That exhaustion is exactly the inspiration for today's title: Where Motivation Ends.
I feel that one of my greatest qualities is my ability to get fully invested in a plan. I’m open, motivated, and ready to explore what it takes to succeed. Inside my disciplined bubble, I thrive. I control the controllables, and even when obstacles arise outside my reach, I have backup plans—Plan B, Plan C—ready to go. But I've noticed a recurring pattern when the weekend hits. When I hang up my wrestling shoes and step back into my regular life as Precious—the wife and the mother—especially when we travel or have weekend plans, all that rigid structure goes out the window.
It happens after hard practice weeks, too. You give it your absolute all, and there’s this feeling of a rite of passage: I gave everything, I’m growing, I’m willing to be the best version of myself. But once you hit day five, like today, the motivation evaporates. Your "will" suddenly transforms into a voice telling you to just let yourself rest. It starts looking for evidence to justify stopping—telling you you’re overtraining, that your body hurts, that the workload is simply too much. And the easiest excuse lately? The fact that Abrams and I have been battling a cold and congestion for almost two weeks. Waking up with him constantly, getting maybe four to five hours of broken sleep... those valid struggles suddenly become the comfiest blanket to wrap up in and hide under. They become the easiest path to take in that moment.
I felt this exactly while wrestling my teammate, Belle. I knew I needed to push hard, but then she hit me with a hard collar tie. In that exact moment, every fiber of my being wanted to curl up into a little ball. I wanted to tell myself, Okay, this is enough. I need to go lay down. This is my body telling me to put it in cruise control. It’s a constant battle in my head right now. It's so tempting to blame that urge to quit on the general discomfort of the past year—knowing my kid is about to turn one on the 22nd. But the truth is, I have a choice: show up, or make an excuse.
The quick excuse is easy because no one else really knows. Maybe my coach would catch on—he’s a smart man—but I could mask it. I could say, "Oh, I'm just overworked, I need a day off." But the real truth? It wasn’t my body. Just like I realized yesterday, my body was actually fine. The more I warm up, the better it feels. The body inherently knows how to adapt to physical stress. What I’m realizing is that you have to actively fight your mind to adapt. The body adapts far better and faster than the mind does. The mind literally has to be taught. So, not only do I have to be a mother to my son, but I apparently have to be a mother to my own brain, too, and walk it through these things like a toddler. Isn't that ironic?
It reminds me of those moments when Abrams is playing with his stackable cups. He’ll try to fit them into each other, and the second he fails, he screams, lashes out, and throws a complete fit. In his mind, he feels all that intense frustration because he thinks it's about not being able to stack the cups. But as his mom, I know the real reason: he neglected his nap, he's exhausted, and his patience is paper-thin. The cups aren't the actual problem—he just needs to step back, relax, and breathe. I have to parent my own mind the exact same way when it throws a tantrum on the mat. And the only way to teach it is by making a hard choice in the moment, over and over, until it becomes a hardcore principle.
So, against Belle, I made the choice to engage. I knew if I went in and made head contact, she was going to hit a certain move. But I stepped in anyway. One decision led to another, and the next thing I knew, we were in the last five minutes of live wrestling. And you know what? My body and mind were good. I was in it. I was feeling it. I still had to grunt through positions just to force my body to execute, but that outside voice telling me to quit was gone. The physical pain faded, and things didn't feel nearly as insufferable as I thought they would. The friction is a lie. The body will adapt when forced; you just have to survive those first ten or fifteen minutes.
Think about all the legendary stories of athletes pushing through devastating injuries to achieve victory. I’ve witnessed this resilience firsthand. During my finals match at The US Open, my opponent severely injured her leg—which later turned out to be a torn ACL—yet she kept going and get the win. Kurt Angle famously won an Olympic gold medal with a broken neck. It just proves one thing: the human body's ability to adapt and overcome is extraordinary. Becomes more clear to me especially after expereincing labor.
It’s only the first five days of June, and I already feel like I’ve grown so much. Are there still a ton of things I can fix? Absolutely. But right now, I am proud of the growth I’ve made in just these five days. I know that if I keep leaning into this, five days turns into 20 days, 20 turns into 30, and these massive mental hurdles will eventually become minimal.
So, if you’re feeling like your motivation has run out, please just make the decision to push forward, moment by moment. I’m the queen of needing this reminder: Give yourself grace, because no one is going to take care of you but you. But you absolutely must learn the difference between taking care of yourself and hindering yourself.