As an athlete, you'll never ...

As an athlete, you'll never feel bad about losing, but what you will feel bad about is underperforming. That's a real thing and it happens a lot when we don't live up to our potential. And that keeps you up at night and can give you years and years of regret. It could be a relationship, it could be a homework assignment, or it could be an athletic competition. If you don't go out and perform to the best of your ability, it will really bother you.
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 Chael Sonnen

Quotes from the same author

As soon as you hear a fighter say, "I'm working smarter, not harder," you always want to bet against that guy. That mentality does not work. You have to work hard. And sometimes that means you are going to work too hard. You are going to decline. You are going to tear down your body and your muscle fibers. You are going to get sick.
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 Chael Sonnen
I went through a change in my life and my career where I finally understood how to train and prepare. I finally understood what it meant, and I've had so many fantasies about being able to go back and be 16 again. And redo parts of my high school career. Redo all of my college career. Redo my attempt to make an Olympic team.
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 Chael Sonnen
I go to practice every day. I really don't have a training camp. In the boxing world, and that's where that came from, almost every time a guy would get out of the ring and he wouldn't break a sweat again until he went to his next training camp. He would do absolutely nothing until he started training for the next fight.
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 Chael Sonnen
Say what you want before the fight but when it's done, you accept the result.
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 Chael Sonnen
I go to practice each and every day, but my intensity is not the same. If I get tired, I'll go sit down. If I want some water, I'll go drink it. When I'm in training camp, I don't. I've got to push through being tired. I've got to push through being uncomfortable. That's really it. It's largely a mentality. You kind of flip that switch and turn your intensity up. Your heart rate goes up. Your reps go up. And you start to get in the frame of mind.
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 Chael Sonnen