I a also agree with Andrew's approach. And i mean i agree 100% , i couldn't have written it better, or even that good, trying to express my own POV on this.
Just 2 quick notes : 1) it is a matter of personality too. This approach suits me perfectly but im a big time procrastinator. 2) In that approach, there will always be a lot of "what if?"s. Even when you achieve targets, you always wonder what u could reach if fully committed. You gotta be able to live with that.
i think i've written about this before on here but if so it was years ago, so: this is the reason i started down the dunking path in the first place 10+ years ago. got to the end of college realizing that i'd never really gone balls-out at a really difficult goal. i got a BA and went to the junior olympics and got a job, had friends, had had girlfriends, but basically by coasting on my privileges and whatever natural gifts i have. i'd never really committed to ultimate, so i wasn't that great at it. my family couldn't afford for me to really commit to fencing, so i topped out by going 1-4 and finishing ~160th out of ~200 at the JOs. i was a B or B+ student in high school because my work ethic was, shall we say, average. but i did some neat extracurriculars and crushed the SAT (a garbage test designed to reward people like me) so got into a good university.
one of my good friends in college was a straight-A student who worked relentlessly hard. she applied herself diligently to school and also got involved in some organizing stuff. at some point in college, comparing myself to her, i self-diagnosed as a coward. i started to understand not working hard is a defense mechanism: if i can do well enough at X or Y without pouring myself into it, well, i'm sure i could have aced it like those other people if i'd just worked harder. or if i do badly at it, then i could have done well enough if i'd tried. dunking was a goal that i knew i would have to work very hard and very doggedly at if i had any hope of reaching it. in other words, i'd have to fully commit. i suppose it helped that it had no extrinsic value.
in retrospect, i think "cowardice" is probably too harsh or too judgmental a word. and the fact of the matter is, if my parents could have paid for more coaching, i doubt i'd have reached the elite tier anyway. i'm just not that athletic. if i'd studied harder in high school or college, what benefit would have accrued to me that i didn't get from my B+ GPA? i might have become a marginal elite ultimate player, actually, because the pool is still relatively small and if you've got great skills you can overcome a lack of speed. but i'd never have been a star.
the thing is, i'm a basically happy person. part of me wishes i was more crazily committed to a particular goal, there's something romantic and amazing about people who just go for it 100%. but i'm just not. and i'm not sure i'd trade my general contentment for the drive to be exceptionally great at something.
point being, i'm learning to live with the "what ifs." playing guitar is a case in point: i'm a true beginner in my mid-30s, and wouldn't it be nice if i'd started 20 years ago? but i didn't, and it's okay. similar with running. wouldn't it be nice if i didn't have so many other interests, or if i were naturally faster, or if i weren't so injury prone, or if i were willing to sacrifice more to keep to a strict schedule? well, no (except the injury part), and in any case it's a moot point. i am who i am. the dunk journey did teach me to be more disciplined and more dogged, and it inspired in me the desire to be really fit. but it didn't fundamentally change my personality.
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