MY LIFE, PART 46: How motivation works

I didn’t want to leave anything to chance, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let such a small insignificant detail as school grades thwart my chances of going to the European championship. I wouldn’t be the first nor the last athlete whose sports life was marred by study results. “Look, listen, you’re falling behind, you’re failing your classes, you’re not going anywhere.” If I heard something like that from the headmaster’s mouth, I’d hit the roof.

Luckily I didn’t, because my studies at a sports-oriented grammar school were also listed in my private mental folder labelled “Motivation”.

I wasn’t able to attend all classes, but I conscientiously copied my classmates’ notes and homework assignments so that I could work on them and re-read them, which was enough for me to get decent grades and avoid all the trouble bad grades would entail.

Motivation, what an interesting concept. If you looked in a dictionary, you’d find that motivation is a reason or reasons to act or behave in a particular way, desire or will to do something, enthusiasm. It energises your body and mind, makes you strive for your goals. And I had so much motivation, and sometimes it was just tiny details. For example, I would cut out photos from sports magazines, pictures of my heroes with happy smiles on their faces, holding trophies high above their heads, or kissing the trophy, crying happy tears. I wanted to feel the same emotions and I knew what I needed to do.

If my friends knew what I was thinking back then, they’d think I was crazy and shake their heads in disbelief. But I wanted to go far, step by step until I reached the very top. These thoughts might have been childish and naïve, but they pushed me forward.

One of them was: “I must excel at school, so that my teachers allow me to go play football any chance I get.”

„Petr Čech? No problem, we trust you. Go and play, and then come back after the last match.”

And so at sixteen years of age, I went to the European championship in Moravia, not knowing it would change my life.

I came back richer than when I left. Blšany, a top-flight club at the time, offered me a contract.

I was just sorry we finished fourth overall, because it meant narrowly missing out on the World Cup that was taking place in New Zealand that November.