When I was in high school, my water polo coach instilled in me a couple basic principles. The first one was already pretty obvious to me: Hard Work, Pays Off. This was my team’s cheer at the end of every practice. But the second motto, one that was exclaimed far less often, was No Pressure, No Diamonds.
I implore you to take this motto to heart.
“There's no such thing as a painless lesson, they just don't exist. Sacrifices are necessary. You can't gain anything without losing something first. Although if you can endure that pain and walk away from it, you'll find that you now have a heart strong enough to overcome any obstacle. A heart made Full Metal.”
In this quote, the author expresses that in order to find glory and truth, you must first sacrifice a part of yourself. You have to give something in order to receive. You have to study to get good grades. You have to lift to gain muscles. Nothing is free in this world. No Pressure, No Diamonds.
Last fall, I was still a naïve college student. I had no idea how to study or what kind of massive effort I would have to be put in to accomplish my dreams. But my coach’s motto, No Pressure, No Diamonds, burned deep inside me. I wanted the pressure so I pilled it on until I thought I would burst. Everybody’s limit is different, but I found mine at taking Chem 12A, Physics 7B, being involved in research, helping teach a Chem 4A lab, and working on improving my social skills. I hit my limit in the middle of the semester; I was burnt out.
Burn out is a good sign. It means that you broke through your limit. When you lose the motivation to do any work or are too apathetic to even cook for yourself, you have broken the cycle and improved yourself. You have taken on all of the pressure and are growing all of the diamonds. Wallowing in self pity and frustration is fine, but just remember that life will carry on with you living it or not. So jump back on that horse and keep chasing your dreams.
Its important to have dreams. If there is no goal, when the going gets tough, the tough don’t know where they are going. Make sure you know where to go. I found that it helps to set several different kinds of goals. Short term goals help you feel good when you’re down. Medium goals are good because you might actually accomplish something good and feel good about it. Long term goals are those that take a while to get there but feel so good when you finally do. In order to increase pressure, you need to know its source.
Each semester I have spent at Cal, I’ve taken on more and more. Each semester I reach my limit and break myself. But I always bounce back greater than I was before. Without failure,
success is meaningless. If you don’t embarrass yourself, how will you know what you’re doing wrong? Self improvement involves much failure and plenty of embarrassment. Without the fear of failure or the threat of disappointing yourself, it is easy to become complacent with life and fall into a stagnant lull. But if you remember that No Pressure means No Diamonds, I’m sure that this will not happen to you.
I’m sure some of you who read this will not know where it is you want to be going. That’s perfectly acceptable. Pick any destination. Nobody really knows what they are doing here. But one thing that is certain and that you will know, is No Pressure, No Diamonds. Even if you don’t get to where you thought you were going, if you put on the pressure, you’ll find the diamonds.
I challenge you to put on the pressure. See how much you can handle. Do all of the things you want to do. Because you’re only going to be 20 once in your life and you should want to know just where you stand with yourself. You should want to know how many diamonds you can make right now. Because you’ll only get better from here.
No Pressure, No Diamonds.