This life is a marathon, not a sprint. Most of us don’t go to work for 20 minutes a day, run as fast as we can, and then rest until the next race. We go to work early in the morning, run as fast as we can for 8, 10, 12 hours a day, then come home and run hard again with personal obligations and sometimes more work, before getting some sleep and doing it all over again.

That’s why I’m such a fanatic about doing work you love. But even if you love it, that kind of schedule is deeply draining. Not an athlete in the world could sustain that schedule without rest. Most athletes have off-seasons.