Hot, smart and happy but WHY?

A reflection on purpose, energy, and staying aligned when motivation fades

Abstract

High performance doesn’t eliminate doubt. Even with discipline, routines, and clear goals, there are moments when the question “why?” becomes heavy—and energy fades.

This article is a personal reflection on learning to live with that question without being consumed by it. Not by searching for a perfect answer, but by turning the why from a vicious loop into a virtuous one. Through discipline, spirituality, movement, sleep, connection, and a conscious reduction of craving, I explore what truly sustains long-term performance, clarity, and inner balance.

Because peak performance isn’t about constant motivation. It’s about learning how to stay aligned when motivation disappears.

Introduction

Those who know me well, or who have worked with me, know this about me: I try to stay positive. I work every day to protect my energy as much as I can.

In fact, I even wrote an article about it here on The C-Athlete—about how important energy is, and the strategies I use to keep it as high as possible.

That said, I don’t always have positive energy. There are days when I simply don’t have it. And there are periods—sometimes longer ones—when everything feels heavy.

One of the main reasons is that I start asking why.

Why do I have to put in all this effort?

Why do I have to work?

Why do I have to grow?

Why?

The rational answer is simple: because you have three children, because you want them to be well, because you want to live well yourself, because you want to enjoy the journey. These are things we all know very well.

And yet, there are periods—call them mild depression if you like—when you still ask yourself: “Yes, but… why?”

And then again: “Why?”

This article is about that why.

Not about giving a definitive answer—but about stepping out of the vicious circle and, at least, trying to turn it into a virtuous one.

Discussion

Some people don’t look for a “why”

Let’s start here: I know many people who don’t question why very much. Maybe I was like that too when I was younger—actually, for sure when I was a kid. Back then, the why was easy to find.

You go to school because you have to.

You work because that’s what adults do.

You build a career because that’s the path.

Then you start your career and you ask yourself why you have to put in so much effort, why you need to grow, why you should get married, build stability, find your place in the world.

But once you’ve achieved your first results, your first successes—and a few years have gone by—the why comes back stronger. You ask yourself why all this effort is needed, and where you’re actually heading.

Yes, everyone tells you to “enjoy the journey.” You read it, you understand it. But sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it’s exhausting. And that why keeps following you around.

So you start looking for your why.

You realize it’s not the same for everyone. You need to understand your own ikigai.

I’ve written about this before, and I’ve figured mine out: I like making people happier, better, more confident in themselves.

The problem is that, from time to time, you lose your way—because not everything you do is aligned with that purpose, or because the things you’re doing feel very small while the goal feels very far away.

Goals help—until you reach them

So what do you do?

Do you stare at the elephant and feel overwhelmed, or do you slice it into manageable pieces?

You focus on a smaller goal that points in the direction of the bigger one.

You set a goal for your work, for the year ahead. Or, as with training, you sign up for a race—just to give yourself a reason to silence that why that often shows up in the morning, right when it’s time to train.

Yes, you know training is good for you.

You know it keeps you healthy, sharp, long-lived.

You know it improves your brain.

You know all of that.

And yet, day by day, you don’t always feel like doing it. Some mornings you think: “What difference does one day more or less really make?”

That’s when goals matter.

You set a goal—maybe a race. As we often say for non-professionals, “the race is a celebration.” It’s not the real objective. Finishing it, placing well, hitting a great time—those aren’t the point. The point is that it gave you a reason to show up every day. That’s its why.

Goals help a lot.

But then something strange happens.

You reach that goal. That small-but-big goal. You were ambitious. It felt almost impossible—and you did it.

And suddenly it feels… ordinary.

You struggle to celebrate it. And you should celebrate it—because you’ve brought home another grain of sand—but instead, you slide back into the why.

Yes, you did something meaningful. But why, really? What did it actually give you?

And you fall back into that low cycle—until you set another goal. Then you realign. And so it goes.

Discipline and spirituality are the key

Over time, I’ve understood two things:

1. To live well, you need discipline—and therefore rationality.

2. You also need spirituality.

You must take care of your inner self. Otherwise, discipline alone isn’t enough.

Let’s start with discipline. Structuring your day and your week, building solid routines, helps enormously. It pulls your attention away from the endless why and realigns you with your goals.

If you follow the plan, you’ll get there. You feel calmer. You unplug. Not exactly on autopilot—but you stop negotiating with yourself about whether it’s worth it. You just do it.

But discipline alone isn’t enough to truly enjoy the journey.

You need to live your routines consciously—enjoying them. Enjoying each workout. Smiling through your days. Realizing how small some work problems actually are. Finding joy in what you do.

That’s where spirituality comes in.

Spirituality is built through practice: meditation, reflection, silence, time in nature. Sport helps—but to find real inner peace, you need space. Large spaces.

Humans reconnect with their inner self when they are surrounded by something bigger than themselves.

It may sound primitive—I don’t know—but it works. It really works.

I use it.

Enjoying what you love is real growth

Of course, you also have to choose a path you enjoy. You need goals that lead you toward a life you actually like.

Honestly, it makes me sad to see people stuck in roles they hate—living for the weekend, chasing money as their only goal.

I know that sometimes life puts people in difficult situations, and for many that’s the only option. But for many others, it’s a choice—a choice driven by inertia and fear of leaving the vicious circle.

Doing what you love is fundamental.

If you’re doing something you truly hate, get out—at any cost. Even at the cost of losing money. Leave your comfort zone and move toward what you enjoy. It makes an enormous difference.

But stop the craving

If there’s one thing that sometimes pushes me into darker periods—mild depression, moments when the why loses its meaning—it’s fear around money.

The fear of not having enough.

The fear of not being able to provide.

The fear that resources won’t be sufficient for the goals I’ve set.

When that happens, I start projecting forward, doing calculations—and I realize it will never be enough for the big ambitions I have. That’s when I freeze.

To break out of this, you need to step out of craving—and here, Buddhism helps a lot.

Craving is the constant need for more, driven by the fear that what you have isn’t enough. And it’s not only about money. Sometimes it’s about moments. You’re happy—but you can’t enjoy it because you’re afraid it will end.

Craving consumes you. It empties you. In the end, it leaves you depressed and powerless.

The antidote is simplicity. Learning to enjoy what you already have. Taking pleasure in saving, in doing more with less, instead of always chasing the next step.

This doesn’t mean giving up ambition. It means learning to appreciate what you have more deeply—objects, moments, relationships.

Sleep is essential. Movement and connection do the rest.

Over more than twenty years of dealing with craving, I’ve learned a few things.

The first is sleep.

If you sleep well, your positive energy increases. I’ve written about this already—go read that article.

From there, everything becomes easier.

Then comes movement. A healthy mind in a healthy body. Movement changes your chemistry. It lifts you out of mental loops. It reduces the need for unhealthy escapes—food, alcohol, habits that drain your energy.

And finally, there’s one last element that’s decisive: connection.

You need to cultivate relationships with people who inspire you, who give you energy and perspective. Sometimes a single YouTube video is enough—but nothing beats real time with the right people.

That’s why, in this first article of the year, my advice is simple:

Go through your contacts. Identify who gives you positive energy—and spend time with them. Avoid those who drain it.

Maybe this is the best way to truly enjoy your why.

Conclusions

The question “why” never really goes away. And maybe it shouldn’t.

What changes, over time, is not the question itself but our relationship with it. When we try to answer it once and for all, it becomes heavy. When we let it dominate our thoughts, it drains our energy. But when we learn to live alongside it—without obsessing over it—it can quietly guide us.

I’ve learned that long-term balance doesn’t come from motivation alone. It comes from discipline that removes daily friction, from spirituality that reconnects us to something larger than ourselves, and from simple, repeatable practices: sleep well, move every day, spend time with the right people, and reduce craving instead of feeding it.

Goals still matter—but only as temporary anchors, not as permanent sources of meaning. When one goal is reached, it’s natural to feel empty again. That emptiness isn’t failure; it’s a signal to realign, to reset, to choose the next direction consciously.

For the C-Athlete, growth isn’t about pushing harder forever. It’s about learning when to push, when to simplify, and when to enjoy what already exists. Performance and peace are not opposites. They coexist—when we stop chasing the why and start living with it.

That, for me, is where sustainable performance truly begins.