"It will take great desire, determination, dedication, plus discipline of the mind; and the body must be adapting to these heavier loads. Sacrifices will be required as well as patience for the progress. It means quality effort and time must be spent to achieve the goal. To succeed, you must have faith in your ability to carry your training and training plan to success. Progress will come in increments so you must keep hammering away with your goal always in sight. Your focus on your goal should be so great that you even dream it in your sleep. Only when you come to the point of believing in your ability to accomplish it will this goal be met." - Tommy Kono
I think that covers it.
For me, "sacrifices will be required as well as patience for progress" is an important highlight. Many of us will say we are willing to do anything to achieve a goal but what we don't say is what we are willing to sacrifice. To achieve anything worthwhile you will have to leave some things behind. That may be people, time, or money for example. Define what you are willing to sacrifice as you are setting your goals. If all your friends are going to party, are you willing to stay home and go to bed early?
Patience for progress. You won't achieve your goals immediately and you will have to stick it out through tough periods and may even doubt if it is worth it. You see a lot of people set goals only to bail on them after a month because they didn't get close to where they imagined in their mind or at the first sign of a set back they lose focus and change goal.
Also, "Your focus on your goal should be so great that you even dream it in your sleep". I don't believe in balance. I think it is bullshit. If you are chasing a goal and you are truly, 100% committed to achieving it, it will consume your life. People don't reach greatness being balanced. They are obsessed with what they are doing/trying to achieve. They can't help but think about it and talk about it because they love what they are doing and it is always on their mind.
For those of you who don't know who Tommy Kono is, he was basically the Michael Jordan of weightlifting. Here is a bit on his career from Wikipedia "Kono was a gold medalist at both the 1952 Summer Olympics and 1956 Summer Olympics, and a silver medalist at the 1960 Summer Olympics under coach Bob Hoffman. Kono won the World Weightlifting Championships six consecutive times from 1953 to 1959 and was a three-time Pan American Games champion; in 1955, 1959, and 1963.[8] A knee injury prevented him from qualifying for the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and the following year he retired from the sport.[4] He set a total of 26 world records and 7 Olympic records.[9][10]
Kono was also a successful bodybuilder, winning the Fédération Internationale Haltérophile et Culturiste Mr. Universe titles in 1954, 1955, 1957 and 1961.[11] After his retirement he turned to coaching, taking on the Mexican 1968 Summer Olympics and West German 1972 Summer Olympics weightlifting teams before becoming head coach of the United States' Olympic weightlifting team at the 1976 Summer Olympics.[4][9]
During his weightlifting career in the 1960s, he developed a pair of bands to support knees during training. These eventually extended to the elbows and became standard weightlifting equipment.[9] While he was coaching in Germany during the 1970s, his correspondence with Adidas led to the firm's development of low cut weightlifting shoes.[12][13]"