One reason why the Steph Currys are few and far between

The oft-repeated mantra is that any goal is achievable provided the hard work necessary to achieve it is undertaken.

However laudable such sentiment is, it's simply not true in athletics.

The truth is that each person can come close to maximizing his or her individual potential (being human prevents reaching 100%) given the appropriate time and effort, and that's it.

I'm not sure what to call it -- our DNA and physical wiring -- which also produces limits.

I was born never to play college basketball. Granted, I could have gotten closer than I achieved but, besides execution and relentlessness being requirements absent in me, I faced physical limitations that could not be overridden. These also include the synapses firing off throughout our bodies.

This New York Daily News article covers a portion of this, offering a study that determined certain athletes are quicker in their decisionmaking while under pressure alongside the sense that, for all, such can be bettered with practice.

Because there are other factors such as hand-eye coordination, spatial relations aptitude, quick twitch muscling and more that also come into play. Granted, these can be improved but there is a ceiling in everyone.

Nothing I could undertake would get me close to the level of basketball talents Steph Curry displays.

However, the bottom line remains that to be your best requires extracting the most you can from your mind and body alongside a healthy dose of realism.