Getting into the competitive program is exciting. Staying in it on the hard weeks is the actual achievement.

Selection is one day and mostly tests what you had already built. The real test starts afterwards, during the weeks when it is not fun, when everyone around you is good and the work does not let up. That is where people quietly drop out, long after the part anybody congratulated them for. Staying is far less exciting and much harder.

Plan for the bad weeks before they arrive: who you will talk to, what the minimum version of a week looks like, how you will sleep. Ask somebody a year ahead of you what the worst stretch was. Knowing it is coming makes it ordinary.