What does it take to be a champion?
Yes, indeed, how do you rise above your peers and become a legend? How do you go from good to great? Well for starters, if you want to join the greatest, you will have to acquire their habits. One of them is to push yourself harder and longer than anybody else could possibly ask of you. It is not a question of never being satisfied with your efforts or seeing only what is left to do. Rather, it is a burning fire inside that helps you push more when others just surrender.
You have to know who you are and trust in whatever you are capable of. You also have to learn to continue without applause or encouragement from your peers. It can be a long road, solo traveled but the reward is beyond your wildest dreams. The silence you will encounter as you dig your motivation from within and not from the outside world will become your greatest companion and friend. The attention from outside becomes a distraction and therefore “superfluous”. Focus is key. Accolades of others no longer mean much. Pressure is no longer intimidating but rather a stimulus for growth and a great motivator to always do better.
Pressure only occurs when meaningful accomplishments are possible. A champion never competes with anyone else but himself/herself. Striving to become better becomes a psychological energy to fuel performance. Champions do not worry about what anybody else is doing. It does not matter to them. The hardest person to compete against is always themselves because no matter what they do, they will never be able to beat that person inside but they will make it better… every day…
So in five points, here are the secrets to becoming a champion :
- Work harder than anyone else. Harder than anyone expects or can even imagine. Jump full on head in. As Michael Jordan said : “heart is what separates good from great”.
- Know who you are. Don’t look for accolades, acknowledgement, thank yous or praise. Prefer the silence where you can fine tune your focus and motivation. You are doing what you do for yourself, no one else. Hold yourself to a standard of excellence. Not for recognition but because that is who you are and external praise is needless. Be great even when no one is watching.
- Look for pressure situations. Test yourself, enjoy the intensity, subject yourself to situations that challenge you if only for the thrill to see what you are made of. Have pressure ignite you. Force yourself to dig deep and find resources you have left dormant in yourself for some time now.
- See failure as an emotion. An emotion of weakness. In a champion’s mind, there is no failure. If at first they do not succeed, they use their experience to strengthen their resolve to succeed. They don’t seat there and let the failure eat them up inside. Everyone is going to fail at something and you will probably fail at more things that you will succeed at. To a champion, each failure is a learnt lesson. One you can now use to get to where you want to be. As Michael Jordan famously declared : “I have never lost a game, I just ran out of time.”
- Only compete against yourself. Your greatest competition is the person you are capable of being. Your greater self is more competition than anyone else could ever be. You are competing with what you are capable of and what you set your mind to.
You see, most people will forget lots of details about you but they will not forget what you have accomplished. Michael Jordan who I have mentioned earlier was not statistically a great basket ball player. He ranked 9th in field goals made, 6th in field goals attempts, 18th in total points, he wasn’t a great rebounder, and not number one in any major NBA statistics. Except, he missed more shots than any other player in basket ball’s history. Yet he is a 6th time champion, 5 times NBA most valuable player and is called by the NBA itself the greatest basket ball player of all time. How? Well, I just wrote the secret formula above. I will give it to you again as a recap :
- Work harder than anybody else,
- Look for pressure situations and never see failure as final.
- Only compete against yourself, your “better, more capable” self.
Do these three simple steps and one day, they might call YOU a legend!
That’s the challenge… Are you ready to take it on? Since we are still in the “resolution period”, why don’t you give it a try for the next thirty days? Let me know in your comments how this is fueling your inner fire and helping you achieve your goals faster:-)
