What is it that makes some athletes succeed at everything they do while others that work just as hard fail to reach their goals? What is it that separates the champions from the rest of the athletes in their sport? Success leaves clues, anyone who is successful in life does certain things that help them win over and over again. If you find someone who has already achieved your goals and model them, you’ll notice what they do to succeed and you can do the same things and get similar results.
They Have a Positive & Optimistic Attitude
Attitude is the lens through which we see the world, people with an optimistic attitude tend to see things for what they could be, while people with a pessimistic attitude often see things worse than they really are. Your attitude can affect how far you go and how much you accomplish. While a positive attitude doesn’t always equal a good performance, a negative attitude almost always equals a poor performance. You can’t outperform your self-image, if you think you can’t succeed, you’re right. Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.
Optimistic athletes work harder than pessimistic athletes, they’re more deeply engaged in their work, because they have more positive expectations, they do more work and refuse to quit in order to create a successful outcome. Optimistic athletes bounce back quicker from setbacks and injuries, they perform better in high pressure situations and are less likely to panic and choke than pessimistic athletes.
They Have a Compelling Vision
Every champion has a vision and dreams of victory, without a compelling vision you can only go so far, determination and pushing yourself requires willpower which is essential as an athlete, but it willpower only gets you so far, during the tough times and the hard days you’ll need a compelling vision that pulls you, that compels you to persevere and helps you to stay strong on your path towards your goals.
Some athletes overcome all of the odds as an underdog and do the impossible, because they had a dream, because they had an incredible vision. Without a dream, without a vision there is no end goal, you don’t know where you are going which means you don’t know where you will end up. Once a champion sets their eyes on a goal, their resolve is unshakeable. They pursue it with relentless desire, ruthless aggression and savage tenacity. You must know where you want to go and have a crystal-clear image of your future.
“If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favourable.” Seneca
They Are Highly Motivated
Motivation comes when you not only decide what you want, but also take immediate action. Action is momentum and takes you beyond decision, action is power. It’s not a matter of ‘can you?’ it’s a matter of ‘will you?’ Mostly, it is the ability to take action. Having a vision is useless if you fail to take massive action and refuse to do the work. If you don’t to take action then it won’t matter how much talent or money you have, you won’t succeed. A champion consistently takes huge action towards their gaols and continues to learn along the way. Those who have the discipline to take action and do what is necessary will dominate the playing field with success.
They Set & Achieve High & Realistic Goals
Settings goals is the first step to turning the impossible into possible. Champions are goal orientated and have a clear vision of where they want to be. They do everything in their power to turn their vision into a reality and the first step towards doing so is goal setting. Goals help to keep you on target and provide further motivation, achieving past goals also increases self-confidence and allows you to measure your performance over time and see how far you’ve come.
Choose your goals thoughtfully, what do you want to achieve in the next year? Your daily, weekly and monthly goals should reflect that and help you get there. What kind of progress would you need to make on a monthly basis to reach your overall goal? Write that down and give yourself a target. Your weekly and daily goals should also help you to achieve your monthly goals, these day to day habits snowball and make an enormous difference added up over time, making them extremely important to master.
Self-Talk
There are very few high level athletes that don’t practice some form of positive self-talk. Self-talk is the conversation that goes on in your head and what you tell yourself can have a significant impact on your self-confidence, motivation and performance. How we talk to ourselves can greatly affect how we think, feel and perform. When athletes use positive self-talk and visualisation effectively, their fear begins to melt away and is instead replaced with courage.
Self-talk can help produce significant improvements in performance, whether instructional self-talk or motivational. Both beginner and experienced athletes can benefit from practicing self-talk, in fact there are few successful high-level athletes that don’t practice some kind of positive self-talk.
Visualisation
Countless successful athletes practice some at least some kind of mental rehearsal and imagery, the value of which cannot be understated.
Many studies demonstrate the effectiveness of visualisation, practicing mental imagery gives athletes an edge over those who don’t.
Imagining optimal performance is achieved by running through a performance using your mind’s eye, a mental rehearsal or replay which takes practice to master just like any physical skill. Champions recognise the law of ‘win in your mind first,’ and that visualisation helps develop mental toughness, helps us achieve more of our goals and is an essential routine skill. You can create high definition videos in your mind’s eye of exactly what you want to achieve, you can visualise various different scenarios or focus on a specific skill that you’re trying to develop.
Anxiety Management
Great athletes know how to manage their anxiety and perform well under pressure, anxiety management is a vital aspect of competition and peak performance, to ensure that the athlete lives up to their capabilities.
One of the most important things you’ll need to develop as an athlete is the ability to remain calm and perform well under pressure, even in the most chaotic of circumstances. A champion is unflappable under pressure, they retain the ability to make good decisions, think clearly and attack the task in front of them with confidence, enthusiasm and tenacity. With deep rhythmic breathing, they are able to control the symptoms of pressure and remain process focused, they maintain situational awareness so that they can make good decisions in the heat of the moment.
Work Ethic
Champions don’t have to be told to get to work, they don’t waiver from their commitment, they don’t lose sight of their goal. When it’s time to do the work they work, when it’s time to perform they perform. Champions stop at nothing to get the result and achieve their goals. In sports, a champion is often measured by victories, medals, trophies and belts. In day to day life being a champion is a state of mind that gives you the strength to achieve your goals, remain calm under pressure and overcome adversity. A champion is so incredibly hungry to create their vision, that the work becomes irrelevant.
Confidence
Sport psychology has shown that the more confident an athlete is, the more likely they are to perform well. Self-confidence is perhaps the most influential mental trait that impacts performance, both positively and negatively.
If you have a strong sense of self belief grounded in reality and backed up by evidence, you have a stronger chance of performing well. Self-confidence is strongly based on evidence, arrogance however is based mostly on fantasy.
Maintain a White Belt Mentality, Always Stay a Student
Great athletes try to be a lifelong learner, they make sure that they are continuously striving to improve and developing both their mental and physical game. Embrace the attitude of a student, a champion never stops learning and always has an area or skill that they can improve no matter how good they are. A champion is forever a student and always maintains the eagerness to learn that a white belt has on their first day of training Even a master of their craft can improve some aspect of their game, there is always an opportunity to improve, even if you are the best in the world at what you do. medium.com
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