How to Think Like A Champion
// June 29th, 2009 // No Comments » // Leadership, Personal Development, Self Improvement
How to Think Like A Champion
Losers say they might and winners say they will. It’s as simple as that. Of course, attitude has a lot to do with winning and life success. Any Olympic athlete knows that at their level of proficiency, the game is played with their level of attitude and mental confidence. Arnold Schwarzenegger knew the power of a winning mindset when he was competing as an underdog for the 1980 Mr. Olympia title. He had come out of retirement to win the Mr. Olympia title and he was hungry to achieve it. Schwarzenegger had not been training all year like the other competitors were because he was, at that point, an upcoming Hollywood actor and spending most of his time out shooting movies. However, Schwarzenegger was a seasoned veteran of the IFBB and knew that mental focus was the key towards making a winning performance. In the prep room behind the stage, where all the competitors would prime their bodies for competition, Schwarzenegger would crack jokes to the other competitors in order to throw off their mental focus. Schwarzenegger said it was his ability to psych out the other competitors, even the reigning Mr. Olympia at the time, Frank Zane, that secured him the 1980 Mr. Olympia title.
Unlike Arnold, you don’t have to be a pro athlete or be on the Forbes 400 list to develop the mental attitude of a champion. I’ve listed some very practical and proven methods for you to start your path towards developing the attitude of a champion.
Be Outcome Oriented
Nothing comes easy in life. If things were easy, then everyone’s life would be blissful. If we want the things that we want in life, then we have to know what we must give up in order to get it. That means we have to get our hands dirty doing the grunt work before we can enjoy the rewards. If we focus solely on the grunt work, we won’t be as motivated as the ultimate reward of completing that job. For example, paying bills causes us pain, but having the bills paid gives us pleasure. Exercise causes us pain (or at least discomfort), but having exercised causes us pleasure. Winners in life are outcome oriented. Instead of focusing on the grunt work which they don’t like, they see the end result of having done that grunt work. It’s that ability which motivates great achievers do accomplish so much more.
Reflect on Your Daily Achievements
As a former gymnast, I would often get frustrated and upset when my progress wasn’t what I wanted it to be by the end of the workout, but my coach Mircea Badulescu, who was the former head coach for the Romanian Olympic team, made sure that I reflected on what exactly my daily achievements were at the end of each workout. By reflecting on what I had achieved during that day, I realized that in fact, I was making progress and that I was moving forward towards my goal and this became a powerful technique that I use even today.
At the end of each day, on a piece of paper, your journal, or computer, write down at least five things that you accomplished that day. Review that list and be proud of your achievements. Each morning when you wake up, coach yourself towards achieving small steps that you can write down on your list at the end of each day.
Pick a Role-Model and Get Inspired
When I was an aspiring gymnast, I had posters, videos and autographs from several of my favorite Olympians. They were heroes to me and it served to give me something to shoot for in my training and my purpose. All champions do this when they first start out because remember that champions are never born—they are made. They all had role-models that they aspired to be like and the role-models that they chose showed the particular skills or traits that they wanted in themselves. Many of us, however, choose poor role-models or no role-models at all as a result, they aspire to be nothing at all. It goes to show that if you want to be the best at something, then you have to model yourself after the best out there. I suggest that you read inspirational books, magazines, articles, or watch documentaries or interviews with great people. Go and rent inspiring videos that are about human perseverance and stories of success. I personally devour biographies and articles about self-made millionaires—the people who had nothing, but attained financial abundance for themselves through hard work and creativity. Role-models also serve the purpose of giving you a blueprint to follow. Remember that the best of the best out there are really no different than you or I, but we can learn what they did to rise above and beyond the rest and then follow in their footsteps down the road that they have already carved.
Build Yourself a Winning Team
No professional athlete is ever a one-person accomplishment. Behind every great professional athlete is the multitude of supporting personnel that keeps that athlete in prime shape with the objective of winning. A lot of times, we don’t see that. We only see, for example, two boxers in the ring. While the game ultimately comes down to that particular athlete, it’s their infrastructure that plays a bigger part of their winning or losing a fight. That team includes coaches, specialty trainers, therapists, and an army of other people that we rarely see when they compete. So in fact professional athletes can be seen as something like a corporation and like a corporation, they would fail if not for the people who help support them. In order for you to achieve your goals, you too will need a winning team on your side. Be careful of the relationships that you get involved in and make sure that the relationships that you do get involved in are synergistic in nature, meaning that you both benefit from it. Often, my clients come to me with parasitic relationships where one person (the parasite) feeds off the other person, whether it be physically, financially and/or emotionally, until that person is just an empty husk of the person they once were. Don’t enter parasitic relationships, just as a professional athlete would not hire an incompetent trainer to be by his side. Your ability to be a winner is directly linked to your ability to choose a winning team.
Make Your Daily Tasks “Idiot Proof”
Mozart was said to be able to create pristine and perfect pieces of music that were note-perfect on his first attempt. Well, God created Mozart and then he must have been falling asleep when he created me because I rarely get anything perfect the first time. I’m not the type of person who can simply work on a project that has multiple steps to it because I’ll procrastinate on it until the very end and I’ll slap something together the night before it’s due, which if I’m lucky, will slightly resemble a finished project. For me to get things done, I need to “stupefy” my tasks and what I mean by that is that I need my tasks to be so no-brainer that I don’t have to think much to get them done. I need concrete and simple “next actions” that I can put myself on auto-run and not have to worry about. Procrastination and unrealized goals happen when we know what we want, but we don’t know how to get there. I take a goal that has many steps to it and I break it down as much as I can. I break that goal down until each step can’t be broken down any further. I understood awhile back that if I had to think about how to do something, I would rarely do it. By having very simple actions on my daily task list, it removes the brainwork from the equation and all I have to do is simply DO IT.
Develop a “No Retreat, No Surrender” Attitude
One of my favorite quotes is from one of my earlier role-models, Peter Vidmar, who won the gold medal at the 1984 Olympics in gymnastics. When asked by a reporter how he was able to finally secure a gold medal for the Americans, he replied, “Winning the Olympic gold was simple. I just trained when I felt like training and I trained when I didn’t.” Champions are not the superheroes that we make them out to be. They are in fact regular people just like you and me. The difference between champions and losers is the fact that when the two groups are faced with adversity and pain, it’s the losers who turn and run away and it’s the winners who push forward. You see, winners have a “No retreat, no surrender” mentality. They burn the bridge behind them and there is no going back. They put 100% of their energy on seeing a goal towards completion, regardless of the pain they might have to endure to get there.
When you decide to put 100% of your focus on a goal, make sure you set in stone and tell yourself that there is simply no other way to get out of it other than by seeing that goal to its completion. There are no if’s, and’s or but’s—no excuses at all, you just get it done regardless. Make it a habit to burn the bridges behind you when you set your goals so that you eliminate all your possible ways of retreating.
Celebrate Your Victories
Finally, champions go out and celebrate their victories and so should you. Celebrations are fun and not only that, they also serve to reset your mind so that you can start the whole process of winning over again. But true champions also know that celebration comes after they’ve won the game and not before the game has even started. So celebrate when you achieve your goals and share you achievement with your winning team that made it possible.
About the Author
Tristan Loo is the founder of the Self Improvement Association (SIA) and a leading authority on human potential and personal effectiveness. As a life coach, author and presenter, Tristan has inspired thousands of people all over the world with his passionate message of overcoming adversity and creating the ultimate life that they desire. His vision is a world where everyone is able to achieve their dreams in life. His life is dedicated towards facilitating that dream.
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