Inside A Champion’s Mind

How many times have you heard a true champion speak with doubt? How many times have you heard a boxer say, “It will be a tough fight, we will just have to wait until Saturday and see how it all works out”? Never, because doubt will knock you out before you even begin.

The athletes that are remembered are always those that performed memorably during times of pressure. I say memorably because they could be remembered for choking or rising to the occasion. Anyone who has played competitive sports knows that there is a different feeling during a play-off game, but as with all things in life, that by itself is not a bad thing, it is all in the way you handle it.

People are disturbed not by things but by the view they take of them– Epictetus 200AD

If you let self-doubt enter your mind, anxiety is sure to grow. Once you start to doubt whether you are capable of winning you’re on your way to disaster, because the mind can only hold one thought at a time. You are either thinking of winning, and visualizing what winning will be like, or you are worrying about what happens if you don’t win. You can only hold one picture at a time. Sure some athletes waver back and forth, but at any given time you can only be holding one thought.

What the mind sees, feels, and thinks, it works towards. The mind needs to be given direction and then it works towards making that given destination a reality. The mind is constantly working towards results, the trouble is what directions are we giving the mind. When you learn how to control your mind, greatness is achievable. Learning how to think like a winner is the first step towards better personal motivation.

To Become a champion, you must first look and act like a champion. — Muhammad Ali

Some people say you cannot control what comes into your mind. I believe with the proper training you can. Regardless of whether or not you can or cannot control what enters your mind, you can definitely control how long you hold any thought that does enter your mind. If a seagull decides to have a bowel movement while flying overhead, you cannot exactly control that but you sure the heck can control how quickly you clean yourself off.

It is the same with your mind. When a negative thought enters, clean it out with a flood of positive images. Focus on what you want, not on what you don’t want. Focus on winning, not on not losing. Begin to daydream, make this daydream the ideal outcome. Not what you will settle for, but what would be perfect.

There are many courses and books on motivation tips to help you with this.

It’s not what you are that holds you back, it’s what you think you are not. — Denis Waitley

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Also check out The Habit Guide

We are in the driver’s seat and we have to get past a few issues to move on. Fear holds us back, not the “other guy.” Fear is a habit and if we can get past the fear we can move far beyond where ever we are now.

Case in point, our new (US) Pesident, Mr. Obama. All politics aside, if the stories are true about his very humble beginnings (what, Pols don’t exaggerate, just a bit?) you have a guy starting from pretty much zero and making it to the top of the pecking order.

That’s some major heavy-duty accomplishment.

He got there because he put himself in the right place. He put aside any fears, worked his *** off, made the right connections, made his own luck, and now he’s got the top job.

I really enjoyed this post, which really goes into what holds us back:

You have great potential inside of you. I have great potential inside of me, too. The thought of realizing this potential can be paralyzing and it can be frightening. There have been many times when my fear has held me back and kept me from experiencing the happiness or success I wanted.

Fear can keep us stuck in a place where we believe we are not good enough. Fear can keep us from realizing our dreams and it can keep us from creating the life we want.

Fear can also hold us back.

When I was a boy I loved to play baseball. My family lived in a rural setting which did not provide Little League or youth baseball opportunities. Instead, I would play catch with my father or pretend I was playing in a big league game complete with line-up cards I would fill out for both teams (I always batted third and played first base for the winning team) and a uniform I got from a Sears catalog.

At age 14, we moved to a more suburban setting. There was finally a chance for me to play real baseball with real players. I was horrified…

What’s Holding You Back?