What is a "Champion" (continued)

The Question What Makes A Champion? Is Fascinating To Explore

Is it the pursuit of an ideal situation, a vision, a dream that excludes all distractions, the ability to overcome, to endure, to sacrifice, to stay focused? Is mental stamina as crucial or more crucial than natural attributes, skills and physical ability and do champions emerge in fields other than sport? Must champions be winners, set records that others must measure themselves by, or is it enough to be considered a champion by being outstanding in any chosen field of endeavour?
        There is no doubt in my mind that not everyone can be a champion in the universally accepted sense of the word. Society tends to confine the accolade of champion to only the most distinguished sports achievers, giving minimal acknowledgement to the broader scope of championship. It is easy to recognise physical achievement, championship of the mind is far more elusive.

Now even with the presence of all the necessary elements, would a champion basketballer become a champion cricketer or would a champion golfer become a champion  tennis player? Although all of these sports demand well-developed ball skills, they are not easily interchangeable at championship level because they require such specific and focused development. This can also be true of intellectual championship.

I believe that the human brain is hard wired from birth to accommadate human frailty as well as strength and our inherited family gene profiles that creates individual potential. However, what happens from birth to maturity to enable potential to develop to its optimum is greatly influenced by environment nurture.

Themes that are reinforced with regards to champions;

• The essence of championship is having the determination to be the best we can possibly be. This takes commitment, effort, sacrifice and single-mindedness
• A champion mindset is one that embraces a 'can do' attitude even when tackling the unknown or the previously unachievable or unchallenged
• A champion acknowledges and accepts that 'If it is to be, then it is up to me'

 For us to either develop a championship culture in its broader sense or the essence of championship in ourselves it requires us to provide opportunity, appropriate education and training, in an ecouraging environment together with a healthy dose of nuture to enable ourselves and young to develop the confidence and self esteem necessary for a champion mindset - or to become a 'champion'

Few individuals achieve championship status without a support network of committed people

In an ideal world we would all embrace these elements, and realise they are not beyond the realm of possiblity for the majority of us to tap into. Both physical and intellectual championship require nurture and discipline, commitment, dedication and expert coaching. It will do us some good if we remove our willingness to dismiss or ridicule the vision and aspirations of others while offering no better thoughts, actions or solutions. Also the attachment we have to the belief that much virtue lies in being ordinary. What could possibly make being ordinary attractive?
      Is it the handy comfort zone we hide in and use as a shield, when we are not prepared to be challenged or to challenge ourselves? Is it a product of laziness or lack of self-esteem? Is it fear of not being accepted by others, the fear of risking failure or ridicule? The reality is we continue to live in society where people are so obsessed with fear and failure that we never take risks and push boundaries of all aspects of our lives be it at work, sport, in our relationships and we all fall back into our comfort zone, and cloud our fears and doubts with what we percieve are things to be important in our lives. I have learnt the being uncomfortable means your heading in the right direction, as soon as you become comfortable it means your not doing enough, not setting enough goals or being challenged, not taking enough risks because your fear of failure. This will only lead to dissapointment in aspects of your life as being comfortable is standing still in life, and if we stand still people will only walk past us and we get left behind. Remember fear can be a more powerful motivator than recognition. At the same time we should also recognise that it is human to seek and enjoy recognition. Recogniton is a powerful incentive and motivator, even for champions, perhaps especially for champions.

We all need to mature our attitude towards championship and excellence in the broader sense, beyond sport, and recognise that high achievers, whatever their excellence, expand the playing field and create opportunities for others. Wanting to build platforms for success is a very desirable mindset as even the smallest achievement can reach the first platform.
     Life could ideally be likened to a golf game, where we constantly play aginst our own handicap in a companionable social environment, versus say the solitude environment of a distance swimmer or marathon runner. Golf stands above the rest because it provides frequent sociable pauses after each shot and though we most often play in pairs or fours, we compete as individuals playing against your own handicap. Does this sound familiar in life? We move through our existence, having opportunities and challenges put infront of us, we sometimes have the benefit of outside influences to help with this but ultimately it comes down to what we do as an individual, and if we allow our fears and doubts to enable that hold of feeling we a somewhat restricted mentally and physically by our own personally-placed 'handicap' then we will will never move on to bigger and better challenges and rewards.

Of course championship has a broad defination, it has many things attached to its meaning. The next question that I for one am interested in is;

Is leadership a form of championship? Does effective leadership require a champion mindset? This is a subject itself which i will not attempt to explore here, except to say that preparation for sporting champions usually begins early in life as soon as natural abilities are recognised, whereas leaders often emerge later in life, drawing their strength, vision and motivation from experience, circumstance and events.
     While there are skills and attributes leaders and champions ofthen share, the primary focus of championship versus leadership is different, surely it has to be. Champions must focus on achieving their personal best to the exclusion of others whereas leaders must embody values that can be shared by others. Leaders must be capable of thinking collectively while acting individually and in the interests of the group. Leaders are recognised for their personal qualities and their ability to influence the performance of others.
      Both 'champions' and 'leaders' are achievers. Both are inspirational, capable of inspiring others to greatness

CLARITY to ACHIEVE

We all know the importance of goals. But how to think about our goals no one really knows. The most important thing you can know is:

Dont think of your goals, think from your goals.

What that means is, rather than thinking of your future dream home, think from your dream home. Imagine yourself actually living in that dream home, as if you were already there. What do you see? How does this make you feel this dream home? What are you saying to yourself about this home? Actually experience living there.

Thats the difference between simply thinking of your goal and thinking from it.

Does it work? In the book, Golf My Way, by Jack Nicklaus he revealed he used this technique to become one of the greatest golfers of all time. Before each shot, he created a mental movie of the entire golf shot in his head.

"I never hit a shot, even in practice, without having a very sharp, in-focus picture of it in my head. It's like a colour movie. first I "see" the ball where I want it to finish, nice and white sittiing up high on the bright green grass. Then the scene quickly changes and I "see" the ball going there: its path, trajectory, and shape, even its behaviour on landing. Then there's a sort of fade-out, and the next scene shows me making the kind of swing that will turn the previous images into reality."

Another great example was during the 1984 Olympics an American gymnast Mary Lou Retton stood at the end of the mat preparing for her final vault. The stakes couldn't be higher. She had to get a perfect score. A 10/10, or lose it all. Lose the dream, the gold, team pride, everything. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, then got into position, ran and nailed a perfect 10 off the horse mount to clinch the gold medal for herself and team USA. When asked by reporters afterwards what she was thinking when she closed her eyes before her run, she told them she saw herself doing every motion precisely, flawlessly, and achieving a perfect score.

There are times in life when everything IS on the line. It's either 100% or nothing. TRYing and striving doesn't get you anywhere, only achieving does. That's why it's critical to visualise your goals clearly.

One word you should remove from your vocabulary is the word TRY.  When you TRY to reach a goal, or a higher level of success in any thing in life then you are already capturing a thought in your mind already that you believe that you are below this line that he wish to achieve. Like anything, you must believe you can reach your goal but must never believe you dont deserve it or only capable of TRYing for it. You must believe and act like reaching your goal has already happened and that you deserve it and thats where you should be.

For example

If I was a 65% mark student at school, and I said to myself I want to TRY for 80% then there would be no doubt that I will remain a 65% mark student no matter how much work I put in because my belief is already that all I am only a 65% mark student. You can never better you belief. However if I decide I am a 80% student doing only 65% work and believe I should be a 80% student as this is a realistic goal I want to achieve, then I will find I will begin to find and attract the resources needed to achieve this as this is where I believe i should be.

TRY = FAILURE

Goal setting also has a process, its a principle and this is the reason it doesn't fail because principles can't fail...

-First you must Capture a thought, a goal you want to achieve (it must be realistic and attainable)

-You must then Believe it, if you dont believe it, you will accept you can't achieve it or not accept the success of your goal.

-Too believe it, you need to write it down, read it out loud to yourself, self-confess it

-SEE it, picture it already in your mind, what this goal makes you feel like, the colours, the smell, the taste

-And most importantly.....ACT like its already so, or happened! begin to act like you have achieved it already.

Your mind controls everything. This method of vivid visualising, will change your self-image to conform to these new images in your mind and make them become reality......

Being "CONGRUENT"

CONGRUENT -  to come together, agreeing, corresponding, harmonious

Sunlight focused through a magnifying glass can start a fire. But the conditions must be "just right." If the magnifying glass is held too high above the paper, the rays are diffused and dont generate enough heat to make fire.
    When you heat water to 212°, it begins to boil. If the temperature only reaches 211°, the water wont boil.
   An airplane has to reach a certain ground speed before it lifts off into the sky. Any speed less than this will not produce flight - only a crash at the end of the runway
   A satellite must reach "escape velocity" to break free of earth's gravitational pull. Then it falls into an effortless orbit where the breath of a baby is enough to propel it. But if the spacecraft doesnt reach escape velocity, it tumbles back down to earth.
   Some people expend enormous amounts of energy trying to become successful. They seem to do almost everything right e.g set goals, disciplined etc. they go through all the right motions. Still, success seems somehow to elude them. Yet others appear to go through the same motions and are literally awash in abundance of success. What is the difference?
     To manifest abundance ( read my manisfestation blog post http://tiny.cc/tcbat to understand the importance of it), you need to achieve congruence - the condition where all parts of you are in alignment, to come together, correspond and be harmonious with each other. There are 3 important key parts you need to align!

The first is DESIRE: you have got to want it
The second is BELIEF: You've got to believe that you can be successful, and have a continued abundance of success
The third is SELF-ACCEPTANCE: You have got to believe your deserve to be successful, to your very core.

If one of these is out of alignment, your energy is diffused, ineffective. e.g You may want to become wealthy or a performer and even if you feel you deserve it and have the burning desire to make it a reality, but after several unsuccesful attempts, you form the belief that your're just not cut out for it. two out of three isn't enough. You're not congruent.

You're only firing on two engines, and it takes three to reach escape velocity. You end up falling back to earth. To produce enough heat, to reach boiling point, to attain the right ground speed, to achieve escape velocity, you need to be congruent.  EVERY part of you must "buy in" your heart, your mind and your spirit. It has to be all systems go otherwise you will always end up falling back down to earth.

Remember being congruent is to align your heart, mind and spirit or without sounding so spiritually spoken is to align these important elements DESIRE, BELIEF, SELF- ACCEPTANCE.

"Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I shall have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it, even if I may not have it at the beginning".

Begin to process this information deep down inside yourself, then succeeding will become a habit and not a rare occurance of achievement in your life, its not wrong or selfish to be successful every second, every minute of every day you live. People who believe it is are usually the people who dont realise or in some cases do, that the are moving backwards if not standing still in life. Be better than this...

Introduction

Millionaire Climb - Transforming your Life

Imagine this:

You just receive a phone call, from the estate of a long lost relative. You have just inherited a millions pounds/dollars in cash...but of course there is a catch. This money is in a safety deposit box in a Swiss bank. The key to this box is in a gold container at the summit of Mount McKinley http://bit.ly/1HMi0 in Alaska (20,335 feet), the tallest mountain in North America.

The instructions are obviously very clear - you must climb the mountain (no helicopters) and retrieve the key yourself. If you do this within 12 months the money is yours. If not, you lose the money forever.

Now let that sink in for a minute people. Would you do it? Could you do it?

Mount McKinley is not an impossible climb. Thousands of climbers have made it to the summit. But of course like any process that's going to be successful in life it requires some serious planning, preparation, and training.

-You'll still need mentors who will guide you along your path
-You'll need to follow a training regimen 
-You'll need to be disciplined enough to follow through

If you feel that things in your life are too difficult, or you don't deserve better or feeling worthy of wealth then you need to remember this, right it down and put this on your wall...

"If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always got"

If you think about how life works in the process of cycles e.g Life - Death - Life, then the same would apply to your thoughts and attitudes. For example, what type of person you are attracts the same type of people back. How you treat people will inevitably always be the way your treated back. Mistrust people and they will mistrust you whether you know it or not, on the other hand be honest and have integrity with people and you will receive the same back.

 Now lets apply that to thinking positive and positive things will happen to you, think and act like a millionaire, walk and talk like a millionaire then you will only attract things around you to aid with the process of this cycle of becoming a millionaire, we are all creators of our own destiny's as everything you see in life was created by the power of thought. The chair you sit on, the bed you sleep in, the computer you are reading this from all started from a thought in someones mind.

                         

                      ....Never underestimate the power of your thoughts....

                           "As a man believes in his heart, so he is"